Congratulations to the Valencia High Girls Tennis team for winning their eighth straight foothill league title. The team did a great job this past off-season training twice a week to prepare for their league title. Check out the article.
Great job!
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Check out this interesting article in the LA Times about different sources of milk – here it is.
The take home message is that each type of milk has its own pros and cons. It’s you job to do a little research and understand the differences between each type of milk. I personally chose to stay away from cows and soy milk. Instead, I tend to stick more with rice, almond, hemp, and whole grain milk (which was not mentioned in this article – but they have it at Trader Joes). Check out a previous post explaining the negative effects associated with pasteurized dairy in your diet.
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Congratulations to Valencia and Hart Girls Volleyball teams for beating cross-town rival West Ranch this week. Right now, Hart and Valencia are tied for first place in league and are set to match up against each other on Tuesday.
Check out Valencia’s victory last night.
Check out Hart’s victory from Tuesday night.
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Researchers at Appalachian State University looked into the possible relationship between maximal leg strength and sprint speed. Most strength coaches would assume that lower body strength training ( this study investigated back squats) would have a positive affect on sprinting speed. This study confirms this the relationship between maximal strength and speed. (It’s always great to see when science supports real world application)
This is important for youth athletes to understand as well. If you want to get faster there a few things to do on a regular basis:
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Researchers at the University of Idaho looked into the effects of doing two specific activities before performing maximal sprints. The two preconditioning activities they looked into were power cleans and whole-body vibration. (Check out this article on Vibration Plates if you are not fimilar with them – overpriced machines that don’t need to be included in an athletic setting if you ask me). The idea behind performing either of these two activities before sprinting is that they will heighten or excite the neuromuscular system which would positively effect your sprint time. With a relatively low sample size, the researchers found that neither of these techniques were beneficial for improving your sprint times. (Of course incorporating Power Cleans and other Olympic Lifts over an entire training period would be extrememly beneficial for improving your lower body and thus sprint time. However, doing a couple sets right before a sprint doesn’t help your performance). The best explanation they gave for these results was that the preconditioning activities were not specific enough to the actually activity (sprinting). Standing on a vibration plate or doing a couple sets of power cleans looks nothing like sprinting. The researchers suggested that doing a preconditioning activity such as “overspeed training” may be more beneficial for decreasing sprint times. “Overspeed training is where an athlete is towed behind another runner in an attempt to achieve sprint speeds greater than those obtained via regular sprinting.” This would obviously be much more specific than vibration training or Olympic Lifting.
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Talent is Overrated is must read for everyone. The main theme is that world-class performers are not born with genetic qualities that make them great. Instead, they become great because of the many years they spend practicing with focus and passion to improve every day. There are a few common themes with great performers:
Deliberate practice
Intrinsic motivation
Genetics, innate ability, and giftedness are overused terms by individuals trying to look for an explanation for individuals who excel in their particular field. Instead, let’s focus on qualities that make individuals great such as intrinsic motivation, hard work, focus, dedication, passion to improve everyday, and deliberate practice. These are the traits that make individuals world-class.
Train Hard-Train Smart
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