Wednesday, April 30, 2008

St. X Strength and Conditioning Clinic


The speaker list:

Ron Zook: Head Football Coach; University of Illinois

Ken Leistner: PowerliftingUSA, Hardgainer, Iron Island Gym

Mark Asanovich: Strength Coach; Jacksonville Jaguars

Aaron Hillmann: Strength Coach: Bowling Green State Univ.

Ted Lambrinides: Director of Athletic Strength And Power

Steve Specht: Head Football Coach St. Xavier High School

Carlo Alvarez: Strength and Speed Coach St. X Bombers

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

BGSU Strength and Conditioning Clinic

by Ed Cicale


Aaron Hillmann, Bowling Green State University's Head Strength & Conditioning Coach is hosting his strength clinic on May 3rd. Hillmann will also be a speaker at the clinic.



This clinic's featured speaker will be the longtime and now retired University of Michigan Strength Coach... Mike Gittleson, who anchored that position for 30 years! Heisman Trophy winners, All-America Football stars, Big Ten Championships, National Championships. Coach Gittleson has been an innovator and mentor to many. This year's #1 NFL Draft pick trained under Gittleson....as the University of Michigan boasts having the most active players on NFL rosters: a testament to the preparation that these players received as Wolverines! Coach Mike Gittleson will speak on hand, forearm and grip strength...among other topics.


Also speaking will be:
  • Robert Gee; Homeland Security

  • Fred Lowe; 3 time Olympian Weightlifter

  • Kelly Howe; BGSU Women's Strength Coach

  • Carlo Alvarez; St. Xavier High School Strength Coach

  • Roger LaPointe: President of Atomic Athletic

http://www.athleticstrengthandpower.com/files/bgsu_clinic_registration.pdf

Monday, April 28, 2008

St. Xavier SPARQ Rating of 90.77

April 26, 2008
Skyler Ashbaugh

Cincinnati, OH- The road to football greatness in the State of Ohio goes through St. Xavier High School, and everyone knows it. After testing teams the last week around the state, the common theme from both players and coaches has been, “when do you test X?” “have you seen the facilities at X yet? They will blow you away,” “X is full of studs.” As the Central Truck rolled onto the campus of the St. Xavier Bombers, the expectations were higher then they have been all tour for a team and probably will be the rest of the summer. After it was all said and done the Bombers lived up to all the hype and then some as they posted a tremendous team SPARQ score of 90.77.

Everyone wants to play at “X” and for good reason. The Bombers are coming off a 2007 season which began with a pre-season national ranking of #1 and finished with a perfect record, a 27-0 victory in the Ohio State Championship game, a 2nd state title in the last 3 years and a final national ranking of #1 and #2 depending on which poll you looked at.

With spring sports wrapping up for high school athletes, the Bombers were only privileged to have not even a quarter of their team out to test. A quarter of a typical high school team would leave most programs high and dry, however at “X” a quarter of their program is almost 80 players.

While a stadium full of young stars participated in SPARQ Testing, one star shined far brighter then the others… that star was Junior LB Luke Kuechly who posted an off the charts SPARQ Rating of 106.14. Kuechly, a member of the 2007 state championship team, finished in the top 3 in each of the 4 SPARQ events. When asked what benefits SPARQ Testing will bring the Bombers, the Junior LB feels “the testing will help us set goals because you really don’t know what goals to set until you come out here and test.” The power ball toss proved to be Kuechly’s strongest event as he placed himself among the elite athletes in the country with a toss of 43 feet. Rounding out a performance that ranks Kuechly in the 99.9th percentile in the country was a 4.78 second 40 time, 4.35 second shuttle and a 32.9 inch vert. Kuechly, who has gained interest from high profile colleges such as Stanford, Boston College, Michigan State and Northwestern plans to “work on a lot of speed drills to improve my 40 time.”


It takes more then one person to win a state championship, just as it takes more then one person to earn a 90.77 Team SPARQ Rating. Junior RB Connor Earley earned elite status after posting a 94.71 Rating on the shoulders of a team high 35.6 inch vertical. Pat Muldoon (87.84 SPARQ Rating), Patrick Grote (84.81 SPARQ Rating) and Will Carroll (78.72 SPARQ Rating) round out the top 5 for the Bombers. Other noteworthy scores were posted by Andrew Brown with a 4.3 second shuttle and Trever Hoelker with a 4.71 second 40-Yard Dash. Earley used last season to gain valuable experience as a back up and stated his personal goal this year was to “score 15 touchdowns and be a be a senior leader towards another state championship.”


The Bombers are a well oiled machine. They are disciplined, they work hard, they run fast and they are flat out G.O.O.D. A lot of their success over the last 3 years can be attributed to strength and conditioning coach Carlo Alvarez. Alvarez has worked as a strength coach at the University of Notre Dame, Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds. After working with some of the best athletes in the world, Alvarez has found his niche with high school players. “As a strength coach you are always looking to develop your athletes, I have coached at all levels and I love working with high school kids the most. The support of administrators, coaches, parents and the kids wanting to improve everyday is a great feeling,” commented Coach Alvarez on his transition to the high school level.


The Bombers test, train and compete at an elite level and their hard work is paying off. They are elite athletes, with an elite coaching staff and are producing an elite program. On behalf of the Central Squad it was an honor to test such a great program. Expectations were high but according to Coach Alvarez, the program prides itself on “meeting expectations and we do a good job of that in this program.” Keep up the hard work and we expect to see the Bombers make another prolific run towards back to back state championships.

If you would like hear how Coach Carlo Alvarez develops football speed with the St. Xavier Bomber Football Squad, attend the Strength and Conditioning Clinic for Football on May 17th.








Wednesday, April 23, 2008

4 Components of the 20-Yard Shuttle

During the past several days, we have been working with the St. X football team on improving their 40-yard dash, Pro-shuttle and Vertical Jump. This coming Saturday they will participate in the SPARQ Team Challenge (STC) and we are making sure they understand the components of every test. Today we covered the 20-Yard Shuttle/Pro-shuttle or 5-10-5 for some people.

When you start to teach this drill it's important to teach it in four separate steps. The Stance, First 5, Next 10, and the Last 5-Finish. I will cover each component and how we teach our individual athletes, teams, and combine groups.

The Stance
• Straddle line with right foot slightly behind the left foot
• Bend forward as if you‘re doing a good-morning exercise
• The top of the hips/low back is highest point
• Left hand placed on the line with weight on the balls of the feet
• Roll the head down, tuck the chin and keep right hand at 90
• Think exploding to the right-side ways and downward
• Don’t spend a lot of time on the stance. Wasted adrenaline
• Create an internal cadence: Down-Set-Ready-Go

First 5
• Cross – Cross – Touch
• Our goal is to run 4 yards instead of 5 yards
• The angle we come in is the angle we come out
• Right hand should always be reaching for the line
• Keep your head, shoulders down and never look forward 
• You should try to place left hand at the 4 yard line
• Point both feet at an angle to explode out

Next 10
• Spider position 1 yard from the line
• Come out of the line, keeping head tucked in low
• At six yards you have reached your highest point/top spot
• You start heading back down with left hand reaching towards line
• At 6 yards the spine starts to rotate as you set yourself up for the next spider

Last 5
• 2 ½ steps to finish
• Stay low and drive out
• Long power strides not short choppy steps
• Head punches through the finish line

This is how we break the test down as we teach it to the athletes. This is not something that they will learn in a day or two. so they must practice it daily to master the drill unconsciously. 

Here are the top times in the NFL Combine by position:

Quarterback: Alex Brink - 4:19

Running Backs: Rashard Medelhall - 4:18

Wide Receivers: Arman Shields - 3:96

Tight Ends: Dustin Keller - 4:14

Offensive Line: Mike Pollack - 4:47

Defensive Line: Chris Long - 4:21

Linebackers: Stanford Keglar - 3:98

Cornerbacks: Marcus Walker - 4:07

Safeties: Nehemia Warrick - 4:09

Specialists: Tyler Schmitt - 4:33


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Basic Principles For Improving Sports Performance

KEY POINTS

1. For most sports, the top competitor is generally the one who can appropriately sustain the greatest power output to overcome resistance or drag.

2. It is not sufficient for championship performance to simply have the ability to produce great power. The champion must be able to sustain power output in an efficient and skillful manner for the duration of the competition.

3. During maximal exercise lasting a few seconds, the anaerobic breakdown of phosphocreatine and glycogen in muscles can provide energy at rates many times greater than can be supplied by the aerobic breakdown of carbohydrate and fat. However, this high rate of anaerobic energy production cannot be sustained for more than about 20 seconds.

4. For exercise lasting more than a few minutes, an athlete who has a high lactate threshold, that is, one who can produce a large amount of energy aerobically without a major accumulation of lactic acid in the blood, will be better able to sustain a higher rate of energy expenditure than will a competitor who has a lower lactate threshold.

5. A high level of mechanical efficiency, which is the ratio of the mechanical power output to the total energy expended to produce that power, is vital if an athlete is to make the most of his or her sustainable rate of energy expenditure. Mechanical efficiency depends upon the extent to which the athlete can recruit slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are more efficient at converting chemical energy into muscle contraction than are fast-twitch fibers.

6. Neuromuscular skill is also critical to mechanical efficiency because the more skillful athlete will activate only those muscle fibers required to produce the appropriate movements. Extraneous muscle contractions require more energy expenditure but do not contribute to effective power output.

-Gatorade Sports Science Institute

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

VizualEdge Improves Hitting Skills

Study by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Professors Confirms that Training with Software Enhances Hitting Skills

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A recent study conducted by a research team from the University’s Kinesiology Department demonstrated significant improvement in the hitting performance of Islander baseball players after enhancing their visual skills. The athletes trained their visual aptitudes with Vizual Edge, a commercial software program specifically designed to assess and train visual skills of athletes.

The research team is headed by Dr. Frank Spaniol and includes Drs. Bonnette, Melrose and Ocker, and graduate assistant Jeff Paluseo. The purpose of this study, which was a follow-up investigation conducted by Spaniol and Bonnette with the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers, was to determine the validity of the Vizual Edge software in relation to improving hitting performance in baseball. Designed by Dr. Barry Seiller M.D., an ophthalmologist from Chicago, Vizual Edge was created to improve visual skills. The critical question was, “would improving visual skills using Seiller’s software actually translate into improved performance?”


According to Seiller, “Visual skills can be evaluated and trained…….Elite high school, university, Olympic and professional athletes now incorporate visual performance into their training programs.” Dr. Spaniol, who played and coached Division I baseball, concurs and states, “It makes little sense to waste valuable training time working on something if it doesn’t translate into improved on-field performance.”

After the fall 2007 Islander baseball season the research team tested the software’s viability. Utilizing a ‘pre-test, post-test’ design players were randomly selected for treatment and control groups. The treatment group trained their visual skill with Vizual Edge, while the control group did not have the benefit of using the software. Because the study was conducted in the off-season, players did not take part in any structured batting practice. At the onset of the study subjects from both groups were tested for visual skills to determine eye alignment, eye flexibility, visual recognition, visual memory, and visual tracking. After achieving a baseline score, the treatment group received training on the software three times a week for five weeks.


A composite VEPT score was also calculated for each subject, which was used to establish personalized training protocols for the treatment group. Batting performance was determined by measuring the batted-ball velocity of pitches delivered at 76-to-80 mph by a pitching machine to assure consistency. Each subject received two rounds of six swings for a total of 12 attempts. Data analysis included a t-test to assess whether the two groups were statistically different from each other, by comparing post-test batted-ball velocity data. Results determined a significant difference between the batted-ball velocities of the treatment group as compared to the control group.

“We’ve known from previous survey studies that professional baseball players believe that training with Vizual Edge enhances their performance. The results of this study confirmed that college baseball players who trained with Vizual Edge outperformed those who did not,” points out Spaniol.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Study Of Pro Soccer Players Finds Significant Reduction In Injuries Using Simple 20-minute Warm-up

Professional soccer players who participated in a special preseason groin injury prevention program had fewer groin injuries during that subsequent season than those who were not in the program, according to new research released at the Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine.

The researchers enrolled 315 major league soccer players in a preseason groin injury prevention program to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The 20-minute program was used as a prepractice warm-up two to three times a week during the preseason period. It included three phases -- warm-up, dynamic stretching, and strengthening. The participating athletes had a groin injury incidence of 0.44 injuries per 1,000 hours, while a control group had a groin injury rate of 0.61 injuries per 1,000 hours.

"Our 28% injury reduction rate is highly significant," says principal investigator Michael B. Gerhardt, M.D., director of the Center for Athletic Hip and Groin Disorders in Santa Monica, Calif., and team physician for US Soccer and Chivas USA, a major league soccer team. "We were anticipating a 5-10% reduction rate, so we were pleasantly surprised that the injury reduction number was so high."

Most professional soccer teams in Europe and the United States recognize groin injury as a major problem, according to Dr. Gerhardt. Groin injury accounts for a large amount of lost playing time. They are common in elite soccer players and especially problematic among male soccer players. The term "groin injury" encompasses a wide range of injuries ranging from minor groin strains to chronic groin injuries, such as sports hernias, which often require surgery.

The number of groin surgeries was also evaluated. Although not statistically significant, the athletes in the prevention session had fewer surgeries (0.13/1,000 hours) than the control subjects (0.18/1,000) who did not participate in the program. "While we were able to prevent the total number of groin injuries, we were unable to significantly reduce the number of surgeries," comments Dr. Gerhardt. "Once an injury reaches the chronic stage it is hard to manage with any treatment regimen, including ours. These players typically go on to require surgery."

Chronic injuries are defined as lasting a month or longer. Avoiding acute injuries, which the study's preseason injury prevention program was able to reduce, can hopefully prevent them.

"If a simple 15- to 20-minute program can reduce the number of groin injuries that are occurring in professional athletes, I think it will gain widespread use," notes Dr. Gerhardt. "We've seen this with ACL prevention programs, which have been implemented successfully by a variety of teams around the world. I anticipate that professional soccer teams will want their players to participate in a program if it is simple, cost effective, and, most importantly, proven to reduce groin injury."
Dr. Gerhardt attributes the success of the prevention program to the multidisciplinary efforts of several expert therapists, trainers, and physicians.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

How Liquid Calories Can Make You Fat

by Tom Venuto

At least 7 scientific studies have provided strong evidence that energy containing beverages (i.e., "liquid calories") do not properly activate the satiety mechanisms in the body and brain and do not satisfy the appetite as well as food in solid form.

Epidemiological research also supports a positive association between calorie-containing beverage consumption and increased body weight or body mass index.

The primary source of liquid calories in the United States Diet is carbohydrate, namely soda. Now running a close second are specialty and dessert coffees. Did you know that a 16 ounce Frappucino can contain 500 calories or even more! That's one-third of a typical female's daily calorie intake while on a fat loss program.

A recent study at Purdue University published in the International Journal of Obesity set out to learn even more about this bodyfat - liquid calories relationship.

Researchers compared solid and beverage forms of foods composed primarily of carbohydrate, fat or protein in order to document the independent effect of food form in foods with different dominant macronutrient sources.

Based on previous research, some experts have recommended targeting specific beverages as being "worse" than others. High fructose corn syrup and soda has been singled out the most and you've probably seen that yourself in the news. There's no question that soda has been on top of the "hit list" for some time now, by virtue of the amounts and frequency of consumption alone.

However, this recent study says that from a pure energy balance perspective, we should be cautious about ALL liquid calories, not just soda and not just carbohydrates!

Fruit juice for example, appears to be an obvious improvement over soda, so many people have swapped out their soda for fruit juice. However, when fruit juice is compared to an equal amount of calories from whole fruit, the whole fruit satisfies appetite better (largely due to the bulk and fiber content), and so you tend to eat fewer calories for the day.

[On an interesting side note, soup does not seem to apply; soup has higher satiety value than calorie containing beverages, possibly for mere cognitive reasons.]

If you were to meticulously track your calories from beverages and you made sure that your calories remained the same for the day, whether liquid or solid, there would probably be little or no difference in your body composition.

But that's not what usually happens in free-living humans. Most people do not accurately track or report their caloric intake.
Our mistake is that we tend to drink calories IN ADDITION TO our usual food intake, not instead of it. Men are especially guilty of this when they drink alcohol - Men tend to drink AND eat, while women tend to drink INSTEAD OF eating.

This new research found that with all three macronutrients - protein, carbs or fat - daily calorie intake was significantly greater when the beverage form was consumed as compared to the solid. Yes, it's true! Even protein drinks did not satisfy the appetite the way that protein foods did!

While you would think that protein drinks are purely a good thing, because protein foods have been proven to reduce appetite and increase satiety, if you turn a solid protein food into a protein drink, it loses it's appetite suppressive properties in the same way that happens when you turn fruit into fruit juice.

[NOTE: After weight training workouts, liquid nutrition may have benefits that outweigh any downside, especially on muscle-gaining programs]

Why do liquid calories fail to elicit the same response as whole foods? reasons include:

* high calorie density
* lower satiety value
* More calories ingested in short period of time
* lower demand for oral processing
* shorter gastrointestinal transit times
* energy in beverages has greater bioaccessibility and bioavailability
* mechanisms may include cognitive, orosensory, digestive, metabolic,
endorcrine and neural influences (human appetite is a complex thing!)

Last but not least, nowhere in our history have our ancestors had access to large amounts of liquid calories. Alcohol may have been around as far back as several thousand years BC, but even that is a blip on the biological calendar of humanity.

As a result, our genetic code has never developed the physiological mechanism to properly register the caloric content in liquids the way it does when you eat, chew and swallow whole foods.

Bottom line: This study suggests that we shouldn't just target one type of liquid calories such as soda. If you're trying to reduce your bodyfat, it's wise to limit all types of liquid calories and eat whole foods as much as possible.

Start by ditching the soda. Then ditch the high calorie dessert coffees. Then cut back on the alcohol. From there, be cautious even about milk, juice and protein drinks. Drink water or tea instead, or limited amounts of black coffee - without all the high calorie extras.

If you do consume any beverages that contain calories, such as protein shakes, be sure to account for those calories meticulously and be sure you don't drink them in addition to your usual food intake, but in placeof an equal amount of food calories. Those protein shakes you might be drinking are called "meal replacements "not "free calories!"