SST Canada Monday Morning Athlete Review

SST Monday Morning Athlete review

I know this is a few days late but every Monday thru the fall and winter season SST Canada will highlight some of our athlete’s action over the weekend!

Qb Alums from Qb Canada highlight a great weekend

Eric Morelli starting his first ever CIS game debuts in a big way! Eric had an impressive start to his CIS career by throwing for 258yds and 3 tds! In addition he added another 39 yards on the ground and another td!

To See Eric’s Highlights:

Click here

Will Finch touted as one of the best qbs in the country got his Western team off to a good start by going 20-27 –226 yds and 3 total tds

Nate Hobbs making his CIS debut after being the back up to another QB Canada Alum Billy McPhee beats up on Carleton- this game may have huge playoff implications by the end of the year

Nate threw for 338 yards and 2 tds!

#1 ranked Canadian QB Nathan Rourke who is at Edgewood Academy in Alabama led his team to its 2nd straight win by going 11-13 for 223 yards and 6 total tds

To see Nathan’s highlights

Click here

Some of our defensive stars from SST include

Luke Korol who lead his Guelph defence in tackles!

Cole Munden who is a workout monster led his Mac D with 8 tackles

Michael Moore who had a great off season of working out at SST Oakville had a total of 6 tackles in helping Queens upset Carleton

Josh Palmer one of Canada’s most highly recruited players will make his debut this weekend for the # 2 ranked St Thomas Aquinas high school in Florida

For highlights of last weeks game

Click Here

Sled Training- not the dog type!

Sled Training for Hockey Players

Here at SST, one of the most common mistakes we see coaches make when training hockey players in the off season is to treat them like endurance athletes. Sure, an aerobic conditioning program will do some good for body composition and improving aerobic thresholds for hockey players, but overdoing it will have a decidedly negative impact on power and speed in game situations. Working too much on aerobic conditioning causes the body’s type II muscle fibres (fibres that are forceful and, therefore, beneficial to hockey players) to take on characteristics of type I muscle fibres (fibres that are slow and better suited for endurance athletes like marathoners). Obviously, this is not something we want to happen. In essence, training off-ice to become a better hockey player should focus on the proper elements of speed that simulate on-ice game situations – short bursts of speed followed by rest periods sufficient in length to allow full recovery.

One of the greatest tools that can be used in off-ice training sessions is the power sled – a device that allows athletes to run, shuffle, and perform various exercises with variable resistance accommodating the athlete’s strength level. The following power sled exercises are excellent in helping the athlete increase overall lower body strength, power, and speed – attributes every athlete strives to increase!

Backwards Sled Drag:

The backwards sled drag is an excellent exercise that targets a major weakness amongst hockey players of all ages – the Vastus Medialis Oblique muscle of the quadriceps. In layman’s terms, this is the muscle that is situated on the inside front of the upper leg, just above the knee, forming a “teardrop”. The vastus medialis oblique is important for hockey players to develop, since it is needed for on-ice balance, and also to keep the knee from buckling under stress.

To perform this exercise grab a hold of the handle, keep your arms straight, retract your shoulder blades, keep your chest up and take small step backwards for the recommended distance. This exercise seems easy for the first 20m, however at about 30m your legs start to feel like rubber and the last 10m seems to take an eternity – even if it is only a few seconds. This exercise is a great finisher! You’ll leave the training facility looking like you just learned to walk.

Sled Sprinting:

Sprinting using resistance is an excellent strength builder that can be used by hockey players during off-ice workouts. Like a batter who warms up in the on deck circle by swinging a weighted bat, the sled gives the athlete the ability to add extra weight to the sprint, thereby making them stronger and, of course, faster when they run without it. One important point to make however, is that a resistance that is too heavy has been found to lead to increased ground contact time, decreased stride length, disruption of kinematic sprinting techniques, as well as decreased efficiency during the acceleration phase of running. A good guideline for coaches and athletes is not to exceed 10% of the athlete’s weight on the sled – more is most definitely not better!

Lateral sled crossovers

Another benefit of the power sled in off-ice training for hockey players is in the sport-specific movements of on-ice skating mechanics. In essence, the sled can be used in such a fashion that it replicates on-ice movements, such as the crossover. In the lateral sled crossover exercise, the athlete attaches the belt and sled so that the sled is extended from the side of the athlete, not behind (as in the sled sprint). With the feet shoulder width apart and the toes pointed in the same direction as the shoulders, the athlete begins by crossing the leg closest to the sled (the trail leg) in front of the other leg (the lead leg) and pushing off, bringing the lead leg back into starting position (feet shoulder width apart and toes pointed straight). To work on muscular strength, the lateral sled crossover should be done in such a way that the upper body and hips are squared (no turning), which focuses on building the strength of the working leg. To maximize speed and power during the movement, simply turn the hips and upper body slightly, and focus on exploding with each stride. Maximum speed can be used here, and the goal should be to explode, accelerating across the surface in minimal time. Use the sled according to your own specific goals. Just remember to work both legs equally – after all, how many times have you crossed over in only one direction during a game??

Lateral sled shuffle

Like the sled crossover, the lateral sled shuffle once again places the sled at the side of the athlete. However, in this movement, the athlete steps out to the side with the lead leg (leg farthest away from the sled) and then pushes off with the trail leg, in a simulated hockey stride. This is one of the best exercises for hockey players, since it helps build muscular strength in the quadriceps muscle – particularly the lateral (outside) portion that is used during the on-ice stride. Once again, depending on your goals, you can use it with added resistance with a slow and controlled tempo (muscular strength) or with a lighter weight over a specified distance in as little time as possible (muscular power and explosiveness).

Be sure to use each exercise sparingly – that is, rotate each exercise into your routine every 4-6 workouts. Your body has a wonderful gift called “adaptation” and by using a technique consistently for months and months on end, the training effect will lessen, plateau, and eventually be lost altogether. By changing the exercise, increasing the time or distance used per exercise, increasing or decreasing the tempo of the exercise, and rotating each exercise, you will be on your way to out-skating and over-powering your opponent. Good Luck!!

About the Author:

Larry Jusdanis is the owner of Sports Specific Training Inc. SST has trained thousands of athletes from a variety of sports. SST’s no nonsense approach to training has been used by thousands of athletes’ from a variety of sports all over the nation!

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For more info about SST please visit http//sst.training

2015 Ontario Prospect Challenge – Varsity Game

This past weekend saw some great OPC football in St Catharines, Ontario.

Here are the games stats for the – 2015 Ontario Prospect Challenge Varsity Game.

Game Awards

  • Baron Rings M.V.P. – Nigel Goodridge – Halton Peel
  • Big Kahuna Offensive Player – Clarke McCallum – Halton Peel
  • Xenith Helmets Defensive Player – Teddy Mansell – West
Nigel Goodridge - Overall MVP
Nigel Goodridge – Overall MVP

Clark McCallum - Big Kahuna Offensive Player
Clark McCallum – Big Kahuna Offensive Player

2015 OPC Varsity game summary
2015 OPC Junior Varsity game summary

2015 OPC Minor game summary

2015 OPC Underclassmen game summary

Q&A with Coach Delroy Rhooms

I really enjoy training soccer teams. Soccer was one of the first team sports we had come to us for training when we started SST Oakville. My staff and I have spent many hours with soccer athletes and have a great understanding of what is required for a soccer athlete to succeed. Our reputation and our results with soccer athletes have spread through the soccer community.

Delroy- thanks for taking your time and speaking with me

1. So Delroy why do have so much success with Soccer teams?
I really enjoy training soccer teams. Soccer was one of the first team sports we had come to us for training when we started SST Oakville. My staff and I have spent many hours with soccer athletes and have a great understanding of what is required for a soccer athlete to succeed. Our reputation and our results with soccer athletes have spread through the soccer community. We have teams from Burlington , Oakville , Mississauga and Brampton come out to train with us. The coaching staff of these teams trust us and understand our facility is “ no nonsense “ training center, as we build our soccer training programs to get their teams prepared for the season. We have worked with many soccer athletes who have gone on to play NCCA , CIS and professionally. We soccer athletes playing at University of Miami , University of Maine, Memphis University , kent State , Eastern Michigan , Louisiana State , Miami – Ohio , Carleton University , University of Western Ontario, Mc Master University to name a few. Today , we have Dianna Matheson from the Canadian Women’s National training in our facility to get herself prepared for the FIVB womens world cup. Here is what Dianna has to say about why she trains at SST Oakville:

“I use SST Oakville when I am a home because it has everything I need to train at the highest level. I go not just for strength training, but to be a stronger, faster, and more complete athlete.”

Thanks,
Diana

2. What are some of the unique coaching points/cues and training methods you use with your volleyball players?
Our volleyball athletes are unique in their needs for success. They work within a confined
9 ‘ x 9 ‘ area, so they need to be quick and very , very explosive athletes. We spend a tremendous amount of time teaching our volleyball athletes how to load their hips and fire their glutes so they are explosive in their attack. We use several lateral and linear movement drills like the “ N” drill and Figure 8 drill to help our athletes move quickly in a low volleyball posture. We do a lot of single leg work , like TRX single pistol squats and single leg opposite side load plyobox heal touches these are tremendous for our middle attackers. We work the trunk with a variety of Medicine ball throws and also land mine rotations to develop power for our outside attackers. Our Setter use a variety of Medicine ball wall drills and well as extended medicine balls pushes from the floor , so they can develop more power to push the sets out to the antennas during play. During the off season we spend a lot of time developing the vertical jump through a variety of power movements focusing on the posterior chain.

3. Can you add some insight into your strength coaching style?
My style of coaching stems from the type of coaches I had growing up as a young athlete to the coaches I had , as I trained while playing the Canadian pro Beach Volleyball Circuit . It was “ no nonsense” work hard , give a 110 percent and leave it all on the field. I have taken this approach with all my athletes and adult clients , I am tough and I expect you to give me everything you have while you are on the training floor. I have had athletes and adults see my car in the parking lot and tell me we know it is going to be a tough day when “ the dark over lord “ is on the training floor. I treat everybody the same, I want the same for everyone of my clients. Results period. I approach every training session with energy that fills up the facility. I want all my clients to have fun , challenge themselves and most of all work hard. For my athletes I treat them like family , my goal is help them all understand from my own experience and the experience of my high level staff what it takes from a training stand point to get to the next level. Mentoring is so, so important to me for my athletes. As I move around the community nothing makes me more happy than to here an athlete shout to me “ hey Coach “ . I absolutely love to train.

4. You have had many girls in many sports on scholarships…is there a key to your success?
I believe you need to understand the female athletes in order to get the best out of them. We have had such success with female athletes who have received scholarships , because we have created an environment at SST Oakville were these ladies feel they are at home . We have seen other facilities focus on “ just the boys” and at SST Oakville we treat everybody the same. The female athletes who come to us like us because we push them , we discuss their goals , we are not afraid to have them try complicated movements and they see the results of their hard work. Communication , Communication , communication is the key ingredient when dealing with high performance athletes. We take the time to explain , critique and most importantly coach and this seems to work really well as our female athletes respond and get tremendous results.

Football Training for Linebackers

The Linebacker position requires Strength to be able to take on and shed blocks from Offensive Linemen; Agility to tackle running backs in the open field and Speed to be able to drop back into coverage. In today’s SST Blog we will look at three exercises that will help you improve in these areas.

Log – Hang Clean and Press

One of SST favorite exercise for improved hand strength SST we like to use a Log with thick grips because it improves hand strength. This is important for taking on blocks, as well as tackling. The important part of this exercise is generating power through triple extension. That is using your hips, knees & ankles to generate force through your body and accelerate the bar up to your shoulders. Once there you re-bend your knees and again use triple extension to help lift the weight above your head.

This is a great exercise for not only taking on blocks, but also explosively driving through tackles.

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Sled Shuffle

For this exercise you load weight on the sled and attach it to your waist with a belt. In a strong athletic position with knees bent and chest up the athlete drives off the leg closest to the sled. You can perform this exercise with higher weights and slower movement earlier in the off-season. As you get closer you want to use lighter weights and move more quickly. This is a great exercise to help shuffling and cutting. It is difficult to find an exercise that helps functionally strengthen those muscles, but this is our favorite.

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Prowler Sprint

The prowler is one of the most polarizing pieces of equipment at our gym. Most people have a strong love-hate relationship with it. We have a term called the “Prowler Flu”, as several athletes have been forced to sign the bucket when they are done with it. You can use it in several ways – as an energy system workout when you push it for longer distances. But in this case we are going to focus on 10 yard acceleration runs. This is great for filling the hole during running plays, or having to change direction and accelerate after a quarterback throws the ball.

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Speed Drills for Pro Sports

Since my last few articles, “To Squat or to Power Clean, That Is the Question” and “How to Train the 40-Yard Dash in the Weight Room – Part One & Part Two” I have had tremendous positive feedback. With this in mind, I have had a few people email me regarding what type of speed drills I would choose for college and professional football players (American football). If people wish, I can write about speed work and demands for football, aka soccer, in an upcoming article.

Since my last few articles, “To Squat or to Power Clean, That Is the Question” and “How to Train the 40-Yard Dash in the Weight Room – Part One & Part Two” I have had tremendous positive feedback. With this in mind, I have had a few people email me regarding what type of speed drills I would choose for college and professional football players (American football). If people wish, I can write about speed work and demands for football, aka soccer, in an upcoming article.

Back to the purpose: what speed drills do I like to use with my college and pro football players?

To start, I have all my athletes perform a proper dynamic warm-up, which includes many drills, such as:

Walking A’s
Marching A’s
B’s
Plus the conventional drills we all use as track coaches

I am going to assume that these athletes know many of the basic drills mentioned, so I won’t spend much focus on this. Here is the catch: I will watch an athlete, and if there are mechanical issues, then we will focus on a drill or drills SPECIFIC to that athlete. The purpose of this is to reinforce a good habit and correct the issue(s). I learned a long time ago from good coaches that anyone can teach the X and O’s, but the good coaches can see and make adjustments in making the athlete better.

So, we at SST do not really spend much time with so-called drills to improve performance.

Where do I differ with my athletes?

Know your position! For example, I don’t waste my time doing repetitive 100-meter sprints with O linemen. I have seen this numerous times with coaches and just shake my head. What is the purpose of 300-lb men running 100 meters? When do they ever do this in the game? The question I then get is do we need to condition them? No! These guys are paid to have a fight in a phone booth. Conditioning drills should be more functional, such as tire flipping and pushing cars!

Top-end speed: Athletes such as wide receivers and running backs focus on top-end speed. Development.

Agility training: I believe many of us spend too much time on linear speed training for sports when we should focus more on lateral speed work. Unlike track, sports are multidirectional, and GREAT athletes not only possess top-end speed, but also the quickness of a cat. Think Barry Sanders from the Detroit Lions; he would break ankles on the football field! There are many methods to teach agility, and we focus on closed and open-chain agility exercises.

Closed-chain: These types of drills and exercises are what we call patterned drills. Examples include all ladder drills and specific drills that are patterned. With high-end athletes (could be high school as well), we tend to spend very little time with closed-chain exercises. The few we like to include in our programing in the early preseason are drills in which we have our athletes learning how to decelerate. (Note: Sometimes, an athlete has a difficult time changing direction not because of form, but because they tend to be eccentrically weak. This has to be taken care of in the weight room.) We use the cue “STICK IT” to make certain they stop on a dime!
Our drills for this may be as simple as a 5-yard sprint and stop before the line. Our athletes focus on accelerating as fast as they can but then lower their hips and stop on a dime before the line! The next progression to this is having our athletes perform the same distance but moving in a different direction (backpedal, crossovers, and shuffling).
After we have mastered the ability to stop after moving in all directions, we teach our athletes how to change direction, which is VITALLY important in ALL sports! For example, we will have an athlete shuffle for 5 yards, and once they touch the line with their foot, they change their body position and direction and shuffle back. We cue the athlete to stick it where they started. Once they master each direction, we then progress to multidirectional movements, such as sprinting for 5 yards then crossover back and stick it. Your imagination is endless with these drills, but we try to be specific to the sports and position. For examples, defensive backs in football focus on all, but we tend to have them backpedal much more since they pretty well do this on every play.
Open-chained agility. This is SPORTS. React to what you see and make it happen. When is the last time you were in a game of football and a player was running and a coach yelled to go left then right, etc.? NEVER! Games are played by reaction with your senses, especially your eyes. This is why I firmly believe younger athletes should play multiple sports. In fact, kids should play more in uncontrolled environments. This is where they can be creative and learn to react!

Acceleration phase: Approximately 80% of most sports are played in this phase, so we spend at least 80% of our time training in this phase. Drills that I like to use include:

2-point starts
3-point starts
Band resisted starts: This is one of my favourites! Note: Please make certain you do not apply too much resistance in order to keep the athlete’s mechanics from being altered.
SpeedSac resisted starts: These are similar to sled sprints, but I have found that the SpeedSac to be more effective for two reasons. We can alter the weight to be more precise compared to the sled. The SpeedSac also has less shifting, as does the sled, thus our mechanics are not altered as much.

So, to answer the question, I like to spend 80% of my time training with open-pattern agility and acceleration exercises with my so-called more experienced athletes!

I follow the 80% rule in most things in life, and in this case, these training modalities provide our athletes with the best bang for their buck!

Larry Jusdanis

Owner, Sports Specific Training

Sstcanada.com

Director of the National Association of Speed and Explosion (NASE)

Larry Jusdanis is the owner of Sports Specific Training Inc. SST has trained thousands of athletes from a variety of sports. SST’s no nonsense approach to training has been used by thousands of athletes’ from a variety of sports all over the nation!

10th Annual Charity Touch Football Tournament

SPORTS SPECIFIC TRAINING has proudly organized an annual charity fundraising event for the past 10 years! We deeply believe in our community, their needs and their health. Over the years we have combined our love of sport and competition with the compassion of our athletes. As a result, our amazing SST CLIENTS rose over $90,000 in the last 9 years for cancer.

This year we are continuing our quest to raise money for cancer and honouring our beloved Nutritionist, Laurie Burrows, who passed away suddenly in March 2012 from Acute Myeloid Leukemia as well as Michael Cusimano who lost his struggle in 2007 from brain cancer (The Michael Cusimano Memorial Trust Fund) & The Canadian Cancer Society.

Laurie-Michael-Pics-Black-BackgroundGather friends, family and co-workers, create a team, register and join us for a fun filled day of touch football, great food…yes, breakfast & lunch is provided…and AMAZING raffle prizes such as rounds of golf, NHL tickets, NFL tickets, CFL tickets, a big screen tv, his & her supplement baskets and MUCH MORE

If you are not wanting play you are more than welcome to volunteer and be a part of this great cause OR feel free to stand on the sidelines and just watch.

WHAT: Touch Football Tournament

WHEN: Saturday July 12th, 2013……….REGISTRATION & BREAKFAST 7:30-8:30am…GAMES START AT 9AM SHARP!!

WHERE: Players Paradise Sports Complex (SST Hamilton)

565 Seaman Street

Stoney Creek

905-643-6336

WHO CAN ATTEND: …..ANYONE!!

Teams will be comprised of 10 to 15 players. You MUST have at least one female on the team and you MUST have an athlete below the age of 10 years old.

HOW MUCH: $25 per player OR $10 for the BBQ lunch

REGISTRATION:

Please visit any SST location to register. If you do not have a team to join we will be more than happy to put you on one.

DONATIONS:

To view the donation letter…Please Click Here

For A Full List of Rules…Please Click Here

For more information please call 905-632-3558 ex.2 or email clane@sstcanada.com OR ljusdanis@sstcanada.com

Should We Be Training To Failure?

With the popularization of high intensity training, Crossfit, and other intense training methods, the idea of training to failure has become increasingly more popular. The idea of working so hard that you cannot possibly complete another rep is seen as an important part of training. However is this necessary in athletic training when we are after strength and size gains?

With the popularization of high intensity training, Crossfit, and other intense training methods, the idea of training to failure has become increasingly more popular. The idea of working so hard that you cannot possibly complete another rep is seen as an important part of training. However, is this necessary in athletic training when we are after strength and size gains?

Some athletes and coaches may feel that if they are not going 100% every single time, they enter the gym then they are not getting better. Is this necessary? The simple answer is NO. In fact, it is not advisable to train to failure for any extended period of time. The adverse effects of such training far outweigh the potential benefits. The important factor is planning. During the planning process there will be times of higher and lower intensity, as well as higher and lower volumes. All of these factors come together to elicit the types of adaptations in the specific order that will allow for the athlete to improve their specific qualities related to performance.

However, do not confuse training to complete muscular failure with training to technical failure. Technical Failure refers to when an athlete can no longer complete a repetition with proper technique due to fatigue. This is an important concept because technical failure should almost always be utilized in strength and conditioning settings, so as to maximize adaptation and ensure safe training at all times.

So how should we train for size and strength?

What seems to be a determining factor in the types of adaptations that athletes will be receiving during training is volume and intensity. Both of these factors are intimately linked to the types of adaptations we can expect to see from athletes during the training process. Furthermore, to stimulate muscle growth, volume load seems to be the most important factor (sets x reps x intensity). Many papers will show that athletes performing higher volume loads will produce greater hypertrophic responses than those performing lower VL. When size gains are your primary goal, maximizing VL in a systematic fashion seems to be the best approach. Does this mean we need to create muscle damage or train to failure to do so?

Well more recently, a paper by Flann et al. (2011) showed that muscle damage may not be necessary for size, strength and power gains. They had 2 groups of athletes performing exercises, one created lots of muscular damage, and the other group did not. Without getting into the specifics here, what is important is that when equated for volume load, both groups had similar gains in both size and strength of the trained muscles. This suggests that increasing the amount of training is more important than training for failure.

Another important piece of the puzzle is that when preparing athletes for their sport, we are in the business of managing their fatigue. How many of you have woken up from a training session the previous day too sore to train the next day? Well for athletes who are required to perform their sport, this is simply unacceptable. If we are constantly crushing our athletes so that they are unable to perform in their sport, then we are not performing our duties as strength coaches and enhancing their performance. The way around this is planning. Periodization is the process by which we plan out an athlete’s training process so as to maximize their qualities at the times when they are needed and prepare athletes for the rigors of competition. Without this planning process we are simply asking athletes to work hard with no framework as to why they are doing so. As such, this is not doing justice to the importance of their performance.

In a study conducted by Behm et al. (2002) it was shown that completing sets of 20 to failure had a 4x higher time to recover than completing a set of 5 to failure. The relationship holds true between different rep ranges such as 20RM, 10RM, 5RM etc.

This suggests that when training to failure we may be increasing recovery time to the point where we are losing out on additional training.

This increase in fatigue may actually inhibit the athlete’s ability to gain size or strength in the long run because of a constant state of recovery and limited training volumes. Think of it this way, if an athlete has trained so hard as to reach muscular failure, said athlete could lose 2–3 training days due to recovery. Then this athlete has now missed the opportunity to increase their qualities 2–3 times in the long run and had one training sessions where they may have been able to have a total of up to 4. When we add up the total work done in these situations it will almost always favor limiting training to failure so as to increase the amount of training days the athlete can perform.

Failure and Injury

Finally training to failure may also increase the athlete’s likelihood of injury, both of overuse injuries and acute injuries. Willardson (2007) did a review of this topic and found that training to failure may increase the risks associated with overtraining, and overuse injuries. It was recommended that training to failure falls within the context of the overarching periodized plan, and be cycled such as any other training variable (volume, intensity, etc.) Again, this will come back to the periodization (planning) process so as to train the specific qualities at specific times to increase performance.

Summary

Quite simply athletes that are not using pharmacological help will not have the ability to continually recover from training sessions that are pushed to muscular failure. They will be in a constant state of trying to catch up to their recovery and perhaps be pushed into an overtraining syndrome. This can lead to a myriad of negative effects. Athletes’ training loads should be monitored and adjusted accordingly so as to fit within the overarching context of the plan and continually increase the specific qualities needed for championship performances. The volume and intensity relationship when planning the training process is far more important than pushing the body to failure when looking to elicit specific training adaptations. Consider this the next time you are planning for your athletes.

Author:

Dave Scott-McDowell, MExSci, BPHE, CSCS