At 12pm Eastern today, sports performance expert Jeff Cavaliere is launching his brand new Teen Sports Nutrition Blueprint program.
In a nutshell, this resource takes everything a coach, parent or athlete needs to know about sports nutrition, hydration, calories, meal planning…even training supplements…
…and breaks it down into simple, every day language you and your athletes can understand and implement.
This 12pm release is important because Jeff is offering a private online seminar where he’ll answer all of your questions – but *only* for the first 100 people who order:
Teen Sports Nutrition Blueprint
The Teens Sports Nutrition Blueprint isn’t another sports nutrition book that you and your athletes won’t read…
…or understand.
Because those are a dime a dozen.
Instead of creating a laundry list of the features and benefits this resource contains, you’ll want to just see for yourself:
Teen Sports Nutrition Blueprint
Nutrition plays a crucial role in your athletes’ grades, mood and performance. If you’re not making it a fundamental part of their day to day routine, they simply aren’t
going to get the results they want. So get your hands on his program today and immediately make improvements to your athletes and their quality of life.
This product isn’t only designed for high school athletes, but people of all ages. I would use this with my college and pro athletes as well as personal training clients. Jeff has done a magnificent job putting this product together for all of us.
Regards,
Brijesh
P.S. Remember, the first 100 people who order when the
product becomes available at 12:00pm EST receive invitations
to Jeff’s private online seminar covering the answers to
your specific questions on any topic you choose.
So be sure to refresh your browser at 12:00pm and be one of
the first 100 people to claim their copy of this groundbreaking
new resource.
One. Two. Three. Q! Every session starts and ends with it. It has been ingrained into the culture of the Quinnipiac University’s athletics along with a demand for perfection, accountability, and the establishment of swagger. Teammates and coaches, alike, gather at the beginning and conclusion of each training session with one goal in mind: to get better. The team huddle serves not only as direction for that day’s training session, but also allows for the tone and environment to be set. With hands held high, the team breaks with the same intensity as in team competitions and with the same pride as wearing the Bobcat uniform. Beyond all the sets and reps, this is the one moment in the athlete’s strength and conditioning program that best exemplifies my internship experience with Brijesh Patel, the head strength and conditioning coach at Quinnipiac University.
The huddle signifies the atmosphere B has created in his short time at Quinnipiac University. It portrays the true meaning of team. The tight circle shows the necessary camaraderie and their dependence on one another to be successful. It mirrors the constant encouragement from B and teammates towards one another in every workout. Each training session is approached with a sense of urgency and constant communication among teammates. It can best be described as organized chaos. While B constructs the workouts, it is up to the athletes to create and control their own environments. It is their world. When on the court, ice, track or field, the athletes only have each other to rely upon. Their reliance and trust in one another begins here.
A championship mentality is established from the moment of your arrival. Everything is done with a purpose. It is always stressed to not just go through the motions and movements. The small details are emphasized and expected, but in the grand scheme of all that goes on at QU, the big picture is never lost. Sure, injury reduction and performance enhancement are the goals of any successful strength and conditioning program, but what separates the program B has implemented is its aspirations to make better individuals. When the athletes leave upon their graduation, success depends more on the growth of their character and approach towards life, not on their maxes in the bench press or their body fat percentage.
B truly leads by example from pushing himself out of his comfort zone in his own workouts to holding himself to exceptionally high standards. He sweats just as hard, if not harder than his athletes. B practices what he preaches from accountability to approaching all situations with the four “E’s” (excitement, enthusiasm, energy, and effort). He is always trying to better himself, whether physically or mentally. Therefore, he demands the same from every individual that surrounds him, from his athletes to assistant strength and conditioning coach to his interns.
After the huddle breaks, each player leaves the weight room knowing they’ve improved. They recognize this feeling of accomplishment by touching a sign that says “I got better today”. In this experience, I have grown not only as a strength and conditioning coach, but also as a person. Each day, I try to get better just like the athletes. Through drive, determination, and desire, I am building my confidence in order to establish my own swagger. The Quinnipiac culture is becoming ingrained within me. One. Two. Three. Hard Work!
“Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.”
Vince Lombardi
Two up and coming strength and conditioning coaches, and brothers, Eric and Ryan Johnson, are in the process of completing their undergraduate degrees in Exercise Science at Sacred Heart University. With experience playing and coaching football, the two brothers felt it was necessary to stay close to the sport through what they loved most; the grind of training. Matching a growing amount of knowledge with backgrounds in rehabilitation, injury prevention, nutrition, speed, agility, and strength training, Eric and Ryan Johnson created a way for players all of levels to become elite athletes. Contact us at info@sonsofstrength.com.
We’ve recently been posting more and more about the mental toughness side of training athletes and how to hold them more accountable. I truly believe that this is an often overlooked part of the training process.
You can have the most intricate set and rep scheme, great plan for training and have the optimal blend of structural balance within your programs. But in the grand scheme of things, if you can’t get your athletes to work hard in every thing they do and truly believe that the work that they put in is going to benefit them, then all of it goes for naught.
I think we all get too caught up in trying to find a new exercise or progression when we should really focus on how to get our athletes motivated to work harder. The mental aspect of training is so important and is rarely ever touched upon by strength and conditioning professionals. In athletics, the most talented teams don’t always win. It’s the teams that have the belief and confidence that they won’t lose. I believe that we, as strength and conditioning professionals, can help to promote these feelings and environment throughout our training…but we have to demand it each and every day.
Mental toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to:
1. Generally cope better than your opponents with the many demands (e.g., competition, training, lifestyle) that are placed on you as a performer.
2. Specifically, to be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, resilient and in control under pressure.
The key psychological characteristics associated with mentally tough athletes are:
a. Self-Belief/Confidence
b. Focus
c. Motivation
d. Composure/Handling Pressure
e. Resiliency
Mental toughness is often thought of as an elusive quality that only the elite possess, but many sport psychologists and coaches alike believe it can be taught.
For the majority of people, consistent and intense physical exertion is the most accessible and common way to build mental toughness. These people believe in themselves more because they are accomplishing difficult tasks and doing things that they didn’t think were possible. This builds confidence, a positive attitude and a belief that they can handle themselves in any situation that arises.
We as coaches have to create this environment that creates and promotes mental toughness – which is teaching our athletes how to do the right thing ALL THE TIME!
We will post more over the next couple months of how we can try to create the environment and get more out of our athletes and show you how you can help your athletes in another way.
Check out some of these past tips that will help to guide you:
6/04 – Success vs. Significance
10/04 -Working Harder
1/05 – Teammate vs. Friend
11/05 – Goal Setting
4/07 – More than Coaches
5/07 – Qualities of a General
8/07 – Quality of Effort
4/08 – Training Intensity
8/08 – What Athletes Mean to Us
12/09 – Missing Factor
1/10 – Missing Factor 2
Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning is proud to announce our 4th Annual Winter Seminar which will be held on Saturday January 30th, 2010. This has become a hugely popular, must attend seminar, not only for personal trainers and strength coaches in New England but across the country. As an added bonus you can spend the morning watching and potentially participating in our training programs.
*Participation in morning workouts will be based on space availability.
Sponsored by Perform Better and StrengthCoach.com
Speakers
Eric Cressey: Medicine Ball Meat and Potatoes
In this presentation, Eric will discuss how medicine ball training can be implemented with everyone from rotational sport athletes to general fitness populations. Specific attention will be devoted to screens to determine who is prepared to safely utilize a variety of medicine ball training drills, as well as where these drills should be incorporated in a comprehensive overall training plan. Eric will also highlight the corrective exercise benefits of medicine ball drills and how they can serve as a much-needed medium between absolute speed and absolute strength. Plan on learning loads of new exercises that you can apply immediately!
John Pallof RPT: Training the Shoulder – Mobility to Stability
John will be discussing functional anatomy, common pathology and injury relating to the shoulder. Training for healthy shoulders and the throwers’ shoulder will also be covered.
Brijesh Patel: It’s Not All About the Sets and Reps
All coaches, and trainers are always looking for a better way to improve their programs for their athletes and clients. They are looking for new and innovative exercises, set and rep schemes, new equipment that will help take their program to the next level. Find out how to make your program better with out gimmicks, or fancy equipment but with good old fashion hard work, discipline and accountability.
Michael Boyle: ACL Injury Prevention is Just Good Training
Based on the article he recently wrote for Strengthcoach.com, Mike will talk about the 5 steps necessary to reduce injuries for any athlete, any gender, and any sport.
Schedule
Date: January 30th, 2010
8:00am-11:30am: Observation/Learn By Doing
12:00pm-5:00pm: Seminar at McCall Middle School
Location
Observation:
Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning
225 East St
Winchester, MA 01890
Seminar:
McCall Middle School
458 Main Street
Winchester, MA 01890
Directions: Click here
Contact person – Bob Hanson or Adrienne Norris at 781-729-1333
Cost
$99 for Students
$149 (after January 19th)
In the first round of Alleviating Ailing Ankles, I discussed the function of the ankle joint and demonstrated a few exercises to help achieve additional range of motion in dorsiflexion. While on the surface it seemed to be a very extensive article, luckily for you and I alike, the foot and ankle are extremely complicated and thus true ankle health and “mobility” is a multifactorial issue, and often just training “dorsiflexion” is not sufficient.
In this article, I will discuss with you further the structure, function, and pathomechanics of the ankle in another critical motion to foot and ankle health—subtalar inversion and eversion—and also give you a few practical solutions for restoring mobility.
Why do we want eversion?
While dorsiflexion is often trumpeted as critically important for ankle health (and it is) we often forget the importance of the “red-headed step child” of movements, eversion. Like most things in the body, rarely does a joint move one way without there being other accessory joint movements. With regards to the ankle, pure dorsiflexion is nice, but in gait dorsiflexion occurs with eversion and also abduction, which the sum of the three create “pronation.”
Unless the joint is adequately mobile in all three planes of motion, we are doing our athletes a disservice as they will eventually seek and find mobility in places where they should not. Those familiar with the concept of joint by joint training can certainly appreciate this idea—our body is composed of relatively mobile joints connected via relatively stable segments.
Understanding the mechanics
As you will remember from AAA: part 1, pronation or supination at the subtalar joint can help the ankle achieve additional dorsiflexion or plantar flexion range of motion, respectively. But what exactly is the “subtalar joint”?
The subtalar joint is composed of three articulating facets—anterior, middle, posterior—between the talus and the calcaneus. The flat, calcaneal anterior and middle facets offer a gliding motion, whereas the posterior facet is saddle shaped, which permits triaxial movement. The joint is reinforced by a joint capsule surrounding the anterior and middle facets and a capsule surrounding the posterior facet. It seems that the collateral ligaments of the ankle play a role in the position of the subtalar joint, including the oft-injured anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL).
I didn’t necessarily start out wanting to own my own performance training business. I actually wanted to be a high school strength and conditioning coach, but seeing as that is unheard of in southeastern Connecticut I had to turn to the private sector. Although I am first and foremost a coach, I’ve always had a love for facility design and creating floor plans. I remember back when I was a student at UCONN in the early 90ʼs sitting in my biomechanics class drawing up my version of what I thought should be the new strength and conditioning facility for the Huskies. You see, back in 1991 there really were no facilities at the campus with the exception of the old football-only weight room and the new super-secret basketball facility hidden somewhere deep inside the new Gampel Pavilion. The rest of the athletes and commoners had to use “the cage” – a dark, dungy, stinky student weight room which maybe had one rack, some free weights and a bunch of Nautilus machines. After graduating and getting a job coaching and tutoring at my high school, I was back at it, drawing up plans for a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning facility for the school along with a field house, pool, etc, etc. I still have some of those drawings and am pretty proud of them even though half the strength facility was a circuit of selectorized Paramount machines including an abduction/adduction machine; I think I had a smith machine in there as well! Please forgive me, I was young!
First of all Happy New Year! We hope you all have a great year and are able to achieve all of your goals and have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010!.
This month’s tip of the month is a guest blog post from strength and conditioning coach, Sergio Merino. Sergio has been interning for me since August and has really grown as a young professional and really gets what it means to be a strength and conditioning coach. He is still learning about training methodologies and how to coach and get athletes to do what he wants, but really understands that the field is very broad and we have many responsibilities as coaches.
This was a second blog post that I really enjoyed and am sure that all of you will as well.
If you missed the first part check it out here.
-Brijesh
The Missing Factor in Strength and Conditioning Programs Part 2
Now that I’ve identified the missing factor, some of you out there may be wondering “How can I incorporate this into my program?” and this what part 2 is all about. Anyone can think of an idea but that idea is just that, an idea, until it can be applied.
Remember, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply” – Bruce Lee
We’ve got a great interview with Kaz Kazadi, Assistant AD for Baylor Athletic Performance. Coach Kazadi provides incredible advice and experience to all of us with this interview. Definitely a great read and insight into some different ways of thinking about coaching and life in general!
We’ve also got a much needed article by Joe Tofferi from University of Detroit-Mercy on dealing with sport coaches and administrators. I’m sure we’ve all run into this a few times and Joe provides some simple ways to keep your coaches (and bosses) happy when coaching your athletes throughout the year.
Product Description
About the Author
I read this very interesting blog post by Eric Cressey this morning and he provides some great facts on why parents shouldn’t be afraid of having their children start resistance training. I just said resistance training, not necessarily weight training – begin with bodyweight exercises, mastering technique before progressing to using external loads.