Resistance Band Training

I received a question as to how I uses the bands in my strength and conditioning protocols for our athletes.  Band work is great and can be used for several different modalities.

I like bands for gaining more joint mobility and flexibility.  You can use them intermittently in your training programs or during the warm ups.  I have made two band warm up videos in the past:

Band Lowerbody Warm Up

Band Upperbody Warm Up

Bands can also be used to strengthen an injured muscle group.  When I tore my trap and one of my arm muscles I exclusively used bands the first few weeks of training to get my strength and mobility back.  If a muscle or movement bothers you, the band is also a good tool to work around joint pain or a muscle injury, by strengthening around the area it will help support and protect the injured area.

At the Elite Training Workshop I learned a few new band movements from Dave “The Band Man” Schmitz and Mark Bell of Super Training Gym showed me a great band exercise to help my leg abduction strength for my squats.

Check out my latest video below to see them.

Tags: resistance bands

Why I Became a Trainer

I do get asked a variety of different health, fitness and training questions almost every week.  How can I get faster, what should I do to jump higher, what is the best exercise to (fill in the blank)?  One of the most common questions I have been asked by my middle and high school athletes is, “So what made you decide to become a trainer?”

I take this question seriously because I still like to believe in the innocence of youth, that they are in the formidable years where they are looking for roll models while they ponder what they want to be when they grow up.  Maybe I am giving myself too much credit, however I do get asked that question often so I will answer it here in this article.

The Early Years

As you readers may know, I have a great drive towards participating in as many sports as I could.  All day every day I just played and played.  I could even remember my mom telling me to get into the house to stop playing and get my summer reading done.  Of all the sports I played, soccer was my favorite, and as I got older my passion for the game grew.

In my years leading up to high school I remember practicing and playing about five days a week.  We didn’t have all of the specialty club teams like there is now so most of us played AYSO and then winter club soccer.  Our training consisted of practicing 3-4 times a week and playing one match on the weekend or going to a two-day tournament.  I was in great shape and had plenty of soccer skills training but that was the extent of my training (more on that later).

I went to my dream high school, Junipero Serra, known for being the home of some great athletes including: Lynn Swann, Greg Jefferies, Barry Bonds and Tom Brady.  I made the soccer team my freshman year and continued through my sophomore year.  I was having a blast making new friends and competing against some of the best high school soccer teams around.

The summer before my junior year my club team went to Germany to participate in a summer soccer tour.  My second week on tour, in my third match, I got kicked in my leg and felt the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life.  My knee was injured and my summer play overseas was done.

I remember getting it checked out at a German hospital, something I hope none of you have to go through, and they ruled out that nothing was broken so I just had to get the swelling down and then I could start playing again.  Little did I know I had a much bigger problem on my hands.

I slapped on a knee sleeve for support and started training again; some days were better than others but I could tell my knee was not like before.  I tried to play my junior year and my knee was giving out on me every time I cut laterally.  It turns out my problem was not the knee joint but the ligaments of the knee; an MRI revealed an ACL tear.  At the time I had no idea what it was but I was told it would require surgery and I would miss the season.

Rehabilitation and Education

I had the surgery and began my physical therapy program and it was then that my interest was peaked in the intricate workings of the human body.  I had a great physical therapist and I learned a lot about the rehabilitation protocol for the knee.  I gained such insight that I decided to pursue a degree in physical therapy starting first with kinesiology at the University of San Francisco.

While obtaining my undergraduate degree in kinesiology, I had to get to school early to find all day parking so I hit the gym at 6am.  It is then I began to learn about weight training.  I never really lifted weights in an organized manner before, though I wish I did while I was playing soccer.  I felt the proper strength training program I developed not only made me stronger but more balanced.

Upon graduating I got a job for a year at a local physical therapy clinic where I worked closely with physical therapists helping patients with their rehabilitation modalities, strengthening programs.  Also, because of my weight training program knowledge I was asked to write post PT programs for the patients so they could increase and maintain their strength after their therapy sessions were finished.

My education in both kinesiology and my personal learning for strength and conditioning led me to achieve my goal into getting into a physical therapy graduate degree program.  My first year of physical therapy school was eye opening in more ways than one.  The academic classes were intense and highly educational and I gained much more knowledge in anatomy and physiology but I began to realize that I enjoyed the strength and conditioning aspect of physical health rather than the rehabilitation component.

First Personal Training Job

I left PT school after a year and headed home to finish my graduate degree in Kinesiology all the while I was racking up more personal training knowledge and certifications.  I started a job at a local commercial gym and began to hone my training skills during the day while going to school in the evening.  As I began to gain experience in personal training I also began to learn more about specialized forms of training. I gravitated towards types of training used to enhance athletic performance.  I saw the need to meet the physical and performance demands that athletes have to play at a high level while minimizing their risk of injury.  An injury cut my high school career short and hurt my chances of playing in college, however if I could help other athletes achieve their goal of playing high school, college and beyond that would make me feel better.

The Sports Performance Era

Along with working in the commercial gym, I started training a few athletes in my apartment garage and when I got big enough, I studied up on basic business skills and decided to go for broke and open up my own small commercial space: Rise Above Performance Training which is where I am to this date.

You will hear people in your life say to find a job that you love to do so you will be happy while doing it and I could not agree more.  Most days are great and there are plenty of challenges but at the end of each day I truly feel that I am contributing a small piece of the puzzle towards helping people achieve their goals and dreams whether it be in life, sports or simply to answer their curiosity.

Tags: Personal Trainer

Training for Winter Sports: Best Exercises for Soccer and Basketball Players

The weather is getting colder and the seasons are changing.  With these changes comes the beginning of new high school and college sports seasons with two of the biggest being soccer and basketball.

I have had the privilege of training both soccer and basketball athletes this past offseason and we have used many different training protocols to make sure they are strong, agile and more resistant against injuries going into their seasons.

Both soccer and basketball share similar movements in their sports; stop and go running, deceleration, cutting and acceleration and jumping components.  In this article I am going to share with you some of my favorite training exercises I use to get these athletes ready for their season.

Deadlift

There has been a timeless debate in the “strength and conditioning world” regarding which exercise is better to build strength, size and game speed; the squat or the deadlift.  Both exercises are great and should be used but if I had to pick one over the other for soccer and basketball players it would be the deadlift.

Like the squat, the deadlift is a highly effective movement to train the hips to extend.  Most sports are dependent on the athlete’s ability to extend their hips, whether it is to sprint, change direction or jump.  Being able to move and accelerate and object from the ground using one’s hips leads to great strength and power development essential in sports.

The one advantage that the deadlift has is the ability to train starting strength which is the ability to move the body quickly from a dead stop.  Many athletes, parents and coaches ask how they can improve their child’s “first step.”  This first step development comes from training to move deadweight quickly and effectively.

Forward Lunges

This is one of those exercises that I had used in the past, forgotten, came back to it while training at Cressey Performance.  When doing forward lunges again, I realized how weak I was at it and then realized the huge value it has.

I have had many of my athletes primarily performing reverse (step-back) lunges because I felt they were able to get into proper position easier and they could use the back foot explosively to train the first step.  This movement was great for that however I was neglecting one huge component necessary in both of these sports: deceleration.

Most deceleration during soccer and basketball comes when the athlete is moving forward and the front leg needs to slow the body down to change direction.

Forward lunges require the front leg to decelerate.  The forward lunge trains the hamstring muscle group to slow the body down through the eccentric contraction much like it needs to do when playing a sport like soccer and basketball.

During sports the body must decelerate loads greater than the body weight alone due to the acceleration of the body creating a greater force vector.  When doing this lunge variation with added resistance the body learns to deal with forces great than body weight alone much like what occurs when playing sports.

Kettlebell Swing

The kettlebell swing has several advantages when it comes to training for soccer and basketball; namely training the posterior chain (primarily hamstring and hip muscle groups) for power production, it can also be used as a conditioning tool.

Many strength and conditioning coaches utilize Olympic lifts (clean and snatch) to train the power element of sports; while these lifts may be great for power generation, they take much longer to learn the technique when compared to the kettlebell swing, and they are good for maximal power production whereas soccer and basketball are sports that utilizes repetitive bouts of sub-maximal force production.  Sports like soccer and basketball consist of a series of repeated sprints and stops; not an all or nothing explosive movement.

Kettlebell swings can be done within a strength program for repetitions if training posterior chain power production is desired or it can be done for time intervals if training for conditioning.

Core Stability

Core stability for soccer and basketball are crucial for the athletes to perform optimally.  Not only must the core be stable for the athlete to perform their dribbling and shooting skills effectively they also must have a strong core to be able to fend off all of the knocks and fouls that opponents will perform to steal the ball or disrupt a game winning shot.

Training the core for stability is quite simple and I recommend a variety of core stability exercises within a particular training program.  Plank variations, ball or wheel rollouts, strap fallouts, Pallof presses are all great exercises to train the core through stabilization.

Conditioning Circuits

This is one component that is not used frequently enough in strength training protocols.  It is one thing to make your athlete strong and perform well in the weight room, but if they cannot perform better at their sport then the job you’ve done is not complete.

In my article, Get with the Circuit, I touted the need for solid conditioning programs for athletes that needed both strength and endurance.  Adding a conditioning circuit into the program once a week will greatly enhance your soccer and basketball athlete’s strength transfer from the weight room to the field and court.  It is important that these athletes gain the strength endurance necessary to perform repeated measures of sprinting, stopping jumping, and cutting.  The athletes who are able to maintaining this strength endurance cycle will most likely be in better shape and perform the best at their respected sport.

Some of my favorite exercises to include into circuits are jump rope, kettlebell swings, pushups, body rows and the Prowler.  Time should be suited close to what would be done during a game situation.  I like circuits of 4-6 stations doing 20-30 sec. of work and resting for 10-20 sec.

Conclusion

Soccer and basketball players are just like any other athletes in respect to the fact that they need to be strong, stable and conditioned.  The details within a program should be tailored for each specific sport and specifically designed for the individual athlete for optimal success.

Tags: athlete training, athletes, athletics, basketball, training