4-Way Lunge Series

Here is a great multi-direction drill to improve power, balance and coordination. The 4-way lunge builds strength in all 3 planes while the 4-way bound increases the athlete's ability to change direction effectively. This series would be great for athletes that play basketball, soccer, football, etc.

Comparing Technique

In our training, we use different tools to show change. One of these is Dartfish video analysis. Here is an example of two trials 6 weeks apart of the 3 cone drill and 10 yd dash.

Sprinting

In working with our athletes to develop speed, we are constantly working on these main points:
1) A good posture with forward lean
2) Staying low in the first 5-10 yds
3) Driving the arms back
4) Lifting the knee, toe, and ankle up
5) Pushing against the ground.
6) Make it look effortless.

Youtube is a great resource, if you know what you are looking for. Here is a great example of those points.



TK

Intrinsic Motivation

It looks like it is motivation month at U-District! I read a great book last week called Intrinsic Motivation at Work and it addressed the issue of inspiring people to be better. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside the self and is short lived. It leaves people working for a reward that can only be achieved at a later date and so they don’t fully appreciate the present. Extrinsic motivation only places value on the end and not the means to the end and so instead of living in the moment, they can’t wait for the workout to be over. The problem with this mindset is that the only time an athlete can get better is Now. Not tomorrow, not later, not next week. Athletes must learn to love every moment of the training session because at that time, that is all they have. To make sure that your athletes are fully engaged in the Now, they must be able to see the purpose of their workouts. When an athlete has a sense of purpose, they’re able to concentrate on what they’re doing because it is important to them. One way you can give you athletes purpose is by explaining to them why you selected their exercises and how they transfer over to success in their sport. If they see the reason behind every movement they make, they are more likely to move with passion and conviction. It will also make you a better coach because it will force you to put extra thought behind how you design the workout and why you are choosing specific exercises.

Keeping Things Fresh

To add to Nick's post last week, motivating athletes can be challenging, and part of this challenge includes keeping the workouts fresh and challenging and yet still sport specific and purposeful. Not only do the athlete's need to give 100% to truly benefit from the training, they must also buy into the philosophy and planning of the trainer.

A few methods we use at U-District to keep workouts fresh include:

- Making drills into competitions, and challenging our athletes to beat their own personal records as well as records set by other athletes that train at U-District.

- Format the workout as a circuit so that the athlete is constantly working, yet the exercises continuously change.

- Add a sport specific aspect to an exercise, for example doing sit-up headers for soccer, balance passes for basketball and volleyball, ladder drills with shooting for both basketball or soccer, etc.

Mixing things up in a workout, creating competition, and introducing little variations to certain exercises are a good way to keep athletes challenged and focused.

Motivating

As a coach working with athletes of all ages, skill levels, genders, and sports the one thing that I have found to be the most challenging is motivation. Motivating athletes can seem like a losing battle most of the time depending on the athlete, unless you are able to figure out what motivates them to compete in the first place. A great man once told me, “you can coach and teach them all you know but it won’t make a difference unless you can motivate them.” I took what he said and I looked back at some of my more memorable coaches and he was right to a great extent, the coaches that stood out the most were the ones that were able motivate not just individuals but entire teams. Motivated teams are usually winning teams and motivating coaches can influence their players on the field as well as in life.
-Nick C.

Love to run

I love to run but, it hasn't always been that way. After years of forcing myself to run because I knew it was great exercise, I have finally found the joy of running. What helped me love to run was making a game out of it, whether it be picking other runners to pass, or keeping a pace until the next phone pole, it made things more fun. Challenge your athlete's to be creative with their workouts, for example, the next time you send them out on a run see if they can blaze their own trail rather than following the road or track.

Nike SPARQ Training

U-District is proud to announce that we are an official Nike SPARQ Rating Facility. The SPARQ Rating system is a tool to measure a person’s overall athleticism and stands for Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction & Quickness. There are 5 sport-specific SPARQ Ratings: basketball, baseball, softball, football, soccer, and track & field. Athletes can now come to U-District to complete the sport specific tests, receive their SPARQ rating, and have their information uploaded to Nike’s website. From there, coaches can track their performance against other athletes from across the world!

European Football

Soccer tryouts are just around the corner for the majority of soccer clubs and the boy's side of high school soccer, so I thought it would be fitting to write a post with a few interesting and important facts about soccer from a book I have been reading titled Conditioning for Soccer by Dr. Raymond Verheijen, who is Dutch and brings a unique European outlook to the game. European soccer is like the NBA or NFL here in the states, and Europeans have studied and broken down the sport in order to maintain the production of elite teams and players. Below are a couple things from the book that were quite interesting as well as encouraging, as we base our soccer training here at U-District on a similar philosophy in an effort to stay on the cutting edge and help our athletes improve and enhance their game and athleticism and strive for the elite level that players in Europe are trained for.

- "Soccer actions are never undertaken in isolation. The manner and the moment of execution are always related to the game situation. Drills must therefore incorporate elements of these game situations. In this way players develop fast reactions, linking ability, orientation, differentiation, balance, agility, and a feeling for rhythm."

- Here is an interesting excerpt from an interview with a player on the top Dutch club team Ajax. He says "It often annoys me how people compare soccer with other sports. Naturally long-distance runners, etc., have to go to the utmost, but you cannot make such a simple comparison. Soccer is more variable. First of all you have to use your feet and that is more difficult than using your hands. Then you have to use your brain, because tactics now play a large role. There is a lot of physical contact and you are regularly knocked to the ground or fall. On top of this there are 200 sprints. This demonstrates that soccer is very complex and very strenuous."

- On average, for elite players, defenders run 9.0 km (5.6 mi), midfielders run 12.1 km (7.5 mi), and attackers (forwards) run 10.4 km (6.5 mi).

Although soccer training in Europe is very successful, and as a country we could learn a lot from their approach, there is not one ideal way to train. Determining what is best for the individual athlete and helping them become better and enhancing their athletic experience, and life, is what training is all about.

Good luck in tryouts!

Coaching the big picture

Throughout the typical athletes career they will have many different coaches, as I did. Although all of my coaches growing up had great things to teach me about my sport, the ones that I appreciate the most now are the ones that took the time to teach me life lessons. Now that my competetive organized sports life is behind me, I carry on those life lessons that I was taught while a part of a team. Some, more in your face than others, like sometimes you will get your butt kicked but you have to stand back up and move on, and others more subtle and harder to learn like, learning to take something positive out of negative situations.

As coaches, it is important to take advantage of our (most of the time) captive audiance to instill lifelong values that our atheltes can use when they enter their "glory days" years!

The best example I can think of is the concept of mirroring people. If my basketball player wants to become a better shooter, then I will tell them to find someone who they think is a good shooter and mirror their actions. It's the same off the court, pick out things you like about other people and mirror those actions. It can be anything from how they organize their time to how them and their spouse treat eachother.

The athletic arena is such a great place to help instill great values and make great people. The options are endless and the opportunities are aplenty, so I challenge you to start coaching the big picture and not only, make students of the game but, students of life!

-KM

Minor League week 4

Travis Webb Week 4 - 3 sets
Rope Pullacross 37.5 kg x 10ea
Bosu SL Squat x 15ea
SL One Arm DB Row 30lb x 15ea
Burly Diagonal 20lb x 20
Barbell Side Lunge with OH Press x 10ea
Bosu MB Slam 10lb x 10ea
Coreboard SA Snatch 20lb x 10ea
Uneven Pushup x 10ea
MB Situp twists x 20

Supplements

Athletes are constantly looking to gain an edge in their sport by minimizing recovery time, increasing energy or building muscle mass. I am cautious to recommend supplementation because the world of supplements is not heavily regulated and the benefits and risks of taking various supplements are unknown. A sports nutritionist gave a presentation to the Gonzaga University athletes last fall and sited that the IOC (international Olympic Committee) did a study of 100 supplements taken off the shelf of a chain store and found that over 20% would lead to positive drug tests and over 10% contained steroids that weren’t listed on the label. This was a BIG eye opener. Any athlete looking to take supplements should seriously look at the risk vs reward and make sure that the supplements they purchase are from large, well known companies with good reputations.

Major League Preparation Minor League Pitcher Pt1

Travis Webb - Cincinnati Reds Week 2 of 6 Offseason January 24.08