The Hidden Potential of Athletic Training

Today, more and more kids are put into the mindset that they are training simply to become better individually. It sort of goes with much of our culture and the "me-first" athletics that I have been talking about. However, in so doing this we have missed the most remarkable benefits of athletic training. It is difficult and for some kids impossible, to teach values like perseverance, discipline, respect, honesty, teamwork, creativity, and leadership in the classroom. It is much easier to teach these values on the field, in the weight room, on the track, or in the gym. Why don't we do this then?

I do not know. We are too self-centered, perhaps. Although ironically, the self-centered thing to do is to work well with others.

It's time that we change our attitudes toward athletic training. The cultural shift has to change from: "we are here to make your son a better athlete and player" to "we are here to make your son a better teammate, athlete, leader, and person." When we decide to change, the affects will be enormous. They will ripple into education, into the workforce, and into our national culture. Yet, until we do this, we should expect to see more of the same. We should not be surprised to see our children losing ground to Asian countries. We should not be surprised when they don't seem to have the same "drive for success" that the older generation had. We should not be surprised because it will be because of our arrogance that this situation will (and partly already has) come about.

For more go to www.thefortisacademy.com

Josh

Football Training: In the Stone Age at Best

Football training for many seems to mean lifting really big weights on a core set of lifts: squat, hang clean, bench press, push press, and dead-lift. More advanced programs will use power cleans and snatches. We have become so rooted in the idea that this is how you need to train. I am not entirely sure why we think this way. I think it may be because people think that football is full of big guys and so to become a big guy you need to lift really big weights and by doing so you'll be more effective on the field.

To an extent, this logic is sound. We want our football players to be able to move large amounts of weight (doing so quickly would also be good). But this isn't the be all end all of training for the sport. There are many other aspects to football which are just as important as the core lifts. The first being speed. Speed training should be the #1 focus of 9th and 10th grade football players. Why? At that age, the kids aren't going to bulk up - or at least 98% of them won't. There is little point in having them lift, lift, lift, when the returns will be minimal. Lifting at that age, don't get me wrong, is still extremely important. But speed training trumps! Also, at this age, kids can lack coordination, balance, and good stabilizers. Calisthenic training should be emphasized during these years. It's good if a young boy can do some push-ups before moving to the bench press. Why? The bench press requires chest and shoulder muscles to work together to move a bar from the chest upward to the ceiling. Great, but what about the little stabilizers in the abdominals or even in the upper body? I honestly don't know how well bench press works the upper body stabilizers - but I do know it doesn't do the job to the core, to overall stability of the body, that push-ups do. So if you can imagine an athlete who is unable to maintain a push-up but can do a lot of bench presses. We may run into scenario whereby an athlete has bulky upper body muscles, a weak core, and moderately strong legs. For this athlete, he cannot leverage his upper body strength very well. His weak core lowers his ability to use his legs effectively to maintain balance. He can use his big arms all he wants but without effective stabilizers through the core, his strength is minimized.

Now, even when we move forward to 11th and 12th grades, the emphasis on lifting the most weight can become a little out-of-whack. Some positions, like wide receiver, require speed. Without speed you won't be a great wide receiver - that makes sense right? A lineman, however, doesn't necessarily need the same speed. He needs brute strength, exerted in quick bursts. For him, it makes more sense to emphasize moving heavy weights. Then why in the world do we treat our wide receivers the same as our lineman!!!!!!

To summarize the two quick points I made about current football training methodology:

1) Speed is more important, especially at younger ages where muscle gains will be minimal. Stabilizers and core training through more holistic exercises like push-ups are more beneficial for young athletes.

2) Positions vary in their use of speed and strength and so training modules should reflect these differences (in the weight, on the track, diet and nutrition, etc)

For more information go to www.thefortisacademy.com.

"Me-First" versus the Team Mentality: Parent's have got the math wrong

The calculus many parents are making these days about their kids sports training is this:

Increased focus solely on my kid + individual training year round + lots of $$ spent on training = gain for my kid.

The problem is the math doesn't add up. Let's take the sport of hockey, where in Minnesota this problem has come to an extreme. Parents feel that they need to find the best options for their kids by paying the most money and getting the biggest promises. You'd think they'd understand that trainers or skating instructors are interested in their wallets more often than actually developing their kids.

There's one big reason why the "what's best for my kid" training culture has ironically hurt the same kids it supposedly helps. Unless we're talking about the 100 meter dash, sports like hockey, football, soccer, basketball, lacrossse, etc are all TEAM sports. You need to work with others in order to succeed. The "me-first" mentality has young hockey players envisioning themselves scoring hundreds of fancy goals. It doesn't have them thinking of creative give and go's, great 3-2 play passing moves, or other team-first plays. The problem is that the day dreaming of hundreds of fancy goals goes away pretty quick - basically, the second any real competitive game starts. Then suddenly, it's time to work together! Yet, our kids haven't been told to work together. They've been told "come work with me, I'll make YOU better so next season YOU can do better." Oh, and by the way, write me a check for a couple thousand dollars.

The season then comes along, the players enter into games, and instead of leveraging each other, they play as individuals - as we have taught them to! They foolishly think that 1 + 1 = 2. It doesn't 1 + 1 should equal at least 3 or 4. What I mean is that 2 players which leverage each others strengths and move together to create plays can be as good as 3 or 4 players who do not do so.

The team mentality is actually the one that will benefit our kids the most. For those that only care about how far their kid(s) get in hockey, or any sport, the team mentality is the ONLY one that will get them there. You can play for yourself, but that will only get you so far. There are too many good players that can work with teammates to score goals and they'll beat the kids that can't do that every single day.

If you'd like more information about Josh Levine and the Fortis Academy's vision, please go to www.thefortisacademy.com

Speed Kills: F = M * A

In today's culture we've become obsessed with being bigger. We have bigger food servings, bigger strip malls, bigger houses, and bigger bodies. And we've come to equate being bigger with being better. That's obviously not necessarily the case and in terms of athletic training, the assumption should be seriously questioned.

Let's suppose we are training for a contact sport like football or hockey. In both sports, the amount of force I can exert is important. Well, how do we measure force? Force = Mass * Acceleration. It is true that by increasing our mass we will increase the amount of force (cautionary note: that only works if the mass gain does not negatively affect our acceleration gains). Acceleration can also increase force.

Not only does acceleration increase force, but it also allows for athletic moves in a game. If you're too slow, you can't hit very well in football or hockey. There is also a sports-specific gain that comes with acceleration. For every .1 seconds added onto the 40 yard dash, we might be able to state (this is just an example) that a linebacker will make 10% more tackles. So in addition to increased force, more hits will also be made.

We cannot say this for mass! Mass gains may increase force if not offset by acceleration losses (a good program increases both at the same time). Mass gains may also increase the amount of tackles an athlete can make once the opportunity to make the tackle is presented. That is, mass gains don't get the athlete from point A (starting) to point B (point of tackle). Mass gains, in this sense, seem secondary to acceleration gains.

For young athletes this is especially true since they do not have the testosterone to gain much mass. But I'll write more about that later!

Please post comments below!

Fortis Summer Camps

The Fortis Academy will be offering a wide range of athletic training and leadership development camps this summer. If you're interested in attending this camps, please go to www.thefortisacademy.com/campinformation.html for more info.

We don't just train the physical aspect of the athlete, we also train the emotional and mental. We do this because we firmly believe that through athletic training, athletes can learn life lessons that will help them be successful throughout their lives.

Train Hard. Eat Well. Live Fortis!