Scorpions and Low Back Injuries

Here are Prone scorpions.....

Here are Supine Scorpions.....

This last one is some other low back exercises I would stay away from other than the knee hugs at the beginning.....



Avoid low back rotation, but don't confuse this with hip internal and external rotation. I still feel too many coaches are doing these exercises and they don't know why. GET RID OF THEM!

Youth Athletic Development and Why the USA is Wrong

The past two weekends the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) certified me as a Level 1 Golf Fitness Instructor and a Level 2 Junior Coach. Titleist has been paving the way in America for developing “cutting edge” techniques to improve the golf swing, movement patterns, and a junior developmental program that is second to none in the USA. In no way am I trying to become a golf fitness trainer, but TPI’s program can be aimed at almost any rotary sport (volleyball, baseball, softball, lax, hockey, soccer, etc). I quickly learned that being able to help someone to rotate his or her body in a sequential order is no easy task and requires a lot of attention to detail.

Even though both weekends were packed full of an unreal amount of useful information that I have already implemented into my program, the second weekend that discussed training junior’s, ages 5-12, is what really caught my attention.

I’ve discussed before in my blog about how early specialization in sports is killing kids athleticism, and TPI pretty much proved it. In the day and age where club soccer, volleyball, lax, AAU basketball teams, and year long baseball teams are dominating American youth sports, TPI says “You’re 100% wrong.” Do kids need to play these sports? Absolutely! Have them play as many of them in a year as you can! However, if you are limiting them to one or even two sports at an early age, you're the reason why they don't succeed in the long term.

We need more people to adopt a Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) approach that takes them 10-20 years to develop a mastery of a sport. Hmmmm this sort of sounds like school.....

THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS! You have 18 years to develop these kids as athletes. No 6 week program that guarantees adding 6 inches to the vertical and taking .2 off the 40 yard dash matters! At a young age have them play and develop multiple skills so when they actually have the physical literacy to play team sports at a competent level, they EXCEL!

In my previous post I talked about the 10 year/10,000 hour rule. This goes hand in hand with LTAD. Just because a 12 year old throws fast now, doesn't mean if you make him throw everyday he will throw 95 mph for the rest of his life. It usually means the opposite. It takes YEARS AND YEARS to develop mastery of a skill/sport. Yet parents think their 7 year old, who some how already knows they want to play baseball in college, is ready for intense training. Meanwhile the kid is spinning around like a top in the outfield waiting for a ball to be hit to him.

If you look at smaller countries that excel athletically such as Australia (20 million people), New Zealand (4 million people), Norway (under 5 million), Austria (8 million), and Canada (35 million), they have LTAD programs that consistently have athletes excel in professional sports and the Olympics. They understand the overall picture. The USA (300 million) hopes has such a large selection, we hope for the Tiger’s, Phelp’s, Jordan’s, etc to just sprout up and save the day. Just imagine how dominant we might be with a great program in place, but the fact we do have some many people, we think our superior genetics is what puts us over the top, and oh how wrong we are.

We need to drop the club sports that play all year round and go back to playing multiple sports, especially for kids under the age of 12!

One last question for parents and athletes who think I might be wrong. Do you want to peak at age 12 or in college and beyond?

For more info on LTAD check out LTAD.ca to learn from the Godfather, Ivan Balyi and/or check our TPI’s 20 minute presentation here….. http://mytpijpc.com/the-program. Click on the parent presentation.

Lateral Movement Drill

Sorry it's been so long everyone! Here's a great drill I use for teaching lateral movement. Give this a try. You get a lot of good work here working on the shuffle. Stay low and get a good push off the back leg. Make sure you stick the landing and don't make it sloppy. If it looks right, chance are you're doing it right with this exercise. Very self explanatory but can really help you improve multiple aspects of movement.

ps. sorry its so small we held the camera the wrong way..... click on the youtube link to see it a little better. but you'll get the point and i'll get better at make videos

Pre New Years Resolution

Alwyn Cosgrove recently sent his newsletter out talking about how Oct. 1st is the start of the final quarter of the year. Alwyn is an incredibly respected strength coach, trainer, and business man as his gym is rated in the top 10 in the country. He mentions how you have 13 weeks until the New Year, where resolutions are made, then usually broken in 6 weeks. I wanted to relay this message to those who I'm in contact with

However you can make the choice right now to finish a goal you set at the beginning of the year, or get a head start on next years. Fat loss? If you lose 2-3 pounds a week for 13 weeks that is 25-40 pounds by the New Year. Strength gain? Get after it and try to see a 5% increase. Get Faster? Find a coach to help you knock off a tenth of a second off of your 40 or 100 meter dash. If you have a HUGE goal that will take time then try and dent into it the next 13 weeks.

If you already know what your going to do for a New Years resolution why not get a head start now? Don't dropped the ball waiting for the ball to drop. Then carry that momentum into the new year.

If you have no idea on what you want as a resolution pick up Goals by Brain Tracy or create a bucket list. See if you can knock off a couple before the end of the year or at least get plans ready.

I recently knocked off one on my list of skydiving. Holy $#*! talk about an adrenaline rush! It's something I would suggest to anyone who doesn't have heart problems. It puts you in an uncomfortable, and very uncontrollable situation. Something that everyone could use in their routined and controlled lives.

Don't use the holidays as an excuse and go get something done!