I’ve been yapping a ton about injury prevention for our young athletes and just the  general youth population. To me, one thing that still gets ignored by many that can help this is the value of in season strength training. Here are the 3 reasons people try to give and my counter to them.
 
The first argument I hear against this is that they should focus on getting stronger in the off season only.
 
The most glaring issue with that statement is, most of these athletes don’t have an off-season these days, so how do you expect them to only get stronger in the off season? The vacant two weeks around holidays that they could probably use to recover and not get hurt and spend time with family? That’s a negatory friend.
 
The next thing I hear is usually what follows above, I don’t want my athletes hurt or burnt out.
 
As I’ve stated before, barring catastrophic injuries, which is not something you can really prepare for, in season training will have the exact result you seek in terms of not getting hurt. Assuming you use half a brain with the programming, athletes will likely be able to find more energy later in the season than if they did in season training than not. Also, not hammering athletes into the ground with mindless conditioning would be a way to prevent that, as many sport coaches like to do.
 
The last thing I hear it, there’s no time to do an in season lift.
 
B AND S to that. My teams do a 45 minute in season lift after practice and about 90% of them are better for it every time. It shakes out some of the soreness, maintains their mobility and keeps their strength, sometimes even makes them stronger during the year. Tell me where the downside on that is.
 
To very little surprise for most, the downside to getting in an in season lift is very little when some thought is put into it. Hope everyone found this at least informative and helped dispel some of the silly ideas out there. Have a good rest of the week friends!

I want to clarify something I said some time ago about something being better than nothing. It is still true, something will always be better than nothing, especially when it comes to exercise and movement. What I’m hoping to move more people to is from something, to something slightly better. My job as a coach is to find an appropriate challenge for my athletes and clients. That is what I am hoping for more people to do.

It’s a sliding scale really. If we are talking about a very sedentary person that is super detrained (0), then getting from 0 out of 10, to somewhere between 1 and 3 is a perfect start. I think a ton of people live in this range which is OK if they can manage to stay with it. It is human to want to challenge yourself, if for nothing else, to prevent the lack of boredom.

So let’s say someone finds a low barrier form of exercise like walking and they get to the ‘3’ I referenced earlier. Should they themselves stuck on the proverbial hamster wheel, they may think about what’s next? Do they start to jog? Do they start doing a fitness class? Maybe look up a random weight workout on YouTube? Whatever it is, I’m my new hope is for more people find how to move to that 4-6 range without getting too frustrated. The reason is because most of the activities that will get someone into this 4-6 range are going to have either a community or a coach, sometimes both. Those two things right there will help them find the appropriate challenges for themselves for their entire lives, should they choose so. Even if it’s temporary and just want to go back to the walking, they now know it’s there. Also, coaches and communities tend to help folks to stick with it for the long haul.
 
My point is, I want more folks go from 0 to 1 AND from that 3 to a 4. It will help them sustain their fitness regimes for a longer period of time. IF you are one of those people looking to go from a proverbial 3 to a 4, please reach out to myself or your friendly neighborhood coach to get help moving to your '4'. Thanks for reading today friends, have a fun Thursday and great weekend!

Last week many of us had a laugh and some fun with this post from my good friend Michael Anderson, who you should all be following to have a laugh and cut through some BS. Where was I? Right, boot camping teams into the ground. Before I go further, I am not disrespecting the military, any other their instructors or the like nor have I served so I’m not writing this from that perspective. I’m writing this from a thoughtful coach’s perspective that both works with his team in the off-season and coaches them through their season. Also, let’s all agree that comparing any athletics to battle and/or serving is just plain foolish.

The problem with this idea, is the coach is trying to put on a show for the public with their team and doing so at the detriment of said team and their S&C staff. The result that some well-intended coaches may hope for, when bringing in such a person, is likely some sort of team building or team bonding.
 
There are a few ways I’d prefer my team to bond than running them into the ground and having them screamed at (neither of which makes someone tough so if you’re in that school of thought, you know where the door is).
 
Have competition of sorts within the team- When I say this, I don’t mean play another game of the sport your coaching, I mean other things, like capture the flag or dodgeball. There’s plenty of more creative things like that, use your imagination. Have a reward for the winning team something like food or maybe a day off? Use those brain cells, it’ll be more productive.
 
Problem solving activities- I’m a fan of doing this for the entire team together and then splitting it up into groups. The simplest thing that comes to mind for me is some sort of scavenger hunt, anything that makes them think through the problem together, then act. I've seen things like human knot have a good result too.
 
OK, let’s address the idea of “mental toughness” that some coaches could be after when they do this stunt, for lack of a better term. There is no amount of screaming, there is no high intensity workout that is going to prepare an athlete for the pressure situations coaches likely desire this “mental toughness” in. Mimicking it in some practice scenarios is possible, it’ll never do it justice though. The only way to get them use to it, is to get them in it, in a game, and prepare them for it the best you can otherwise.
 
In conclusion, the boot camp thing is over done and probably yields something positive maybe once out of 10000. Does that make it worth, the time, effort, pain and suffering it takes to do this? Not even a snowball's chance. There's many ways to achieve the desired results, use that cranium and watch what happens. Thanks for reading today friends, have a good one.