NEW BOSU DVD Shoot

Wow! Recent BOSU DVD shoot was nothing but hi-octane with Twister, Durkin, Shiels, Mylrea, Roberts, me and the team...BOSU Balance Trainers, Ballast Balls, Slingshots, Smart Toners, lines of pull everywhere...rocked out 9 DVDs and NEW BOSU "mystery" accessory product for 2010...Twist Conditioning and BOSU...coming at you full speed...Are you ready?

Watch for the release of the new BOSU DVD's in 2010!

by: Douglas Brooks

Balance Training for Female Athletes

Developing strong balance is an asset for all athletes as it creates smart muscles and an efficient mind to muscle link. With a lower center of gravity, women have an advantage in balance drills. Single leg exercises are a great way to decrease this stable base of support, create a greater balance challenge and strengthen the entire lower body. A simple, yet very important balance exercise for females is a single leg squat. The challenge is to perform the exercise correctly with proper knee tracking. As a coach, focus most of your athlete cues on knee alignment.

TRX Single Leg Squats:

Set up:

- Begin in a balanced athletic position on a single leg
- The TRX provides a second balance point and should be used to help spot the athlete through the squat

Execution:

- The athlete triple flexes through the ankle, knee and hip while lowering down into a tuck position
- Pause and hold the low position maintaining balance (without pulling on the TRX) and return sequentially through triple extension to the starting position.

Note: Before attempting this exercise on a more unstable surface - such as the BOSU® make sure the athlete can complete the full range of motion with proper knee tracking.

Extreme Balance Board Squats with Fit Ball Self Passes:

Set up:

- both feet are planted parallel and equal distance from the center of the balance board
- engage the core muscles and then lower into a tuck position with hips low and chest up

Execution:

- in the tuck position the athlete tosses a weighted fit ball back and forth between hands
- have the athlete progress to wider passes

Note: Coach’s cues should focus on alignment as it is not uncommon for the knees to start to fall into a knocked kneed position during this drill.

The Twist Team!

Injuries to Female Athletes and Practical Considerations

Over the last 20 years concern for athlete safety has increased as more females have become involved in sports. Females are statistically 4 times more likely to sustain a serious ACL knee injury compared to males. These injuries are most frequent in high risk sports that require jumping and cutting (i.e. Soccer or Basketball). Another interesting trend is that female athletes are most often injured in a supervised setting (64% of injuries) compared to males who are most often injured in an unsupervised setting (55%). This information prompts us to consider whether our traditionally male dominated training methods are appropriate for female athletes.

Practical Considerations

If women and men are so distinctly different, should they in fact be trained with these differences in mind? The research shows us that women are at a greater risk to sustain a significant knee injury. Are these injuries a result of training women too much like we train men or are they the result of training that does not consider the distinct needs of female athletes? Regardless of the cause, the fact is that female athletes need specific training to improve physical weaknesses. In future postings we will present some aspects of training that should be modified for female athletes.

The Twist Team!

Building Physical Confidence- TRAINERS TIPS

As physically active individuals we all take mobility for granted when every day our mind commands our muscles and they easily comply with just the right type of movement and appropriate force production. At Twist Sport Conditioning this is called Smart Muscle®. With each repeated action, our mind to muscle communication pathways strengthen and like building muscle, each successful action that our mind commands, our physical confidence grows.

Physical confidence is the assurance that when your mind commands your body to move, your muscles comply. With physical confidence ice hockey players explosively battle on the boards knowing their opponent will never knock them off the puck or a snow boarder bravely jumps into a double black diamond run with exhilaration and speed knowing it’s fun not fear that makes their heart beat faster.

If an athlete trusts their body, and knows that it is compliant (does what it is told by the brain) they can move to a higher level of competitive drive and take more intelligent risks in sport. Confidence to try new strategies and tactics help elevate their game and definitely give them a competitive edge.

Physical confidence is not just for elite athletes. Kids, youth, young adults, adults and older adults all want a body they can trust and muscles they can depend on in an instant. Imagine slipping on ice and wondering if your core control will keep you in balance or are you smashing down hard with a fracture a great possibility. For the older adult, physical confidence means independent living, safety and mobility – all critical factors for everyday performance.

The question is – do you help your athletes build their physical confidence? Help them see that every type of physical success in every workout reinforces mind to muscle communication that fuels the ability to execute any movement desired – this empowers them! Building Smart Muscle® where the focus is not just on appearance gains, but on building a body that moves well and is responsive to the mind, gives your athletes the tools they need for success today and for all future activities. Life is a Sport – play hard!

Share your ideas or your athlete success stories related to building physical confidence.

- Janice Hutton-

Education Manager

Sport Conditioning for Women

Introduction

The focus for training athletes at Twist Conditioning is to be progressive, innovative and creative. With each new day we learn more about how best to train athletes to achieve the desired results, improve performance and push our knowledge further ahead. The complexity of the human body should never be underestimated and when it comes to developing effective conditioning programs attention to details produces greater results.

Many conditioning coaches do not modify their training programs when coaching female athletes, but the body chemistry of a female athlete is significantly different than a male athlete. Understanding gender differences from the obvious to the subtle and applying this knowledge can have a significant impact on training results. Women and men are different – right down to the cellular level.

Physical Differences

Men and women are anatomically unique. The axial skeleton is defined as the principle supportive structure of the body and in males it is comprised of the skull, vertebrae, sternum and ribs. In females the axial skeleton includes the skull, vertebrae and the pelvis. This redrawing of the female axial skeleton helps us understand the basic physics involved in movement for males compared to females. The adult male has a proportionately larger upper body along with a narrow pelvis resulting in a high center of gravity above the pelvis. The design of the male anatomy results in reduced overall stability and the development of a dominant upper body. The female skeleton is smoother and more delicate with a smaller and more rounded thoracic cage. The female pelvis tilts to the anterior (greater lumbar curve), is lower and wider than a male which creates a lower center of gravity (located inside the pelvis) and results in improved overall body stability. The articulation of the female hip joint on the pelvis (the acetabulum where the femur rotates) is at a more lateral and downward angle than a male creating greater rotation at the hip and the production of more 3 dimensional movement. These structural differences have a significant impact on female biomechanics influencing the distribution of weight, forces and stresses during movement. Greater hip width in women creates a less vertical and more angled femur resulting in valgus legs (knock knees) along with a collapse of the arch of the foot. Together these mechanics translate into a vulnerable knee joint that is prone to injury.

Physiological Differences

The majority of the gender differences between males and females begin to surface at puberty when circulating hormones appear. The average man has about twice the muscle mass than the average woman primarily due to testosterone levels. Women have more body fat (18 to 20%) than men (10 to 15%) to provide nourishment during pregnancy. This translates into a lower percentage of lean body mass in women. Female have higher levels of the hormones relaxin and elastin that affect connective tissue making them more flexible than males at all ages. The hormonal fluctuations that occur in females during the menstrual cycle affects every cell influencing overall well being, brain function and physical adaptation. From a cardiovascular perspective boys have a higher VO2 max than girls at all ages but by age 16 they have a 50% greater aerobic capacity that continues through adulthood.

Psycho-social Differences

From an early age (as young as 10) girls choose activities based on the opportunity to network socially when boys are motivated by competition and dominance. Women are very social - emotional creatures with 4 times more neurological connections between the right (creative / emotional) and left (logical / analytical) brain. The female athlete is hard wired differently making the concepts of socialization, learning, skill building and self awareness equally valuable with winning in the sport experience.

The Twist Team!

Training Age – Growth and Maturation

Children cannot be simply treated as miniature adults. Those of similar chronological age may vary significantly in their progress toward the mature adult form. Even within the same age group, kids are at different stages of readiness for training. To understand what can be trained when, training guidelines are linked to the phase of growth and maturation.

Pre-pubertal children are those that have not yet gone through their adolescent growth spurt, or their period of most rapid growth (peak height velocity). Pre-pubertal children are often less than 12 years of age in females, and less than 14 years of age in males.

Their peak neural maturation occurs from age 0-7 and continues at a rapid rate up to age 12 when the window begins to close. During this stage it is advantageous to draw from the secondary fitness characteristics, to create exploratory-based challenges for which the child must solve the puzzle of how to correctly coordinate the exercise. Children improve balance, coordination and body awareness from neurally complex exercises. Training adaptations include improved neural networks.

The power of neural improvement is evident following strength training programs when pre-pubertal participants enjoy significant strength improvement but do not experience any muscle hypertrophy. As such, young children are better served staying off of miniature weight machines that demand the lowest neural muscular input and rather strive to coordinate strength outputs in supine, prone and CKC positions using stability balls, BOSU’s and other accessories.

Most young children are fairly pliable, but some will also be hypermobile. Loose joints can lead to early osteoarthritis and osteophyte formations (bone spurs) in the body’s attempt to increase bony stability around joints. For these children, avoid further stretching and instead focus on building strength – through a full range of motion.

The heart organ of children this age is of course smaller and as such increases in cardiac output are reliant on elevated heart rates (since their stroke volume is smaller). It is common to elicit heart rates of 170 bpm at this age, compared to post-pubescent children who would train aerobically at 140 bpm. It is noteworthy that pre-pubescent bodies already have relatively high oxygen extraction capabilities so any given training only generates about 50% of the improvement one would expect in adults. Of course kids this age cannot focus on 60 minutes of continuous, repetitive exercise. Even 90% of adults won’t do this! But shorter 15 minutes bouts and integrating sustained effort within a game-like environment can do the trick, sustain their attention and allow them to have fun.

The pubertal phase of peak height velocity lasts from 12 – 18 months and brings with it several training considerations. General considerations for this period include reduced distal loading of the limbs, and reduced high intensity work to avoid over-training or inflammation of the bone-tendon connections. During this period the levers increase in length, while the muscles do not respond until later, so even basic locomotor skills may appear awkward during this phase. Additional balance and agility drills help them become accustomed to their new height, limb length and centre of gravity.

Many parents and coaches express dismay at the frequency of trauma and injury during this stage. As the skeletal system has matured without a concomitant increase in muscle girth and strength, pubertal children have less stable joints which are less reactive to lateral and deceleration forces. Attention to proficient movement skills and proper braking and loading through deceleration will allow them to continue to train through this stage and help prevent sport injuries.

However this can be exacerbated when longer levers allow for faster running speed from biomechanical efficiency. Higher speeds require more aggressive braking, which pubertal bodies are not suited to handle. Strength training is vital to help the muscles catch up. For pubertal kids, many fitness books discourage weight training and suggest strength training with their own body weight. However, I find that many kids in this phase cannot handle their own body mass and better execute exercises with light dumbbells and resistance tubing.

Post-pubertal children are those that have gone through their adolescent growth spurt, after peak height velocity but prior to full skeletal maturity. After peak height velocity, post-pubertal children will experience an accelerated increase in mass, with rapid gains in muscular development, along with further hormonal maturation. At this stage they have the circulating hormones to achieve gains in muscle girth as well as benefit from anaerobic conditioning.

In this phase trainers’ can begin to increase the weight training load, stimulating muscle hypertrophy by optimizing time under tension through slower eccentric contractions. This age group can also safely progress to more powerful lifts that feature higher tempos.

These and other critical growth and maturation moderators must be taken into consideration in the development of the training curriculum, and the subsequent exercises delivered so that the child is receptive and enthusiastic.

The Twist Team!

Sport Conditioning for Minor Hockey Players

Professional hockey players are serious about their sport and focus on the training and development of their “physical machines” year round. Sport conditioning has evolved into big business with the development of branded shoes, clothing, equipment, print and TV media that profiles the training programs of pro athletes. If the pro athletes train this way, shouldn’t every serious athlete do the same whether they are 8 or 18? Parents who are passionate about their children and their hockey are fueling a new segment of the sport conditioning industry focused on programming for children and youth. However, young athletes cannot just be treated like miniature adults. The training program must be age appropriate and follow documented growth and development strategies.

Through the first 20 years of life, a child evolves and grows into an adult. The changes that occur affect athlete physical, emotional, psychological and social development impacting every aspect of life and hockey. There are predictable phases of change that every child experiences, but the amount of time in each growth phase is diverse leading to a great deal of variability among children. Just observe a Peewee or Bantam hockey game and the size differences are obvious. The brain and nervous system is constantly changing and adapting based on experiences creating information pathways between the mind and the muscles. Peak changes in this system occur between birth and 8 yrs where children develop gross and fine motor patterns that become the foundation of hockey skills and other recreational activities.

Children grow gradually until age 10 where a major growth spurt creates a high velocity height change until age 14 as the long bones grow creating gangly arms and legs most characteristic of teenagers. During this time there are minimal changes in the muscular system creating a scenario of long levers without adequate muscle size to control them. This is a critical time for injury along with a disconnect between mind and body. Gradual change in the muscular system is evident until age 14 where circulating hormones directly linked to puberty are activated creating a surge of muscle growth from age 14 to 18 yrs. The volume of muscle growth is higher for males than females, but both sexes experience increases that help to provide strength and control for adult size bodies. By age 20 the major physical growth has reached a plateau.

The Twist Team!

Role of Sport Conditioning in Hockey Players Development

Hockey coaches focus on helping players develop hockey specific skills (skating, shooting, body contact) along with the individual and team strategies and tactics required for success. A sport conditioning coach focuses on the development of athleticism whereby they improve an athlete’s physical tools that support hockey skill execution. Enhancing athleticism comes from the development of the secondary characteristics of fitness including: balance, agility, speed, power, coordination, body awareness, reaction skills.

To have the greatest impact, sport conditioning for hockey should help players improve athleticism as their bodies grow and change. Skills and drills that are great for Midget players are not appropriate for Atom players because younger athletes lack the mind to muscle coordination required for executing complex movements at high tempos. Age and ability appropriate training can help players improve performance on and off the ice, so parents and coaches are encouraged to choose programs specifically designed for children and youth.

The Twist Team!