Archive for the ‘Speed/Agility’ Category

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Interval Training

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

“I’m going to do cardio at the gym.” What the heck does that mean? For most individuals it means flopping yourself on the elliptical or treadmill for 30 minutes while you read your favorite gossip magazine or watch Oprah. It is not efficient and certainty not effective. You are not going to melt the fat off your body if do cardio at a low intensity for a long period of time – you’re just going to waste your time. Start incorporating interval training, which is efficient and effective. It is efficient because you can accomplish more work in less time. Try doing 10 hard sprints for 30 seconds with one minute of rest in between repetitions. You will only be working out for 15 minutes (5 minutes of high intensity exercise and 10 minutes of low intensity recovery. It is effective because you will burn more calories in those 15 minutes than in your 30 minutes of low/medium intensity cardio that you are currently doing. You can manipulate your interval training by changing a few different variables

  • The length of the interval – Run for 1 minute instead of 30 seconds
  • The intensity of the interval – Run at 85% of max heart rate instead of 75%
  • The number of intervals – Last week you did 8 intervals, this week do 9
  • The length of the rest period – Decrease the rest interval from 1 minute to 45 seconds

Interval training is even more important for competitive athletes that rely on quick sprints to be successful in their sport. If you are an athlete (except cross-country and long-distance track), you are wasting your time and hurting your performance if you are doing low/medium intensity cardio unless it is for a recovery workout. I will talk more about this during the next post.

Train Hard-Train Smart,

www.asap-pt.com

Posted in Program Design, Speed/Agility | 2 Comments »

Youth Training

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

I get the question from parents all the time “What age should my child begin training?” Usually they mean sports performance training with me. My answer is they have already begun sports performance (weight training, speed, and agility) training at a young age. Every youth team sport and many individual sports involve running, jumping, hitting, kicking, or throwing. If they are doing these activities, they already begun performance training. Here is the problem: parents are willing to invest money to have their kids practice with specialized coaches such as soccer goalkeeper specialists, basketball shooting coaches, pitching/hitting coaches, and many other specialized coaches. At a young age you teaching your child one skill, when they really need to train their overall athletic development. On the other hand, I teach young athletes a variety of skills that apply to virtually every sport. If the training is age appropriate and progressed systematically, there should be absolutely no reason for your child to not participate in a sports performance program. They will develop many skills such as improved coordination (footwork and foot speed) and body awareness (how to move in all three planes of motion effectively, how to change direction efficiently, improved flexibility, and relative strength). Every type of athlete, young and old needs to develop and refine these skills on a continuous basis or they will either A) never develop these skills or B) loss their ability to perform these skills correctly and efficiently. A and B will both lead to inquires in the long run.

Parents: If you invest your money into a specialized coach, you had better also invest your money into a quality sports performance coach who works on the develop of athletic ability otherwise you’ll be paying to have your child rehab from sports injuries in the future. ASAP Baseball Academy is taking the right approach and combining specialized training with athletic development training, check it out www.asapbaseballacademy.com. This is how the development of young athletes should take place.

Train Hard-Train Smart,

www.asap-pt.com

Posted in Flexibility, Injury Prevention, Speed/Agility, Strength Training | 1 Comment »

Parachute Training

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

VHS Baseball players training with speed parachutes.

Posted in ASAP Teams, Exercise Demonstrations, Speed/Agility | No Comments »

MLB Leader In Stolen Bases

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Willy Taveras of the Colorado Rockies lead the major leagues in stolen bases this year. This guy is quick, but let’s look at his form for a second to illustrate how perfect his running technique is.

His body is in a perfect acceleration position. You can draw a line from the top of his head down to the foot that is planting into the ground. With this straight and rigid body position, he is able to drive his foot into the ground with no wasted movement or energy. He has complete extension of his right leg at his knee and most importantly at his hip. The powerful muscles of hips and butt are working to produce this hip extension. Also, notice his leg drive (his left leg). He drives his knee up to the optimal height – any higher, he would bend at the waste losing his rigid body position, and any lower and he would lose power when driving his foot into the ground. His foot is in a dorsiflexed position (toe up) which loads the calf muscles and propels him even further when he drives that foot into the ground to push off. His arm action is also perfect; both arms are short and compact. He is driving his elbows back and this motion is taking place at the shoulders, which connects to the powerful core musculature. Finally, his head is looking straight forward, not down at the ground, which would cause his torso position to change and thus slow him down.

To all parents, coaches, and athletes who think perfect running technique is not that important look up how many stolen bases Willy Taveras has this year and then get back to me.

Train Hard-Train Smart

www.asap-pt.com

Posted in Exercise Demonstrations, Speed/Agility | No Comments »

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