I don't teach athletes how to jump...

It never fails that people want to know how much their athletes vertical leap will improve IF they enroll our training programs. If they don't like the answer they get they usually brush me off and head off looking for somebody that will give them the answer they are looking for.


So in reality many parents are simply asking a question of my ability. But a parent or coaches concerns about my ability should not lie in whether I can improve their vertical jump, but whether I can keep them injury proof. Here is why.


I WON'T TEACH YOUR ATHLETE TO JUMP, UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW TO LAND.


If a skydiver can't land, should he really be jumping out of a plane?


The majority of non-contact knee and ankle injuries come from improper foot placement during deceleration/landing or from inadequate joint stabilization during landing. Either way, the problem is during the landing.


I have been researching hamstring strains in sprinters and even in those cases, the hamstring is never injured on the pull through, but rather is injured immediately after the heel strike following the flight phase.

Soccer Player Cutting

So if you want to keep your players safe, teach them how to land. Teach them how to decelerate and teach them that having a high vertical leap, possessing a fast shuttle run and having a lightning quick T-test is only a result of proper deceleration training - the same type of quality training that we focus on in our "Bullet Proof Your Knees" Soccer Camp.


We are starting tomorrow and still have a handful of spaces available. The camp meets on Tues/Thurs from 4-5pm for 6 weeks. For only a $120 investment, your athlete will come away more agile, quicker, and most importantly, with a much lower risk of non-contact injury!


For more information send me an email at aaron@pairmarotta.com.

What your squat says about your injury potential

A squat is the most simple of movements. But at the same time it is the most complex. And because it is the most complex, how you squat tells a lot about how your body is working. 

http://www.elon.edu/images/e-web/athletics/strengthconditioning/sc9.jpg

Each joint has to control force from a handful of different muscles pulling on it in different directions. A simple way to envision this is a telephone pole being held up by stabilizing lines to keep it straight up. If one of those lines were to be released, what would happen to the pole? It would lean into the direction that still has the lines attached.

The same thing goes on in the joints of the body. However, because the knee is the joint of two long bones (femur, tibia) it is particularly important that this joint has muscles pulling with equal force in each direction. The squat tells us all we need to know about how a player controls the motion at the knee and the hips.

However, for many youth soccer players, equivalent strength isn't the case. Often times the quadriceps are the strongest muscle acting on the knee while the hamstrings and gluteal muscles of the hip have the greatest input into controlling the lateral motion and rotation at the knee. 

ACL tears are most common in female soccer

The knee is meant to flex and extend forward and backward. However, there is very little room for movement from side to side or for the tibia to rotate under the femur. The gluteal muscles and hamstrings help control these motions. However, so many soccer players are not strong enough in the gluteal or hamstring muscles to prevent excessive movement in these planes of motion.

This is how the dreaded ACL sprain/tear occurs. A combination of the femur shifting forward on the tibia, the tibia rotating outward under the femur and the knee caving inward towards the other knee. It's what I call the Perfect Storm. The reason this is the perfect storm is that it is the most vulnerable position for a player to be in. At that point, the player has the least amount of muscle recruitment and control over what happens next. And inevitably, knee injuries will occur.

So how can you prevent this? Well the first step is to TRAIN your players on what the position of vulnerability looks like. After that you need to develop strength in the muscles that prevent these three motions from occurring. The final step is to train them how to change direction and decelerate effectively to keep themselves out of this position. Click on the picture to the right to read about how a promising soccer player's season and possibly career was cut short due to this nasty, but PREVENTABLE injury.

Knowing the types of exercises and skill sets to train to prevent ACL injuries are what we do here at Pair & Marotta Peak Performance. "Bullet Proof Your Knees" is a 6-week soccer pre-season program that focuses on developing hamstring and gluteal strength properly align the knee in a high speed movement. The "Bullet Proof Your Knees" camp starts Tuesday, August 30th and will run every Tuesday and Thursday from 4-5pm. For more information, email aaron@pairmarotta.com or visit www.pairmarotta.com/fitness.

Are we even doing this correctly?

How many youth coaches are training their players to be slower? 

How many want their kids to move like a sloth and then get absolutely juked out of their shoes as the opposing player runs right by them?

How many infielders want to have the range of a step and a fall? 

Certainly there are not any coaches who want their players to be SLOW. But many are unintentionally making their players slower!


You see the nervous system is a very plastic thing. Plastic is a fancy word. it's true. When something is plastic, it changes to take on the characteristics of its mold and then holds onto those traits.


So when the human neuromuscular system is considered plastic, it will take on the traits of whatever stress is placed on it. Most of us want our players to be fast. In order to do this we need to make sure that their movements are fast each and every time. Otherwise the neuromuscular system will begin to operate in the speed range of whatever speed is most often used.


Right now many of you are envisioning telling your players to constantly move fast. You're envisioning them moving faster than lightning and envisioning them doing it for the entire 90 minutes of your practice.


But there is a problem.


The human body cannot move as fast as possible for very long. And by very long I mean any longer than about :10. After that fatigue begins to set in. How do we combat that? By giving more than enough rest. So many coaches are of the mindset that kids are not making progress unless they are about ready to fall over from exhaustion.


If you want them to be great at running slowly for 90 minutes straight, then sure. keep them going. But you aren't going to get very good work out of them. Think about it. The team is running for "conditioning." They aren't moving very fast and they are doing hundreds, if not thousands of repetitions at less than maximal contraction speed. 


What exactly is this TRAINING them to do? Because that is what is being done. Just like we train horses how to run, jump and canter, we train kids bodies to move at a certain speed. Whether we intend to or not, it happens. So with every step, they are getting slower and slower.


To make athletes faster, you MUST present a stimulus that requires them to move as fast as possible (while still in control). Then give them plenty of rest so they can come back and give you another rep with 110%. 


This is something that we have developed over the past 5 years through research and through practical experience. We practice this in our FAST Forward and Movement First Programs. Don't believe me? Come try either class out for a week on me.


We start next week, August 30! Do not wait to sign up, we will only be taking 8 athletes for each of these groups. For more information, visit our website www.pairmarotta.com/fitness.

Send me an email at Aaron@pairmarotta.com and we will be sure to get you setup for a free week of workouts!

Do you have rhythm?

Many coaches, parents and players tend to go straight to the fancy plyometric training when they think sports training. But as we discussed in the last blog, that is a crucial mistake that can lead to injury at worst, poor performance at best. But if you really want to get faster, you must simply coordinate the body and muscles to move faster and more efficiently while minimizing wasted movement.

The best way to go about this is to develop rhythm. Rhythm is one of the foundations of agility.

Skipping is a quality power/rhythm exercise

One of the best way to teach rhythm is by doing a very basic motion, that surprisingly many kids and adults struggle with:

Skipping.

Skipping requires rhythm, coordination, power, timing, balance and strength. It's no wonder that quick skips are favorite of youth agility coaches everywhere. 

How can you plug this great exercise into your warm-up? It's pretty simple. Towards the end of your warm-up have your group skip 20-30 yards. But remember that skipping has to have a purpose. And remember there are many different ways to skip, each emphasizing movement patterns that are very useful in sport.

Start with short quick skips with the athletes pushing hard through the ankles only. 

Next have them do form skips, focusing on driving the knee up.

Next have them skip for height and distance. This one is a true power exercise. This is a good warm-up for a day emphasizing linear power development. But other ways to skip are backwards, sideways, sideways with a cross over, straight leg skips, single side high knee skips. Then if you've got a hill you can have them skip uphill. DO NOT SKIP DOWNHILL. The force placed on joints is simply too much and there isn't much technique or strength benefit from it.

Implement this drill with your athletes and you'll be amazed at how much it improves their speed, power as well as power!

PS/ Don't forget that our FAST Forward and Movement First programs are starting on August 30!! To sign up and improve the speed, agility, core strength and rhythm of your team or athlete, send me an email at aaron@pairmarotta.com. You can also visit www.pairmarotta.com/fitness for more information on our programs.

Progression: Getting the most from your athletes

Most athletes are go-getters. They'll do anything you ask them to do. And often times will do things you don't ask them to. When training them for fitness and performance though, a good coach will be careful not to do too much, too fast, too soon.

And this is where most athletes have a hard time keeping things at the right level. Far too often players want to literally jump right into whatever it is they are doing. They want to start with plyometrics and ladder drills and skip right over everything that lays the foundation for those fun exercises.

So here is a basic progression that you can use with your teams, your kids and your athletes.

Squat/Jump Progression

• Weeks 1-2 : perform basic body weight squats 3 sets of 20 reps (3 x 20) and hold each squat at the bottom for :03 seconds. Do this during each practice or 3 times per week.
• Weeks 3-4: perform a jump and hold the athletic position for :03 seconds upon landing. Perform 3 x5 - 3 days per week.
• Weeks 5-6: perform squat jumps and upon landing have the athlete take a small bounce before performing the next repetition. There will be no holding or pausing on the landing. Perform 3 x 8, 2 times per week.
• Weeks 7-8: perform repetitive squat jumps with no holding on the landing going right into the next jump 3 x 5 twice per week. Also have the athlete perform single leg squats with a toe touch, 2 x 12 each leg. Perform each of these exercises 2 times per week.

Remember, you have to have a plan in order to get the most out of your athletes as well as to prevent injuries. An excellent resource for this is David Sadler's DVD Plyometrics Training.  It's a terrific resource that shows you how to progress plyometrics for your young athletes.

We at Peak Performance take our athletes through a similar plyometric progression over a period of 12-16 weeks. This is how plyometrics should be taught. 

We want your young athletes to benefit from our years of experience and education. To sign up for our FAST Forward Program for high school age athletes or our Movement First Program for younger athletes, email me at aaron@pairmarotta.com.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Whenever we have new athletes come into our facilities, we do an assessment. This may not be an incredibly formal assessment, but nonetheless, we do one. 

One of the most beneficial assessments is to watch a person perform a basic movement pattern such as a squat, a pull up or a pushup. The reason these are so beneficial is because they are so difficult to do correctly if joints, muscles or body systems are out of order.

Lets take a look at a pushup. Most people think a pushup is an upper body exercise. But if you take a broader look, you see that a pushup requires an enormous amount of core strength and stability. Watch someone do a pushup. Does their lower back sag, hanging down close to the ground? Do they shrug their shoulders on the way down during a pushup, thus preventing their chest muscles from actually contributing much to the exercise?

What does a pull up say about an athlete?

These two things can tell you SO MUCH about your young athlete!! It tells us first off where we need to start with their exercise program, and second off it tells us if they are going to be more prone to injury! Now, who WOULDN'T want to know if their child was at an increased RISK OF INJURY??! 

But many youth sports trainers simply run kids through drills without considering how the child moves as a unit! 

In summary, your child's movement tells us so much about their ability level that it truly is worth a thousand words. Do you want to make sure your child gets every advantage they can when it comes to sports? Do you want to make sure they don't suffer ANY injuries during their competitive years? 

Then get them enrolled in our FAST Forward or Movement First training programs here at Peak Performance! We have programs starting on August 30th for both age groups at different times! I've seen it happen too many times, where parents put their kids into so many sports but don't give any thought to their fitness. Fitness is the foundation of sports! 

Sign up for FAST Forward or Movement First and give them every advantage possible!!