Stand by Your Principles, but Have Fun Along the Way By Alex Slezak – M.Ed, Youth Fitness Specialist If you are a young coach, then the 60 seconds you are going to invest to read this will save you a lot of mistakes. If you are a veteran coach, then you will certainly understand the value of what I am about to share. Thomas Jefferson famously said, “In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Now take a minute to read the quote again and let it really sink in. Do you see.. More »
3 Ways to Grow As a Coach While Building a Team
Don’t Be an Island: Building a Team and Growing Professionally By Wil Fleming Five years ago, when I was just opening my gym with my business partner, Ryan Ketchum, building a team was the last thing on our minds. Between the two of us, we had great ideas and great intentions. We even knew our roles: Ryan would train the adults and I would train the athletes. I can honestly say we thought that we were enough—enough to go it alone. In fact, looking back, we thought of ourselves as islands. Like an island, we had what we needed to survive: knowledge.. More »
Programming for the High School Strength and Conditioning Athlete
Assessment, Education, and Planning for High School Strength and Conditioning Success By Josh Ortegon As a High School Strength and Conditioning Specialist, there are many factors to consider when designing a year-round strength and conditioning program. Skill level, other sport demands, time available for training, and available resources such as equipment and space can all be powerful influences. When following the Long Term Athletic Development model, high school athletes will fall into one of two stages of training: the “train to train” (TTT) phase or the “train to compete” (TTC) phase. The TTT phase may begin as early as ages.. More »
High School Strength and Conditioning Programming Considerations
By Josh Ortegon JV vs. Varsity: Variations in High School Strength and Conditioning Generally speaking, “curriculum” refers to a series of related courses, often in a specialized field of study. High School students follow a curriculum in most of their classes whether it is math, physics, English, or other related subjects. Strength and conditioning programming for the high school athlete is no different. A progressive physical curriculum that builds on itself from year to year with the goal of developing skills will increase students’ overall fitness levels, improve athletic performance, and help prevent injury. All these are skills that will.. More »
5 Ways to Increase Support for Your High School Strength and Conditioning Program
By Josh Ortegon Getting Coaches to “Buy In” to Your High School Strength and Conditioning Program Having sport coaches support your strength and conditioning program is essential for the High School Strength and Conditioning Specialist (HSSCS). A high level of “buy in” from coaches is important in order to creative cohesiveness in the program. This can be easy for a coach who has been in the program or the community for a long time and has created solid relationships with coaches. However, for the new HSSCS, it can be difficult until the program and relationships are established. Here are a.. More »
Developing Athletes for Multiple Sports
Thanks to the information provided by the IYCA and other educators in the strength and conditioning field, more and more coaches and parents are being exposed to the Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) model and promoting the multi-sport athlete. Learn more from Josh about developing athletes for the long-term today!
Nature vs. Nurture in Youth Athletic Development
Improper Youth Athletic Development, or Is It Mom and Dad’s Fault That Your Athletes Aren’t Fast Enough? By Phil Loomis When it comes to youth athletic development, the hottest question in the last decade has been one of nature vs. nurture, or genetics vs. environment. Posed another way: Are Justin Verlander and Calvin Johnson elite athletes because they were lucky enough to have the right parents? Or are they superstar athletes because they were exposed to an ideal environment that afforded them the opportunity to develop their talents? In a recent interview, Dr. Joe Baker, a Professor of Applied Exercise.. More »
Rotary Stability and Performance
By Jared Woolever If you are familiar with the FMS, or Functional Movement Screen, then you probably have a general understanding of what rotary stability is. This is the movement screen where we get on the ground and see what kind of stability the body has in the quadruped position by performing a birddog. We are simply looking to see if the client or athlete can stabilize the trunk without dropping to one side when lifting the opposite arm and leg from all fours. If we see a dysfunction or lack of ability to control the core on this.. More »
How to ‘Hack’ the Broad Jump
By CJ Easter In the hierarchy of performance testing, the vertical jump is much more glorious than the broad jump. Every kid wants that elusive “40 inch vert.” However, in most sports, even in jumping sports like basketball and volleyball, power in the transverse plane (i.e. explosive first step) is more important than power in the saggital plane (i.e. vertical jump). The broad jump also has a high correlation to an athlete’s sprinting ability because of the similarity in force angles. You’ll see a lot similarities between this article and my breakdown of the 40 yard dash start from.. More »
Tying the Inline Lunge into Performance
By Jared Woolever If you’ve been following Smart Group Training, you probably know we’re big proponents of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). We use it on a daily basis. We may not be doing a full formal movement screen each session; however, we use the information we get from it on a daily basis in our training. The FMS is comprised of seven movement patterns that range from squatting, stepping, lunging, crawling, and other fundamental motor skills. These movements carry over to everyday life and performance. Let’s explore the inline lunge. How does a lunge relate to performance? Just.. More »
The Most Effective Way to Test the Progress of a Young Athlete
By Phil Loomis The mere mention of the word TEST is enough to make even the most prepared student a little anxious and nervous. In the world of sports there are plenty of ways to quantify an athlete’s standing using tests that measure performance qualities like speed (40-yard dash), power (vertical jump), strength (maximum dead-lift) and endurance (1-mile run). The results can be useful as far as comparing one athlete’s results against those of other competitors within their sport. That said, it is extremely important that the test be relevant to the sport in question and even more specifically a.. More »
How Do You Assess Student Fitness Levels?
Alex Slezak – M.Ed, YFS, YSAS, HSSCS Often I see physical education programs comparing student data to norms or standards and then inferring if a student is healthy or not. I have no problem with comparing data to norms; however, I think it can be a bit of a stretch to classify a child as “healthy” or “unhealthy” based only on a few tests. In my experience sometimes children score low not because they are unfit, but because the test is inappropriate or involves a novel movement pattern. I also wonder what effect labeling a young child as healthy.. More »
Stop Focusing on Training Systems
By Alex Slezak – M.Ed, YFS, YSAS, HSSCS I estimate that I have been directly coaching youth in some manner for 15,000+ hours and counting; hopefully I have many more years to go. My off time has been devoted to discovering the best systems and methods for my physical education and tennis programs. One day I came to a profound realization that it is not all about having the best system or newest fad, instead it really is about the interpersonal relationship you have with the students you are teaching. In my opinion the relationship is more important than the.. More »
Are We Really Getting Stronger?
By Mike McGurn All sports I can think of require basic strength levels, and strength training has recently become a much sought after attribute in the athletic community. Kinesiologists, physiologists, athletic trainers, and professional strength coaches all tell us that if all we did was increase muscular strength by 35-40% in an athlete without changing any of the other attributes needed for the sport, there will be a definite improvement in performance levels. The doubters may disagree and question how getting stronger can be of benefit in sports where the technique is the priority. Surely though, being a lot.. More »
The Female ACL
By Josh Ortegon Decreasing Risk of Injuries in Female Athletes When strength and conditioning programming was first introduced into the high school setting, most programs were primarily focused on the boy’s sports and many times just the football program. In the past 20 years, participation by girls has been on the rise. Many high schools now implement intense programs for female athletes. It has been well documented that females are more likely to suffer an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury than their male counterparts. Some studies have demonstrated an increased risk of up to 4-6 X among female athletes.. More »
Learning the Clean
“I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was simple” That proverb is one that sometimes needs some explaining. Easy means requiring little effort, while simple is more akin to not requiring a lot of steps. Simple does not mean easy, and easy does not always mean simple. Such is the nature of Olympic lifts. Learning the Olympic lifts is much simpler than it is made out to be. Following a logical progression will eliminate much of the time it takes to learn these complex movements, but will not eliminate the struggle to become great at performing these movements… More »
IYCA Member Spotlight: Wil Fleming
Wil Flemingis the Owner of Force Fitness and Performance and Athletic Revolution Bloomington, in Bloomington, IN. Force Fitness opened just over 3 years ago and is already one of the most successful training facilities in the Midwest with nearly 400 clients, 25 athletes earning Division I scholarships and nearly 45 athletes moving on to compete at the NCAA level in Division I, II, III. In addition to being a business owner, Wil was one of the authors of the IYCA’s Essentials of High School Strength and Conditioning, along with other noted performance experts Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, and Dr. Toby.. More »
IYCA Member Spotlight: Dave Schmitz
Dave Schmitz (aka… The Band Man) is the Co-Owner of Resistance Band Training Systems, LLC and the creator of www.resistancebandtraining.com, the only website exclusively devoted to training with large continuously looped resistance bands. Dave’s unique professional background and vast experience as an orthopedic physical therapist, performance enhancement specialist, certified strength and conditioning specialist along with his 27 plus years of living fitness and performance training, has allowed him to turn a simple 41 inch resistance band into an incredible multi-faceted total training experience for 1000’s of athletes and fitness enthusiasts around the world, while helping 100’s of fitness professionals and.. More »
IYCA Member Spotlight: Mike Robertson
Mike Robertson is the President of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training (I-FAST) in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mike has made a name for himself as one of the premier performance coaches in the world, helping clients and athletes from all walks of life achieve their physique and sports performance goals. Q: What’s your background? A: I’ve been in the performance enhancement/physical preparation field for 14 years now. In that time I’ve done a bit of everything – I was an assistant D-1 strength and conditioning coach, a rehab practitioner, a 1-on-1 personal trainer, and.. More »
Corrective Exercises for Overhead Throwing Athletes
Eric Cressey’s Favorite Exercises for Overhead Throwing Athletes With over 80% of the clientele at Cressey Performance consisting of baseball players, we’ve come to appreciate some of the unique demands of overhead throwing athletes. And perhaps no adaptation in these shoulders is more important to consider than the loss of scapular upward rotation. Research has demonstrated that baseball players (and presumably tennis, swimming, volleyball, and track and field throwing participants) lose upward rotation of the scapula over the course of a competitive season. Very simply, this is a fancy way of saying that the shoulder blades can’t rotate up enough.. More »