Cereal that helps fight the flu??

Is it true??

Can Cocoa-Puffs really help fight off the flu? I don't know about it but apparently Kellogg's is gambling that you're going to buy - pun intended - that box of lies.

There are a few key reasons as to why I am not buying this and what you can do to TRULY improve the immune system of your kids!!

First lets cover the reasons why you should not believe the label for a reason.

1. TO BE HEALTHY YOU HAVE TO START WITH A HEALTHY FOUNDATION. Does it even make sense that a sugary, chocolaty cereal will HELP your kids fight off disease? Everything else we are told is that sugar, highly processed foods are bad for us. So what is so different about puffed white rice (which is void of just about any nutritional value on its own) is going to help us? The answer: Nothing is different. Except...

2. FAKE VITAMINS AND MINERALS DO NOT MAKE FOR HEALTHY CEREAL. Kellogg's added some lab made vitamins that research has proven is not absorbed nearly as well as natural vitamins and minerals. An example of this is comparing the durability of real natural wood furniture vs. plywood furniture. Plywood is less expensive, but also breaks down much quicker than say, Oak furniture, and is not nearly as strong. Which would you rather have? One may cost more, but the quality is what you are paying for. Except now your decision does not just effect how long your furniture lasts. Rather your decisions effect the health of your child.

3. HIGH SUGAR INTAKE HAS BEEN SHOWN TO INCREASE RISK OF THE FLU. You are doing your child no favors by adding more sugar to their diet. A lie mixed with a little bit of truth is still a lie. An unhealthy food mixed with a few extra "goodies" does not make for a healthy food. Put it this way, do you really think whole wheat donuts are healthy?

Want to know how to truly improve the immune system of your child? Check out the "Fuel Like a Champion" DVD. Let Dr. Chris Mohr show you how to fuel your young athlete to build strong muscles, bones and immune systems the RIGHT WAY!!

Good or bad??

I watched a video today and I want you to watch it. This will take about 4:00 and I want you to consider what you have just seen.



Now considering how it appears this kid got this strong...




Was he lifting external resistance?

Well other than the curls no. He wasn't.

Is this going to destroy his bones??

Probably not. Why you ask? The way that this muscular system was stressed is in a systemic fashion. He is not doing isolation exercises but rather he is controlling and managing his own body weight. This puts the right kind of stress on bones, ligaments and joints.

Another interesting fact is that the 6-pack you see on this child was not developed by doing hundreds of situps but rather was developed as a result of his body needing stability during the inverted pushups, pullups, gymnastics and other calisthenics.

Reading the comments on this video when it was posted on Yahoo!, there were hundreds of people who were upset claiming this poor kid was ruining his body and developing a "complex."

Perhaps more american kids should "ruin" their bodies like this and develop a "complex" of fitness. Perhaps then we'll stop that runaway train that is childhood obesity. If what you saw in this video disturbs you, then it is definitely a great idea to keep your child away from the following:

1. Monkey bars at school
2. Jungle Gyms at the park
3. Tree's he/she can climb
4. Hills they can run up
5. Things they can jump off such as benches and steps
6. Fun group activities such as partner wheel barrow's, crab walks, bear crawls and other weight bearing fun stuff

So this child has a relatively large amount of muscle and a relatively small amount of body fat on him. That is no reason to say my 5 year old should not be active.

Now my disclaimer. If indeed the parents are pushing this boy to do more and to engage in weightlifting at such a young age, then perhaps there is cause for concern. But from what I see. This boy is perfectly healthy and a model for engaging in physical activity instead of parking it in front of his playstation.

Clean Slate

I wanted to talk all about injuries and how we attempt to control and prevent them with proper training. Many times trainers, including myself, like to advertise that their program is geared toward injury prevention. Many times you will see camps that are strictly for preventing a certain type of injury, say ACL tears.

If I don't put that claim in my flier, does it mean that I do not attempt to prevent injuries in your athletes? OF COURSE NOT!! That would incredibly irresponsible of me to do so.

Instead, what I want and need you to realize is that any good program should prevent injury. This occurs through making sure each athlete has solid movement and good muscle recruitment and coordination. If a player does not have a very clean squat, why the heck am I going to ignore it and say we'll go ahead and squat anyways? If a trainer did that to my child, I would have his head on a plate!!

Instead, realize that many young athletes will not use much more than body weight when they are first working with us. Many don't start working with weights even after a few years!

Why?

Let me give you an artistic example. If I were a painter and I paint a house that is covered in mud, do you think that paint is going to stick? Probably not. The first time I washed the house most of the paint would come off because the house I was painting was not clean.

And this is what happens with athletes and coaches who get too caught up in doing the "fun" stuff of plyometrics and speed work. If the athlete does not have clean movements, any thing a coach tries to teach is just going to be forgotten the first time they go out to play.

You have to un-teach the bad habits so that you're working with a clean slate. Only then will you see the all-star inside shine through the mud.

Sponges and Pruning

How many parents want their young athlete to better than any other player in his or her age group?

Probably a lot of you. When your young athlete outperforms the competition, it is definitely something to be proud about.

However, if you child isn't the all-star on the 11U team, don't worry. THEY'RE 11!!

Don't try to turn your young player into a college athlete right now, because they don't have to be. At Pair & Marotta's Peak Performance Camp we had a pretty wide variety of athletes coming in. Most played baseball, some played soccer and a few played football.

Many played the same sport year round and other played multiple sports throughout the year. And the one thing that myself and Brian both noticed -

The kids who played more than one sport were by a sizeable difference, the better athletes.

Why is this though? Parents dump a lot of money into club teams and making sure that their child is playing the same sport year round. I mean if they want to get better, shouldn't they play more and more?? Not necessarily.

At a young age kids are like sponges, both mentally and physically. This is the time when we should be flooding them with different stimuli to make sure that we are building connections between the movement of their limbs and their brains.

What also happens at this time is a phenomenon called "pruning". You can look at pruning as the "use it or lose it" stage. If a child does not build bridges from their locomotion nerves to their brain, the body will "prune" the connection site because it is not needed based on minimal usage.

After this very sensitive time, if the nerves are not used and the skill is not regarded as important enough to maintain, then it is often very difficult to retrain the skill.

All in all, it is very important to present a wide variety of stimuli to young athletes and to start with very general movements before specific movements. This will ensure that as athletes grow they maintain movements that are needed as the foundation for more sport specific movements that will be refined as they get older.

Be sure to expose your young athlete to a wide variety of movements, sports and games as it will not be detrimental (contrary to popular belief) but only serve to make them better ATHLETES as they mature.

Close your eyes, you're not going to want to see this...

With the start of baseball season, we are bound to see the rate of injuries go up. Yes, things happen and accidents occur. But many of these accidents do not have to happen. Many of them can be avoided if we only trained the muscles and reactive systems required to prevent many of them. It almost seems too easy.

Lets start from the ground up: the ankles.

Baseball along with many other sports is played on two feet. It also involves running. For the most part, the players are running on a flat surface. But it never fails you will see an athlete round the bases and sprain an ankle. Why does this occur? I mean he's done it thousands of times before, right?

We have no problem standing flat on our feet. But when we get a little sideways and we are standing on the outside of our feet, our ankle wants to keep on rolling. That is inertia - an object will maintain its path of travel until acted upon by an outside force.

If we can get the nervous system to recognize that our ankle is about to roll and quickly react and fix it, then we can prevent it from rolling. Some of you may have had this happen; you're running and the ankle starts to roll but you catch it and although it scared you, thinking you're about to sprain your ankle, but you caught it and it was nothing more than a scare.

To train this reactive ability, we need to train in what we call a proprioceptively enriched environment. Or simply a stability/balance challenged environment. At Pair & Marotta, we do this by having you stand on a single leg, or closing your eyes or placing you on an unstable surface such as an air disc, half a foam roll, or a airex pad.

This trains the muscles of your ankle to quickly recognize a potentially dangerous situation and react as opposed to having to think about it. The most convenient and beneficial time to work on balance and stability is during warm-ups. Balance on a single leg and reach in different directions, skip in different directions, shuffle and then change direction, run in different directions. These are all good things that will help prevent injury!!

You will see many of these types of exercises in "Peak Preparation: A On-Field Guide to Performance."

Are you doing more than just "something"?

I have to tell you guys, I am a big fan of music. But then again, who isn't?

One of my favorite bands is the White Stripes. I know it might be a bit trendy but they are great musicians. What does this have to do with sports performance? What does this have to do with getting stronger, faster, quicker and more powerful?

The White Stripes have a song called Blue Orchid. And in that song, Jack White sings something so profound that it took me till now to get it. What did he sing?

"Something's better than nothing...Something's better than nothing is giving up!"

As an athlete, no... as a person, you should never catch yourself saying, "Well, something is better than nothing."

Something's better than nothing is not giving your all. And not giving your all, is giving up my friend.

So whether you are in school, or you're practicing, or your doing chores around the house or your mowing the lawn, or you are at Pair & Marotta getting your sports training done, give it everything you have. Make it the best you've ever done. Make it something to be proud of, something that when people see it, they are amazed at the effort that went into it.

Sports is all about giving everything you've got. The ones who win, who are champions, who outlast and play their opponents...they out "give" their opponents. Because they have more to give. That is what Pair & Marotta Sports Performance training is all about. We give everything we've got, to give you more. We want you to be so well conditioned, so well athletically trained, so focused on the task at hand, that you give everything and not a drop less.

When you give your all, it says something about you as a person. It says something about your parents, it says something about your friends. Actions speak louder than words. So don't give anything less than 100% and never let anybody hear you say, "something is better than nothing."

Because that my friend, is giving up.
____________________________________________________________________

Below is the workout of the week for your week off. Take it, work on it and give everything you've got.

Circuit type workout (follow each exercise immediately with the next, minimal rest)

1. Push-ups x 5
2. Rocket Jumps x 5 (tuck in when on ground, explode arms and legs into a star at highest point of jump)
   
3. Mountain climbers x 10
4. Hip Bridges x 10
5. Reverse Snow Angels x 10 (lie on belly, keeping arms and legs off the ground and make a snow angel)
   
6. Lateral shuffle 10 times each side
   

Do as many circuits as you can in 15 minutes. Coaches, this is a terrific workout to end a practice with. This is just a sample of what you can expect in "Peak Preparation: An On-Field Training Manual." You'll get that this summer.

Arm Care is Career Care

For a baseball or softball pithcer, their arm is often their career. Any quality sports training program bakersfield should consist of an arm care program. If an athlete does not know how to take care of their arm, then their career won't stand a chance.

But what does arm care really consist of? Arm care consists of many things. Not the least is proper preventative care and proper recovery.

Many baseball and softball players go wrong with arm care. They often abuse their arms without ever knowing it. But I have a very knowledgeable person who is very excited to help you with any problem you might have. Click here to visit their website.

So lets talk proper warm-up. Personally, I am sold on Jeager Bands. These things are awesome and can be taken anywhere. No matter what position you play, you gotta have these bands. Pitchers throw every couple of days. Position players throw every day. So don't think they are only for pitchers. They will strengthen your arm to create a cannon and keep you fresh and able to play day after day. The entire Jeager Sports program (long toss, arm circles, bands) is terrific. Their program is highly recommended.

The second thing is knowing when you've thrown enough. And that can be a bit more tricky. Follow this link to get some guidelines on throwing volume. Odds are most coaches are throwing their kids way to much and not giving them enough rest. Coaches, if you don't know how many pitches your athletes are throwing, you are doing them a disservice. Don't be that coach.

The last but possibly most important is proper recovery. Recovery is what we do to our body to help get fresh blood, oxygen and nutrients to the area that follows the stress of pitching at a very high velocity. We should take this very important. The first thing to do is ice it. Almost as soon as you come off the mound. The second thing is to exercise it the day after. Perform very low resistance exercises such as arm circles, fly's, and arm pendulum exercises to help loosen up the tight muscles of the shoulder.

These three things will take some extra effort, but rest assured, they will keep you throwing for years to come. Being consistent is the key. If you want to throw consistently, you need to

1. Prehab your shoulder for what you are about to ask of it.
2. Count your pitches. Have a coach keep your pitch count so you can track performance
3. Take care of yourself after the game. Ice, compression, and elevation. The next day, start your exercises.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at aaron@pairmarotta.com




Sports training Bakersfield, Baseball training, Pair Marotta Physical Therapy

Coordinating Coordination

Just about every day players or coaches ask me what they can do to get faster or help their players get faster. The top item I tell them is to work on coordination and stretching. I could talk about both here, but you don't have all day and I don't want to overwhelm parents, players or coaches with a bunch of technical jargon.

So onto the coordination explanation.

Most if not all kids these days are already specializing in sports. I don't want to talk about whether or not I think that is good, I'm just going to explain how it can hinder performance.

When kids begin to specialize at a young age, they start to go through repetitive motions over and over. Many times this goes on for years. And because they specialize, they are not exposed to other stimuli that could be beneficial. Baseball is a prime example of that. 

There is not a lot of running in baseball compared to soccer or football. This unfortunately does not bode well for the young player when he really needs to start running during a game. His body has essentially developed the movement patterns that he trains the most (Pitching and hitting) and everything else just kind of gets left to the wayside.

Running requires coordination: you have to know how far should I extend my knees, how far forward should I lean, how big of an arm swing do I need, should I bend my knees more, should I land on my heel or on the ball of my feet, etc, etc. 

There are many instances of coordination being needed but when  a child specializes they tend to not get exposed to these tasks that demand coordination. So at our In-Season Baseball Training, we are laying a base and developing coordination each and every day by doing this sequence of a warm-up:

1. We start with the agility ladder. Most of these exercises are designed to get the kids to move their feet and place them in a specific position, while also learning to transfer body weight from one foot to the other.
2. We then progress to active stretching that requires strength to get through the stretch, but also has a very high balance demand to it. 
3. Next comes our skipping, bounding and more dynamic warm-up. These require, rhythm and timing, coordination between muscles and muscle groups as well as a spatial awareness that most youth athletes are not exposed to.
4. We then go into postural exercises and skill development such as the mini-hurdles or rapid response exercises to teach asymmetrical movements while maintaining proper posture.

The one thing about this program is it is highly asymmetrical, meaning that when one side is moving the other side is either not moving, or it is stabilizing or moving at a different rate, in a different direction or through a different range of motion. This is what kids MUST develop in order for them to become better athletes. They need to focus on movement first in different directions, with different tempo's, different ranges and different rhythms. 

If you notice that there is just something off with the movement of you or your athlete, that things just look a little off, odds are it has to do with coordination. And if you really want it to improve, do it more frequently than just at Pair & Marotta. Do the skipping in the back yard, add rapid response exercises to your pre-game warm up, and start working on running and moving in different directions than just those used in baseball. I enjoy baseball. But what I enjoy even more is watching young players become better athletes, not just better ball players.

This is what we do at Pair & Marotta Sports Performance. We teach athletes how to move their body. They are starting to see how amazing their body really is and once they realize that, their potential is unlimited in not only sports, but also in life.

Computers and...Baseball?

We've now started our In-Season Baseball Training Program and one thing is for sure. There are a lot of things that need improvement. And here is one thing I have noticed from working with kids in a learning environment:

They do not think before they move.

When learning a new movement pattern or exercise, especially in a sports training environment, it is very important that a baseball player think about what is about to happen before trying to go through the movement pattern.

So many athletes just try to make the exercise look like the person who demonstrated it. But when players go based off of what it looks like as opposed to how an exercise FEELS, they tend to get it wrong. It's like trying to run a computer program without the necessary software.

The brain is the software. It controls the entire program. It stores the motor programs and cues for going through an exercise. The muscles are the hardware. Now most computers have appropriate hardware to run most programs. However, it is the software you have to buy and upload.

If the software isn't there, then no matter how hard you try to create a program or mimic a program, it's not going to operate correctly. You must have the software for the program to run right.

By going through a Baseball Training Program, like ours at Pair & Marotta Sports Performance in Bakersfield, we are installing the software necessary to make the computer (body) and programs (swing/pitch) run faster and more efficiently.

So before we try to learn an exercise or movement pattern, we need to think about what is going to happen, take the time and effort to feel the exercise in the muscles and make sure that you are feeling what you should be feeling.

It's like I have said for so long, an exercise can look right but feel completely wrong. However, it is virtually impossible for a movement pattern to feel right and look wrong. This can be applied to a baseball swing.

So many people are paying for their kids to get hitting lessons. And many coaches are concerned with only the visual aspect of the swing. Only those who understand movement science will ask how the swing feels and which muscles the batter feels it in. If you're not doing focusing on the causes of Movement First, then you're simply putting a band-aid over a larger problem.

Here is the take away for the day: Before paying to give your child the perfect baseball swing, pitch, or lead off, make sure they can go through the basic movements. Make sure they can squat, lunge, rotate and reach before trying to change the swing. Or else you might just be putting a band-aid over something that has deeper causes.

The In-Season Dilemma

The baseball season is already here!!


Local high schools are getting ready to start practicing and many youth leagues are already on the diamond!! They practice and play, play and practice. They practice hitting, bunting, fielding, throwing, leading off, pickoff moves and learn the coaches signs from third base.

But lets take a step back. What is it that allows kids to play baseball? More generally, what is it that baseball requires to be good at? Movement. And that is what we at Pair & Marotta Sport Performance specialize in: Teaching Movement.

Movement is what allows baseball and softball players to swing a bat regarless of whether they hit the ball. But rarely do kids focus on just movement. They would rather make contact with an ugly swing than strikeout with a powerful swing. Don't believe me? Watch a youth athlete in the on-deck circle and then watch them at the plate. When there is no ball coming at them, their swing is simply a flop of the bat. Watch them when they step out of the box between pitches. These are the times to be focusing on a good swing.

So how does Pair & Marotta Sports Performance fix that? How do we work on the quality of the swing without the stress of them worrying about hitting a ball, but rather focusing on a good quality swing? We teach hip rotation and extension to drive the swing. We teach athletes how to put a stretch in the muscle, then to unleash it by getting a good solid contraction out of the muscle. We start in a squat to load the hips, then explode out and release the elastic energy we just created.

This is just one example of the types of exercises each athlete will be performing while at Pair & Marotta Sport Performance.

Many people think when the season begins, the strength program must stop. This could not be further from the truth. Strength training during the season actually improves the sport skills that are being taught while at practice. Watch as the athleticism of a player who trains during the season improves, while that of others is stagnant or declining.

Pair & Marotta Sports Performance In-Season Program starts February 2nd. If you're in Bakersfield and would like to be a part of it, email me at aaron@pairmarotta.com or call 661-912-9991. We are capping each group at 10 players, so don't wait too long!!

Are you better than the pro's?

I just got back from a trip to Washington, DC. I did not go to see the inauguration but rather to attend the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (PBATS) conference. At the end of our conference, we got to visit the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium. It was pretty awesome. We had lunch at the restaurant behind home plate and got a small tour of the Nationals locker room, athletic training room and strength training facility.

Here is my assessment: Although about half the size of Pair & Marotta Sport Performance here in Bakersfield, they had a lot of equipment in their strength room. Most of the stuff I have seen before but is still a little rare in training facilities. The aquatic facility is pretty awesome: two jacuzzi's, an underwater treadmill and a sauna. These guys definitely get to the special treatment!!

Here was the most interesting thing: a handful of the National's players are getting by on mere talent. Word has it a few of them cannot hold a :15 sec plank. FIFTEEN SECONDS!! And most of the guys do not spend much time training at the facility. What does that mean? Well they have finished in the cellar of the NL East the past few years.

Imagine if they spent more time in strength training. They would probably find their way towards the top of the standings!! The baseball season is long enough for pro's. The college and HS season's are shorter. What this means is that you have to stay in shape for the season and you cannot let practice be your conditioning.

Most people are under the pretense that you start the season at your best and the champions are decided by those teams that don't break down physically. But what if you could get stronger during the season?? You can. It doesn't take much.

By combining strength training exercises, such as a DB Squat and Overhead Press, and placing them in a type of circuit, you can prevent injury and actually get STRONGER as the season goes on!! Pair & Marotta Sports Performance is doing just that for you. Our In-Season Training Program is geared to getting you in, working your butt off and then getting out in about 45 minutes.

Want to be part of it?? Send us an email. aaron@pairmarotta.com or call 661-912-9991. If you want this season to be your best, you'll be here.

New Year's Camp replay

Hey guys,

I hope everybody had a safe and happy New Year!! I know I did when Pair & Marotta Sports Performance joined with Player's Edge Hitting Instruction for their New Years Baseball Mini-Camp.

The kids enjoyed every second of it. They got hitting, fielding and pitching instruction from guys who have either been to the top or are on their way up the ladder. They enjoyed each day, especially the days that Gabe Kapler and Maury Wills were there.

Here is a great video of Maury Wills talking about learning new things and having an open mind about baseball.



Remember, our In-Season Training Program starts on February 2nd. If you'd like more information about our In-Season Baseball Sports Training program, email me at aaron@pairmarotta.com