I have a great article to end the week with that was brought to my attention and holds some great information for those of us around sports and especially youth sport. The article is from USA Hockey and it asks how a parent would address a coach with a bad reputation. The article can be found here:



https://www.responsiblesports.com/our_partners/usa_hockey/usa_hockey_article_archive/how_would_you_address_a_demeaning_hockey_coach.aspx?utm_source=usah&utm_medium=a&utm_campaign=cta

If you didn't believe in a coach's philosophy or methods, but they coached the "best" team within an organization, would you let your child play for them? My favorite part about this article is the idea of discussing youth sport goals with parents, athletes, and coaches alike and see if these are lining up correctly. If everyone is not on the same page and working toward a common goal I think there will be some severe complications. Of course we all know the saying... Assume something and you are making and ass out of you and me.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading.

Strength in Numbers

Today's topic relates to practice planning and management. Often times when I plan a practice session, one of the first things I ask myself is: how many atheltes will I be working with? This seems like a vary easy question, but for any youth sport coach you know that the number of athletes you expect is not always the amount who show up. As can be the case at just about any level.

The reason I want to know how many atheltes I will be working with is because that number has an influence on the drills I will be running and the set-up I will be using. There have even been times when I had to modify a practice because an unexpected amount of athletes (either more or less) arrived at the practice session. On a few ocassions, I have even unexpectedly lost an athelte mid-session, and consequently had to change a practice session.

What this is all boiling down to is efficiency. By using the amount of atheltes in a session to my advantage, I can plan a more efficient practice session. For example, I was recently observing a coach who lined up nine athletes on a line to run some warm-up drills that varied in skill level. All the warm-up exercises were performed within a 10 minute time frame and the group moved on. After the session, I asked the coach how many atheltes he thought he could give personal and direct feedback to at one time and he told me about 2 or 3. Then I said, well with the way your warm-up was structured, you were ignoring 6 or 7 athletes! The coach couldn't believe what I was saying and I said next time organize three lines of 3 atheltes in each line and I think you will be able to concentrate more on each athlete giving them the attention they deserve because only three will be going at a time. I think this coach liked the change in organization and to me, he became a more effective coach because of it.

These sorts of managerial decisions can be made at any level to help a coach more effectively run efficient practices. Obviously, I encourage all coaches to look at your practice set-up and think about ways you could be more efficient or make things run smoother.

Wednesday Review: Elliptical Trainers

Here's what I think about elliptical trainers: they really have no place in a Strength and Conditioning facility, fitness center, etc. Ok, so I don't want to be overly harsh on the elliptical trainer at least it has a hip name...

The reality is I can not find a good reason to use an elliptical trainer for a healthy individual. Treadmills and stationary bikes work perfectly fine to accomplish every goal in the book in my mind. Now, if your argument is low impact training I would say use the bike or walk on a treadmill to accomplish the same thing. If you or your client doesn't like the bike, then swim. If you want a low impact exercise, but the client has some kind of limitation or dysfunction in the hips and they need to be in an upright position I think they will still benefit greatly from swimming. If this dysfunctional client is hydrophobic, then you may need to use an elliptical.

Here's the point- Elliptical trainers really aren't doing anything special and I think too many people have become overly obsessed with the elliptical phenomenon. There may only be a rare population that actually "needs" to use an elliptical trainer, otherwise they are obsolete. IF YOU ARE A HEALTHY FEMALE DO NOT USE AN ELLIPTICAL! (especially those under age 30) You need to benefit from weight bearing exercises to stimulate bone development and increase bone mineral density to help reduce your risk for osteoporosis later in life. It's like planting a good health seed in your garden, you may not see any benefits now, but the seed will bloom and blossom in the future. Osteoporosis is already a problem among aging women and I suspect it will continue to haunt those who are inactive or do not perform weight bearing activities in their lifetime.

If I ever own or build a facility, I am looking forward to buying maybe one elliptical training machine and using the money I saved on others toward more effective tools in the weight room. I am interested to hear your thoughts or opinions...

Also, you may always feel free to e-mail me at btstoffers@yahoo.com, Thank you.

Static Stretching

Over the last few years there has unfortunately been a bad cloud sitting over static stretching and I think our ignorance as coaches is directly hurting atheltes. There was some research done regarding static stretching and power output I'm not sure how long ago, but basically the series of studies showed that power output in a vertical jump (or other maximal power related activity) was decreased after static stretching was performed. This is a classic example of a fad because at the time, Strength and Conditioning coaches looked at this research and decided static stretching was a thing of the past and should be scrapped because it was decreasing athlete's power output. As a result came the invention of a dynamic warm-up which became the new and improved method of stretching a muscle through it's entire range of motion.

Now, dynamic stretching is very important in preventing injury in power related activities and don't get me wrong, a dynamic warm-up needs to be performed, but a lot of experts in the field are now looking back at this old research and sadly living with the effects of our over-reaction away from static stretching- atheltes with increasingly tight muscles. There is plenty of evidence showing that tissue length is improved more significantly and for a longer duration when held at least 30 seconds. This is static stretching!

Our lack of emphasis on static stretching over the years has most likely caused plenty of imbalances within the body and resulted in a lot of injured athletes for the simple fact that research was published (with unrealistic methods) with results showing the dynamic method of stretching was better for creating power in these specific activities. In order to prepare our clients or atheltes for lifelong success and reduced incidence of injury, we need to incorporate static stretching.

In the grand scheme of things, static stretching would most likely come before a dynamic warm-up and after foam rolling. Yes, thats right, you will static stretch a cold muscle. This is also done to promote long term tissue elasticity. When a muscle is warm of course it will stretch, so you will not be getting the same benefits as stretching a cold muscle. Lastly, you need to stretch all muscle groups equally, this means stretches that feel good for you and ones that don't.

Thank you for reading and please come back tomorrow
-Stoffers

The Effect of Static Stretch and Warm-up Exercise on hamstring length Over the Course of 24 Hours , Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy Vol 33, Number 12, Dec 2003. P 727-733

U.S. Obesity

So I've been tyring to go to the grocery store more often rather than eating out so much so I can start practicing what I preach on the nutrition side of things. Today, when I went to the grocery store I was looking for some potatoes in the frozen foods section so I could cook something up quickly later tonight. Yes, I know potatoes are not the best food you can eat in this world and they are starchy and blah blah, but I haven't had them in a while and so I felt like cooking some up.

Naturally, I checked by the vegetable label first. I saw some carrots (picked those up), beans, corn, etc. but no potatoes (perhaps because we could probably better classify potatoes under the carbohydrate family, but thats a whole different discussion). Anyhow, I looked farther down the isle and what did I see? A whole label for potatoes! That seemed very convient for me and I was very excited, I would have my last item in my cart and be ready to go home- what I saw in that freezer was astonishing...

The entire "Potato" section was different kinds of french fries! Different brands, different styles, different seasonings. I could not believe there was no where in the freezer section I could buy some seasoned potatoes, but french fries made up and entire two freezer food doors. I decided I was content with my purchases walked toward the register. With many thoughts going through my head at this point, I passed the "soda isle" (which is one isle all by itself). Now, I obviously don't want to be rude or offend anybody, but the soda isle was the busiest isle I saw today, and it was full of overweight customers. What I witnessed today during my grocery store extravaganza was an extreme lack of nutrition and at least two of Dr. Bohn Berardi's 7 Habits of Effective Nutrition (May 31st Post) being blatantly broken:

#5- About Fat Consumption- Fried foods are not a good choice when trying to control your fat consumption.

#6- Drink Non-caloric beverages- The soda isle was the most crowded in the store! See something wrong here???

Ok, thats enough ranting, I love grocery stores and I hope everyone had a great weekend. Thank you for reading and please check back tomorrow ( I promise there will be a post).

Imbalance= Injury

For a quick anatomy lesson, it is understood that everything in the body is connected, meaning muscles connect to bones where other muscles are also connected from head to toe. Given this knowledge, the above statement would seem pretty logical. When muscles increase in size and tightness, they have an increased ability to pull force. This force being pulled against the bone can cause imbalances within the overall system and directly influence injury.

When designing programs, we need to take into account this balance and work muscle groups equally to decrease the risk of injury. I think this concept is pretty self-explanatory, but I still see programs that are actually promoting injury in my opinion. Too many similar movements are increasing the risk for injury and can be problematic. In my opinion, a variety of different movements and training different muscle groups simultaneously during a workout will give you the best results while also contributing to the balance of your musculoskeletal system.

The one exception in athletics is when playing a sport directly contributes to muscle imbalance. For example, baseball players throwing arms are obviously more likely to become injured, because of the extreme repetition through the course of a season or career. In a case like this, I would write a program that specifically targets the opposite muscles involved in throwing to create a more balanced arm and hopefully reduce the risk for injury. On paper, this program would look unbalanced, but that would be very deliberate. As coaches, lets work to building balanced athletes for better performance and reduced risk of injury.

Psychology Always Beats Physiology

I was very fortunate to sit in as part of a live audience for Mike Boyle's 3rd DVD, "Functional Strength Coach Volume 3", today and needless to say it was a great experience. About 30 great coaches came in to watch the filming and take part, talk shop, etc. about what is going on and it was basically a day long conference about what Coach Boyle has been doing with training since last Summer (when Volume 2 came out).

Of course I can not give away all the details, but one thing that definitely stuck out to me was a quote I think he got from Alwyn Cosgrove that states "Psychology Always Beats Physiology", or in short, the mind is stronger than the body. Of course we've all heard this before, but let's put it into real World practice. I think the best example of this occurrence in the weight room is on testing days. Coach Boyle stated that team testing really boils down to order of testing. For example, if one of the strongest athletes tests first, they will set the bar higher for their teammates to reach. For example, if the first athlete squats 200 lbs, the next athelte who normally tests at 185 may be more inclined to try 200 as well.

Although this may seem like a recipe for disaster, I think the mental side of testing and using competition to your advantage can also be beneficial in reaching new heights in the weight room and other areas of sport as long as safety isn't compromised. There are so many ways to incorporate competition into our workouts to increase motivation. Implementing a different mindset elicits different results. You may be amazed when you see the effort you get from athletes trying to be the best in part of a competition rather than just practicing a skill as part of a practice.