Training Articles

PRE ORDER

 1)    Plan your day

   a.    If you know you are going to be running around take snacks, pack a lunch or locate a healthy alternative. Grocery store subs are best option for sandwiches,

   b.    The more you can control your surroundings the better food choices you can make.

By using the term “speed”, this article will be associating “speed” with linear acceleration.  There are numerous ways to improve an individual’s ability to accelerate.  A well-balanced and well-planned performance program that incorporates the multiple facets of training (strength/power, flexibility/mobility, plyometrics, and recovery) should be used to improve this ability. 

Are you breathing correctly? How can you tell?

Breathing is often taken for granted, most people feel if air is coming into their body and they are able to expel it out everything is fine. This is true; however I am looking at how the breathing affects different muscles, mainly postural muscles of the neck, shoulders, chest and back.

Core stabilization or core training is the process of training the abdominal, low back and hip region. Mike Clark refers to this as the Lumbo Pelvic Hip Region, Pilates educators call this the center. In simple terms it is the area from the mid thigh to just below your chest. Multiple movements occur in this area and they can occur at the same time. In athletic activities the center is the primary generator of movement. The body works from the center out.

The importance of performance at the NFL Scouting Combine and at individual pro-days throughout the nation has brought to the forefront a more scientifically based regimen of performance training scenarios.   More and more college football athletes and their agents are seeking out institutions and performance coaches that will further improve their draft stock by elevating their ability to perform on a number of aspects.

What exactly is interval training and how can it be of use to me as an athlete or coach? By interval do you mean long extended breaks between workouts or something that I can come back to at a later time when I feel more motivated? Don’t we all wish it were that simple.

Medicine ball (MB) training is a great way to break up the monotony of dumbbells and barbells for all ages.  If used properly a good MB plyometric training protocol can develop an athlete’s core, strength, explosive movement, and nervous system; as well as used in injury rehabilitation.

The Overhead Squat is an exercise that has various uses within a training regimen.  Numerous muscle groups are required to fire and work in coordination while performing an Overhead Squat.  Whether it is from a testing aspect to one of performance, the Overhead Squat can identify and improve total body stabilization and strength.

The most often overlooked area of training is regeneration.  Regeneration is the body’s ability to recover from training sessions and allow athletes to train at optimal levels. Stress is placed on an athlete’s body with each workout or practice.

Ever wondered why some of the smaller pros, both on the LPGA and PGA tours, can crush the ball even with their small builds?  One reason is that they maximize their hip rotation in the golf swing and shift their weight correctly.

The ability of an athlete to carry out a deep squat successfully is considered to be one of the best markers of overall movement quality. No other single exercise or movement can offer as much information about how well an athlete may perform as the deep squat.

Whether you are willing to admit it or not, we have all been influenced at some point or another in our lives by something we understood to be true only to later find out that we were mislead or misinterpreted the information without actually looking beyond the surface.

There has been a lot written about the kinetic chain over the past few years.

I have seen many different definitions that try to explain the kinetic chain. All this has done for me is increase confusion.

Corrective exercises are exercises that are designed to correct poor body alignment.  Whether they are due to over-tight muscles regions, postural complications, reciprocal inhibition or synergistic dominance, there are exercises that can be done to correct the problem.

This exercise is also called a plank, however to me a true plank as by Yoga definition is the up position in a push-up. Since the majority of training exercises are derived from Yoga I like to keep with the historical perspectives.

In today’s athletic environment, a skilled athlete is perceived not only as one that is genetically gifted but as one who acquires skill through proper training techniques.

Picture this: Gliding along a slippery surface on a metal blade less than a ¼ inch in width while receiving or giving a body-to-body hit and all while trying to control a solid rubber disc with a long stick.  If you haven’t seen it or played it, this is Ice Hockey.  Ice Hockey is a distinctive sport that combines skill and physicality requiring a level of athleticism not matched by many other sports.

Plyometric by definition refers to exercises characterized by powerful muscular contractions in response to rapid, dynamic loading or stretching of the involved muscle.

In today’s day and age there is much more to preparing a player to play potentially at the highest level than just getting that individual onto the court and getting up a ridiculous amount of jumpers while working on ball handling.

Think about what you are doing right now. Sitting down, browsing through OPIPRO.com and thinking about going low in this afternoon’s norud of golf.

With the end of the college football season squarely in our sights, many of college football’s elite upperclassmen are looking ahead to their next challenge: preparing for the NFL Scouting Combine. In this feature, Steven Plisk, MS, Director of Excelsior Sports, a coaching and consulting service specializing in professional development and athlete preparation, provides an inside look at the nuts and bolts of this all-important job interview.

There I was lying under the warm Caribbean sun reading a few articles during my vacation. Crazy huh? The thing that I kept reading over and over and over was the words or phrase “Sport-Specific”.

This question has been involved in training programs for many years. There has always been a fear of stunting growth and development and creating injuries with a resistance-training program. It has been well documented that a well designed and properly supervised resistance training program is safer than most sports or recreational programs.

Who are you? 

My name is Brook Hamilton.  I am a 29 year old performance coach, born and raised in Harrisburg, PA.  Grew up loving to play and watch sports.

What is your current position?

I am the Director of Fitness for the PGA of America,

The ability to accelerate is one of the most important aspects in sport.  Acceleration can occur in multiple planes, but is most known for the linear aspect of the movement. 

Power, strength, and speed all play vital roles in sports performance. Equally important (but often not treated as such) is the appropriate care and maintenance of the body. I’m not referring to the rehabilitation of injuries or acceptable dietary intake but more about the daily wear and tear that training and competition place on an athlete’s body.

Sprinting is the rapid fire of the specific muscles involved, likewise, swinging a bat is the same rapid fire of certain muscles but on a rotational swing.

The Dumbbell (DB) Single Arm Snatch is a great power exercise that can teach effective force production while focusing on upper body and core stabilization.  The Single Arm Snatch is a derivative of the Snatch. 

Proper movement mechanics and quick reaction time are imperative to make a play in every sport.  Specifically, for baseball, the ability of the fielding player to react to the ball off the bat is key to making a defensive play.

Children are able to begin participating in sports and athletic competitions at a very young age.  Those who choose to participate are usually interested in improving their skill and ability for such activities.

One of the best, if not the best exercises to effectively teach power and explosiveness is the Power Clean.  The form used in the Power Clean directly translates to the form and power production of many athletics actions (i.e. Linear Acceleration, Jumping…).