Training Methods

FLEXBANDS

Flexbands are the original coninuos loop bands used by professional baseball, football and basketball teams as well as powerlifters.  They can also be found at most major colleges and universities across the country.  Flexbands are used in a variety of settings for strength training and rehabilitation.  The bands provide variable isotonic exercise, meaning that pressure changes throughout the range of motion.  The restistance increases as the athletes joint angles improve, making this a safe and effective alternative training method.

CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING

Train the most important muscle: THE HEART!

Athletes: The key is training the right type of energy system! Would you do a series of sprints if you were training for a marathon, or would you run twenty miles if you were training to increase your endurance to play basketball?

Different sports require different energy systems for cardiovascular and muscle endurance. Using the correct Work: Rest ratio is crucial when trying to improve endurance specific to a certain sport. The athletes rest period between sets and the duration and intensity of their exercise must be monitored closely in order to achieve cardiovascular endurance specific to their sport.

Overall Fitness: Not only will improving cardiovascular endurance strengthen your heart, it will also burn fat! Melting fat away is what cardiovascular training does. By raising your heart rate and core temperature in your body for a prolonged period of time, calories are burned and fat is melted away.

CORE TRAINING

Developing the Abdominals, Obliques, and Low Back Muscle in an athlete is the key to power and balance.

There are various exercises that can be used to strengthen the core of an athlete. This is a heavy focus of every program. Without a strong core how can anything else be built upon?

INJURY PREVENTION

Injuries are a part of sport! How you prevent them and rehabilitate them are up to you! Let us help you.

Prevention: The athletic development process alone can be considered a means of injury prevention since the athlete is simulating direction movements that relate to ones that will be performed on the field/court. Whether it be running, jumping, sliding, starting, stopping, cutting, pushing, pulling, what ever the action may be, muscles are being trained to sustain the stress that may be placed on their body while playing a sport.

There are certain muscle groups that are trained to prevent some of the more common injuries, for example:

• ACL Tears � Focus is placed on developing the strength of the
  hamstring and muscles surrounding the knee.

• Rotator Cuff � External and Internal Rotation of the shoulder is
  done to strengthen the muscles of the rotator cuff. The use of tubes and bands allow for various resistances to be placed upon the muscles.

PERIODIZATION TRAINING

Effective program design involves the use of periodization, which is the varying or cycling of training specificity, intensity, and volume to achieve peak levels of conditioning. Planned variations of the program design variables associated with exercise help athletes avoid staleness and overtraining while encouraging continuous adaptations to progressively more demanding training stimuli. These scheduled modifications apply to all types of training, although they are frequently associated with resistive training programs.

Preparatory Period (off-season)
This initial period is usually the longest and occurs during the time of year when there are no competitions and only a limited number of sport-specific skill practices or game strategy sessions. The major emphasis of this period is establishing a base level of conditioning to increase the athlete�s tolerance for more intense training. Conditioning activities begin at a relatively low intensities and high volumes: long, slow distance running or swimming, low-intensity plyometrics, and high repetition resistance training with light to moderate resistances. As the preparatory phase unfolds, cycles are designed to gradually increase resistance training loads and sport-conditioning intensity, decrease training volume, and give more attention to sport technique training.

Hypertrophy/Endurance
-Occurs during the early stages of the preparatory period. Training begins at a low intensity with very high volume. The goals of this phase are to increase lean body mass and develop an endurance base for more intense training in later phases and periods. Initially, the sport-conditioning activities are not specific to the athletic event, however, as the period continues the training activities become more specific to the sport.

Basic Strength
-Aims to increase the strength of the muscles essential to the primary sport movements. The resistance training program becomes more specific to the sport and involves heavier loads for fewer repetitions than the hypertrophy phase.

PLYOMETRICS

Developing Explosiveness to your First Step or Putting Inches on to Your Jumping Ability important for your sport?

If you answered yes, then plyometrics is the answer.

What is plyometrics? The body is anatomically built up of two main types of muscle fibers; Slow Twitch (Type 1) and Fast Twitch (Type 2). For explosiveness we focus on training just the Fast Twitch. Through various training techniques called plyometrics, which consist of performing high intensity exercises over a short period of time (box jumps, squat jumps, bounding, depth jumps, etc.) we are able to develop these muscle fibers so explosiveness can be achieved.

SPEED, AGILITY, AND QUICKNESS

The majority of sports today are won within the distance of 20 yards.

Think about it: whether your sport requires you to beat your opponent to a ball, base, or spot on the field/court, everything relies on how fast you can get there while remaining in a functional position.

There are various means of training techniques to help improve these performance related qualities of physical fitness. For example; over-speed and resisted speed training, agility ladders, change of direction drills, agility hurdles and much more. This type of training will focus on developing the athletes Type 2 muscle fibers, also known as the Fast Twitch Muscles, while forcing them to maintain a functional position (aka. agility).

WEIGHT TRAINING

Improve Body Composition, Strength, and Bone Density.

Beginners: Technique is the main focus for an athlete or the individual training for fitness. This is so injury is prevented and the proper muscle group is being trained when performing the exercises. Weight will be moderate and repetitions will be high. This will allow the athlete/individual to learn the proper form/technique, develop bone density, and be safe in the weight room at all times.

Advanced: Beginners will get to this point in a short period of time where programs will be developed for the athlete/individual depending on what part of the season they are in (pre, in, post, or off) or what their goals are at the present time (muscular endurance or strength gain). Exercises will be properly taught and monitored, along with the weight and repetitions of the exercises.

BALANCE TRAINING

Important? Well if you are competing and off balance to the left, how can you be strong to the right?

Balance training will begin with strengthening the core muscles in the body (abs, obliques, and low back muscles). From there, the balance will be improved by specific strength training techniques and dynamic exercises. These specific exercises will teach the athlete to control their bodies while performing certain sport specific movements.