Velocity Sports Performance in Dublin would like to present the Football Combine Warm Up Camp. The Football Combine is just around the corner and we want insure you are ready for the big day.The camp begins on Jan 11 but you are welcome to join at any time.

Get Prepared for the Following Combine Test

1. 40 Yard Dash
2. Vertical Jump
3. Broad Jump
4. Three Cone Shuffle
5. Pro Agility
6. Bench Press – Under Class Men 135 lb – Upper Class Men 185 ibs

To sign up for the Combine warm up camp call (925) 833-0100

Cost: $100 Register online and pay online

• No Rain
• No Wind
• No Mud
• No Excuses

Test Administered

1. 40 Yard Dash
2. Vertical Jump
3. Broad Jump
4. Three Cone Shuffle
5. Pro Agility
6. Bench Press – Under Class Men 135 lb – Upper Class Men 185 ibs

• There are an estimated 100,000 ACL tears a year
• 80% of these are non-contact injuries
• The majority of those who tear their ACL’s are female
• Almost all tears occur while playing sports

You have probably all heard of or known someone who has recently torn his or her ACL. This injury has become more prevalent in the last few years and has taken many athletes, young and old, out of sport for at least six months. In my college career I was able to count the number of ACL tears on two hands from the men’s and women’s soccer teams alone. These injuries required intensive surgery and rehabilitation that took the athlete out for an entire season.

What is the ACL?

The ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) is a ligament connecting the femur to the tibia that works together with the PCL, MCL, and LCL to stabilize the knee. More specifically, the ACL controls pivoting and sliding movements of the knee, aiding the quadriceps and hamstrings in stabilization of the joint. When the ACL is torn, the rest of the knee is compromised, causing more falls and further injury due to internal collapsing.

How is it torn?

The major factors for ACL tears combine the instantaneous loss of motor control while landing with the knees and hips straight. For example, while an athlete cuts inside, the knee collapses due to a valgus force (forcing the knee inward) while the foot and tibia point straight, causing the ACL to stretch beyond its limit and tear(Picture 1A). The loss of control is usually contributed to internal rotation of the hips, muscle imbalances in the quad and hamstrings, and/or failure to activate knee flexors, leading to excessive stress on the knee ligaments.

The ACL is often torn when an athlete plants and tries to turn at a 180 degree angle. The foot often gets caught in the turf, but the knee and hip still turn at that angle. This stretches the ACL to a point past its limit and results in the athlete hearing a “pop” in which they simultaneously lost stability.

Good News

In the last few years there have been a few groups who have taken on research in order to find a preventative program to avoid this injury. One research group from the Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute found that girls age 14-17 involved in a preventative program were 74% less likely to tear their ACL. Although many of these prevention programs differ slightly, they all include neuromuscular training consisting of plyometrics, balance, and technique training. The main focus of these programs is to alter neuromuscular risk factors so that the knee joint is more stable and the musculature surrounding the knee can preactivate and activate correctly in order to protect the ACL.

• Velocity is looking to implement a program like this in the future

A

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had parents and athletes ask me “is your training sport specific?” and about 100% of the time they have no idea what that actually means. I’ve seen so many coaches use these so called “sport specific training” methods in an effort to make themselves look more cutting edge when the reality is they are doing more harm than good. I decided it was time to write an article on the subject to clear the air, to explain why its not what most athletes need and to inform on what truly translates to performance on the field.

What is Sport Specific Training?

Like most good ideas, the concept is simple; take movements that occur in your sport and mimic them in the weight room to build strength in that movement pattern. Theoretically this should have a direct translation to the field. This idea was all the rage in 1990′s and suddenly performance coaches that should have known better were jumping on the bandwagon. Sprinters were doing high knees with resistance bands to mimic the high knee punch; soccer players were kicking balls with ankle weights; running backs were doing ladder drills with bands around their ankles; Pitchers were doing their throwing motion with a band around their wrist attached to a wall. The examples are endless. Yet in most cases performance was decreasing, and the smart coaches who took those crazy exercises out of their programs and focused on building up the compound lifts (squat, deadlift, olympic lifts, etc.) saw no loss in performance and in most cases improved performance.

Why sports specific training is destroying your performance

First of all, most athletes already get enough sports specific training… its called practice and playing the sport itself! Turns out these fancy, gimmicky, sports specific training exercises are not nearly as effective as playing the sport itself! Since most athletes are already performing these movement patterns multiple times a week as it is, incorporating those exercises into their routine only accumulates fatigue by burning out their nervous system from overtraining the same pattern. This diminishes the quality of their practices because it prevents them from being able to practice or play at their peak.

B

Another important factor is that those exercises completely alter the mechanics and physics of how your body applies force. In most sports athletes have to utilize what is called ground reaction force. This concept is derived from newtons third law; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example a sprinter moves forward by driving back into the ground and the ground reaction force that is returned is what makes him go forward. So the more force he can put into the ground, the more is returned and the more ground he covers with each step. So coaches who fell for the sports specific nonsense are making their sprinters do high knees with bands when the truth is that the high knee punch is really a result of the massive forces they are applying to the ground! Ground reaction force is also huge for throwing athletes. Can a pitcher throw a 100 mph fastball while sitting down? No way! He has to transfer force that he puts into the ground back through his muscles through his feet, hips, core, shoulder into the ball. These so called sports specific exercises are not nearly as effective at training athletes to create ground reaction force and transfer that force which is the common denominator of pretty much all athletic movement. Additionally, these exercises use a very small percentage of a normal, healthy, fully functional athletes work capacity. They aren’t loaded enough to promote any significant strength gains which is the foundation of all movement.

The Solution

Same thing athletes have been doing forever, get strong! Stick to the basics. Squats, deadlifts and olympic lifts requires the athlete to produce massive amounts of force into the ground and trains athletes to transfer force through multiple muscle groups. Using multiple muscle groups and being able to use heavy loads gives you the ability to work at a much greater percentage of your total work capacity. This elicits much greater neural and muscular adaptions. In other words, your muscles get stronger and contract faster; which translates to the ability to produce greater force and produce it rapidly which is required in all athletic movement!

I was at a National Strength and Conditioning Association Clinic last weekend and one of the speakers cited a study that showed that golfers that had the longest drives also had the highest vertical jumps. Seems about as far from sports specific as you can get, right? But they know how to express power and that translates to power in their sport. The point of sharing that is to illustrate that playing your sport makes what you do in the gym sport specific.

Whos working harder?

A. The Lifter
B. The guy with bands

If you chose B, smack yourself in the head and re-read this article.

In closing, here are the take home messages I want to leave you with:

There is no replacement for strength.
There is no big secret, there is no short cut, the best thing you can do is the same thing athletes have been doing forever; lift heavy and play your sport
Train to develop maximal strength and power the old fashion way, big compound movements where you can really load up the plates (squat, deadlift, olympic lifts)
Playing your sport makes your strength training sports specific!

Benefits of Stretching

Stretching has many benefits to the enhancement of your sport performance. First of all, it improves your flexibility. This may sound like an obvious result of stretching, but many people underestimate the importance of improving the flexibility of your muscles and joints. This can actually greatly reduce the chances of injury when performing vigorous activities that put major strain on the body.

In addition, flexibility can improve your physical ability to perform a specific activity. For example, a sprinter with greater flexibility will be able to increase their stride length if their muscles and joints are capable of stretching farther. Combining this techniques with others can result in a much greater ability to outperform other athletes at the same skill level.

Stretching all the muscles and joints in the body is important. Even though certain sports may require you to use a specific part of your body more than any other, you would still benefit by stretching all the muscles to give your body an overall flexibility.

Proper Stretching is Important

It is not enough to simply stretch a particular muscle for one or two seconds, once a week. In order to see any results from stretching, it must be done properly. First of all, you should stretch your muscles after they have been warmed up after a little bit of activity. Stretching muscles that have been sedentary can increase injury simply from the act of stretching itself.

Secondly, when you are stretching, you should hold the position for at least ten seconds, up to 30 if you can. Holding it for less than 10 seconds will not result in a great amount of flexibility. In addition, you should not be bouncing during the stretch. You must be able to hold the position without moving to maintain the pull and stretch of the muscle. Make sure you do not over-stretch. Eventually, you will be able to reach a certain mark by practicing on a regular basis.

If you find that you need some assistance, you can use a rolled towel. For example, when you are trying to reach your toes, but find yourself coming up short, wrap a rolled up towel around the bottom of your foot, and pull yourself into the stretch by holding the ends of the towel with both hands.

There is no doubt that warming up and improving the flexibility of your muscles and joints can greatly improve your sports performance. By performing these stretches faithfully and ritually, you will be able to see an improvement in your flexibility and performance in a matter of weeks.

Playing sports requires a series of single leg explosions that require leg power and a strong core that can transfer force onward and upward. We show you the Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat to improve leg power and core musculature.

When the muscles surrounding the hips are tight and shortened, particularly the hip flexors, they pull the pelvis forward into a position called anterior pelvic tilt. In this position the ischial tuberosity, the point where the hamstrings attach to the pelvis, is raised; this pulls the hamstring into a constant state of tension like a stretched out rubber band ready to snap. In this state the hamstring is much more susceptible to tear.

This tilted position of the pelvis is common in people who are seated most of the day because the hips are constantly shortened. Since most of the athletes I work with are also students they spend a great deal of their day seated which makes hip flexibility work all the more important.

Stretching your hamstrings is not going to solve the problem if your hips continue to create tension in the hamstrings by pulling your pelvis forward. So instead of constantly stretching the hamstrings, most athletes should focus more on lengthening the muscles surrounding the hip. This includes the hip flexors, glutes, hip rotators and hip adductors. Here are some of my favorite stretches to target these muscles:

By focusing on keeping your hips loose, you will not only save your hamstrings but also improve athletic performance! Almost ever movement in sports requires you to fully extend your hips. For example if you can’t fully extend your hips then your stride length will be cut short when you’re sprinting. Running, jumping, making a cut, making a tackle, winding up to kick a ball all require full extension of the hip for optimal performance. You won’t believe how often I’ve had athletes perform a hip stretch and then instantly add an inch or more to their vertical! So don’t wait until you’ve torn a hamstring to stretch those hips. Increase your athletic performance and save those hamstrings!

Another factor that could lead to hamstring injury is weakness of the hamstring muscles. In my next article I will discuss strengthening the hamstring to prevent injury and improve performance.

The Core Volleyball Staff would like to thank all the players and parents that played for Core last year, and welcome you back for the 2010 Club Season. We would also like to welcome any players/parents new to Core Volleyball Club. At Core we undestand that tryouts are a tough and stressful time. We are working with all the clubs in our area to arrange tryout times that do not conflict. This year Core VBC is offering two days of tryouts 11/5 (we would like everyone to attend the first day), 11/6 ( 2nd day for Power League- Makeups/Call Backs) . Below are the teams being offered and the tryout times for Core VBC.

Registration is now OPEN! – Click here to Register

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2012 Power League Tryouts

The Core Volleyball Staff would like to thank all the players and parents that played for Core last year, and welcome you back for the 2010 Club Season. We would also like to welcome any players/parents new to Core Volleyball Club. At Core we undestand that tryouts are a tough and stressful time. We are working with all the clubs in our area to arrange tryout times that do not conflict. This year Core VBC is offering two days of tryouts 11/5 (we would like everyone to attend the first day), 11/6 ( 2nd day for Power League- Makeups/Call Backs) . Below are the teams being offered and the tryout times for Core VBC.

Registration is now OPEN! – Click here to Register