Congrats to the new Master Strength and Conditioning Coaches

Congratulations to Mike Vorkapich, Tommy Hoke and Tim Wakeham on being names Master Strength and Conditioning Coaches by the CSCCa in early May. There are only 92 in the world. Michigan State now has four.

St. X Strength and Conditioning Clinic

St. Xavier High School will host its 3rd Annual Football Strength and Conditioning Clinic on May 8th. 



"This has become the premier High School Football Strength and Conditioning Clinic in the country. We have gathered what we believe are the top strength and conditioning professionals in the field and asked them to share their knowledge on coaching, program design, implementation, and motivation. 



Our goal is to provide coaches and fitness professionals the opportunity to learn proper training principles for football from the most respected coaches in the football training and athlete development field." 



The clinic is scheduled for Saturday, May 8, in the St. Xavier Performance Center and Strength and Conditioning Facility at St. X (600 W. North Bend Road).

Registration for the clinic begins at 7 a.m. with the clinic itself running from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The event includes seven hour-long lecture sessions including:

• Dr. Ken Leistner - Strength Training Pioneer

• Mike Szerszen – University of Cincinnati

• Joe Kenn – Master Strength and Conditioning Coach

• Lee Taft – World Renowned Speed Coach

• Dawn Weatherwax – Gatorade Sponsored Sports Nutritionist

• Mike Shibinski – Princeton High School

• Carlo Alvarez – St. Xavier High School

• Chris Giordullo – Wellington Orthopedics

• Mike Gordon - St. Xavier High School

For a complete clinic schedule please visit www.carloalvarez.com/stxfootballclinic
or contact Carlo Alvarez at 761-7815, ext. 323 or calvarez@stxavier.org.

Maintaining Strength In-season

One of the questions I get asked the most from high school coaches and athletes leading up to the baseball season is, how do I keep our athletes strong and durable during the season? I always start by asking two questions. What did you do during the off-season and What are you doing in-season?

Your off-season training program is the foundation for all strength, conditioning, speed, agility, and flexibility gains during the year. You must develop a solid base that will allow your athletes to improve in all these components collectively as you progress through the off-season.

For the sake of time, let's focus on developing strength gains during this period. Start your off-season training from October to December by building a general fitness base, in which hypertrophy and strength are the main priorities. Divide this period into training cycles 0f 6-8 weeks with one (1) week rest periods during the end of each cycle. Focus on developing proper technique in each lift. Anatomical adaptation should be the focus during the first several weeks of the off-season phase. Let the tendons. ligaments and muscles adapt to the load before increasing weight in your routine. Follow the progressively overload principle to allow for continuous improvement of strength gains. Make sure you are consistent as you increase the load of the exercises and attack each workout with the greatest of intensity.

The Pre-season cycle should be from January through February, begin right after the holiday season and last till tryouts in March. This phase will allow the athlete to transfer off-season training to the playing field – developing functional speed, strength, and power. The objective of the pre-season is to acclimate the athlete to the rigors of a playing season through strength training, speed, agility, quickness, position-specific conditioning and concentrate on baseball-specific movements and drills.

The early season phase will get the athlete ready to proceed smoothly into the season. The priority of this phase is to make sure the athletes are recovering properly through adequate hydration and post –workout flexibility. The strength training aspect will take a back seat to fundamental skills and position-specific conditioning. But this does not mean that you should eliminate strength training from your routine. Just make sure that the volume and intensity of your workouts is reduced to allow for total recovery from practices or scrimmages.

The in-season phase from march to June, is designed to improve performance, reduce the risk of injury, and maintain sports-specific strength, speed, and power that has been developed throughout the off and pre-season. You must strength train 1-2 times a week to allow for off-season gains to be consistent throughout the season and playoffs. Make sure you keep an eye out for players that get banged up or are overused during the season. You will have to adjust programs for individual players that might need one on one attention. Pitchers will need specific programs for the shoulders, low back and lower body in between starts and games. Always remember that an injured body part does not mean an injured body. Adjustments can be made to the program to cover most, if not all injuries.