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Running fast and jumping high aren't just about how much strength you have in your legs. New research has shown that your ability to fully contract your core muscles and then rapidly relax them is just as important.

There are numerous benefits to developing the right strength qualities for a soccer player; Increased Speed Reduce Risk of Knee and Other Injuries Greater Movement Efficiency to Increase Stamina

Non-contact knee injuries are a common and potentially devastating injury in soccer players, and even more common in females.  Research and experience have shown that we can use simple exercises to help prevent them. To better understand how to prevent these injuries, first understand why they happen.

In light of the recent weight room accident that occurred at USC involving running back Stafon Johnson I have had many conversations with parents, athletes, coaches and other strength and conditioning professionals as to what actually happened, how it could have been prevented, who’s to blame, and why did it happen in the first place.  The answer is that unless you were there you don’t know all the circumstances surrounding the accident and any attempt to explain what happened or if anyone is to blame is going to be purely speculation.  As a strength and conditioning professional I was relieved to hear that this young man is going to make a full recovery and live to play his chosen sport again.

Last month’s article outlined the three keys to nutritional success: quality fuels, proper timing, and maintaining consistency. While these keys are essential to creating a healthy diet and routine, trying to accomplish them all at once will become overwhelming. A great start to developing a healthy nutrition plan is to start with the most important meal of the day: breakfast.

Along with another of our Velocity Sports Performance coaches, I spent a few weeks recently as the Performance Coach for the US Womens National Team.  As we evaluated the players, and talked with them about their training, one of the glaring needs was increased strength and stability on a single leg.  This is something we also see in younger developing players.  The good news, is that any player can improve it.

This month’s athlete of the month is Developmental 2 athlete, Justine Cathey. She was nominated by the coaches here at Velocity Sports Performance, Irvine for her dedication, hard work, determination, and positive attitude toward training. Any coach who has had Justine knows they can expect 100% effort every training session. She is very goal oriented and will stop at nothing to get better. Justine has been playing soccer for ten years now and has decided to come to Velocity with the goal of helping her high school soccer team win another championship this year.  

This month’s athlete of the month is Developmental 2 athlete, Zach Cahill. He was nominated by the coaches here at Velocity Sports Performance, Irvine for his dedication, hard work, determination, and attitude toward training.   Zach Cahill plays both rugby and lacrosse. Zach plays long pole midi in lacrosse and outside center for rugby. Zach biggest accomplishments were lettering as a sophomore in lacrosse and earned the most improved player of the year for his U-16 rugby team. Zach has been training with Velocity since July 22, 2008 and since then has seen dramatic improvements in his overall speed, vertical jump, strength and endurance. “I can run longer and faster, jump higher, and my ability to explode off the line is dramatically improved.  

At Velocity Sports Performance, our experiences working with players from MLS, NCAA Schools , and the US National Team have shown us that soccer players can improve speed & agility with consistent use of simple drills. Skipping isn’t one of the first things you see when you watch a soccer game.  Yet, we highly recommend all kinds of skipping for soccer players.  So if training is supposed to improve your performance, why do it?  Doesn’t training need to be specific to soccer?

Last month’s article covered how much to eat, by calculating basal metabolism rate (BMR) and adjusting caloric intake based on activity level. Understanding how much to eat is the first step to healthy nutrition, but it is only one part of developing healthy eating habits. This article will introduce the three keys to nutritional success: quality fuels, proper timing, and maintaining consistency.

The deadlift is a total body exercise used primarily to strengthen the lower body, but more specifically the posterior chain. There are a lot of debates as to whether the sumo (wide stance) or conventional (close stance) style of deadlift is better for athletes.

When a competitive sports season rolls around, athletes put a lot of physical and emotional energy into it.  Practices and competitions can take a toll on time, energy and the body.  Because of this, many athletes are tempted to stop training.    Our professional players across all sports have definitely learned they have to change what they do.  They can’t follow their same off-season program.  So what do they do?   First they have to realize why training matters.    Most people assume that by playing and practicing you’ll maintain strength, speed and power.  However, science and experience have proven it false.  Here are a few of the things an athlete can expect with de-training. POWER (sprinting speed, vertical jump, hitting power) drops 13% - 15% in as little as 4 weeks STRENGTH decreases by 10% in 4 weeks and up to 28% in eight weeks FLEXIBILITY decreases   A research study entitled in 2007 provided a clear scientific picture of detraining in a season.  “DETRAINING AND TAPERING ADAPTATION ON STRENGTH AND POWER PERFORMANCE” was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Aug. 2007 and addresses the question of whether it is worth maintaining training versus stopping altogether and participating in a sport.  In the study, speed and strength training was conducted for 16 weeks before the experimental detraining (DTR) or maintenance (MT) work.  The DTR group stopped additional exercise; the other group, MT, performed low volume, high intensity work periodically while both groups participated in their given sport.  Following 4 weeks of this modification, DTR lost some strength but had over a 15% decrease in muscle power (slower running speed and lower vertical jump), while  MT (the group that continued with their performance training) showed a small increase in strength and maintained power (maintenance of performance gains).   This has also been demonstrated specifically in young athletes.  Sports scientists (Faigenbaum, et. al. 1996) measured the effects of detraining following an eight week strength training program in boys and girls ages seven to twelve years. Eight weeks of detraining resulted in a statistically significant loss of upper body (19.3%) and lower body (28.1%) strength.  You are at a disadvantage if you stop training during season.   In another study (Val Schneider, et. al. 1998) scientists investigated detraining effects in 28 college football players during a 16 week competitive season. Players were tested before and just after the end of the season. Post-test data indicated significant decreases in upper body strength, flexibility, lower body power, and agility.    Here is the message.  If you are not training, you’ll be slower, weaker and less flexible! Years of research and experience have taught us that athletes are best served by making several key changes to get the best results.  First they add more recovery.  Stretching, foam rolling, hip mobility, injury prehab/rehab, and more.  Then they make sure they cut the volume.  That just means fewer reps in a session and less training sessions every week. They use high intensity movements and lifting to stimulate their neuromuscular system.   Training 1 to 2 weeks, with low volume high intensity, lifting and speed/agility, coupled with increased recovery will help athletes be the best when the playoffs roll around.

The mier mention of the word, Chin Up, is enough to make even the toughest of athletes cringe.  Along with the cringe normally comes one or more of the following, eye rolling, loud sighing, droopy heads, a nervous laugh and my personal favorite “your joking right?”  There is probably not one exercise that is hated as much as chin-ups but is also one of the best exercises you can do.  Athletes hate chin-ups for one reason and one reason only.  There hard to do.  Especially if you do them correctly and by that I mean starting with your hands on the bar and your arms completely straight so that you start from a dead hang.  Upon completing the pulling phase of the lift the chin should be above the bar and one rep is complete when you lower yourself back down to the dead hang position.  Sorry, but moving your chin from an inch below the bar to just above the bar and back to an inch below is not a chin-up.

Jumping higher and running faster. Not too many athletes would turn down the opportunity to improve these fundamental athletic qualities. We all know what this leads to: scoring goals, running in touchdowns, fast breaks, slam dunks, defensive steals, hard driven spikes, stolen bases, and crowd pleasing blocks, among many other things. These are some memorable highlights along the path that leads to winning. But before we get to winning, we need to take a step back and enter the foundation in which it all starts: performance training.

At Velocity Sports Performance we pride ourselves in educating athletes on how to improve their overall athletic performance and reach their athletic potential. A lot of our program is based on the science of sports performance. We teach athletes about the biomechanics of running technique, the exercise physiology of conditioning, and also the psychology of thriving under pressure. All of these sciences are implemented in the drills, weightlifting and conditioning that is the foundation of our program. This article is going to address another scientific aspect of sports performance – nutrition.

One of the key ingredients for mental toughness is being able to get calm while under pressure. Are you able to do this as often as you like? Are you able to drop into “that place” where everything clicks? Do you have a mental training program?

We want to congratulate the athletes that prepared for the 2009 NFL Draft with Velocity Sports Performance – Irvine.  Executive Sports Performance Director Ken Vick lead the coaching staff in preparing top college athletes from around the nation  for the NFL Scouting Combine and their college pro days.

Velocity Sports Performance – Irvine prepared some of this year’s top NFL Draft picks including 5 that were selected in the 1st Round. 

Improve Your First Step Quickness Increase Lateral Speed Improve Top Speed Reduce the Likelihood of Injury Starts November 2nd. Don't Miss Out, Spaces are LIMITED!

Veterans Day - Day after Thanksgiving - Christmas Break    Learn the techniques used by Pro & Olympic athletes to increase your speed & agility.  Improve your performance in any sport by increasing your: First Step Quickness Top End Speed Explosive Power Flexibility Coordination Injury Prevention

“Sprinting success is often measured in split-seconds. Save as many of these split-seconds as you can on the start, and you’ll be in pretty good shape at the finish,” says Michael Stevenson, Assistant Track Coach at Western Illinois University (12). Although he was referring to the track start out of the blocks, measuring speed has become even more important in many other sports. Namely, the NFL Scouting Combine has put the 40-yard dash on the map. From this, many Nike SPARQ High-School Combines have arisen. This could mean a number of things, ranging from millions of dollars in signing bonuses to a NCAA Division I scholarship. Coaches want speed, so speed is what they get.

Women are more prone than their male counterparts to specific injuries — namely knee injuries like tears of the ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament. A prevention program at the University of Cincinnati is aiming to curb these injuries in women.

Justin Tuck, defensive end for the reigning super bowl champ New York giants, discusses his training at the Mahwah, NJ Velocity Sports Performance.

The Va. Beach native who caught that incredible, game winning Super Bowl pass, was in Va. Beach Monday to help his mentor, Cadillac Harris, teach kids on the football field at the Velocity Sports Performance camp. 

Derrin Horton takes an in-depth look a the intense preparation NFL prospects go through to prepare for the combine.  These NFL prospects prepare in Velocity Sports Performance centers throughout the country with over 70 prospects training for the 2008 combine. 

Velocity Sports Performance athlete and Michigan QB Chad Henne performs at the 2008 combine featuring an impressive effort in the passing drills. 

Velocity Sports Performance athlete and Michigan QB Chad Henne stops by to chat with Scott Hanson about his NFL combine experience. 

Velocity Sports Performance athlete and Notre Dame DT Trevor Laws demonstrates his strength and agility at the 2008 combine.