Article

 

By Adam Friedman, CSCS, CN, CMT

Founder of Advanced Athletics

 

Whatever your fitness goals, be confident that you can accomplish them over time with consistency and a solid game plan. "Taking it one day at a time sometimes seems like just a cliché.  But it is a mind-set that really works because it allows the mind to stay focused on  "being"...healthy and fit, and not the "doing." 

 

Living an active lifestyle is what our bodies crave, as we are designed to move freely and dynamically.  Along with exercise, it is important to have a balance of nutrition, supplementation, and sleep.  These simple steps below are a part of nurturing yourself to have optimal health and vitality. 

Whether it is your nutrition or your exercise, paying attention to the details is the difference between mediocre results and excellent results.  New clients often ask me why after many years of exercising on their own that they were not achieving their goals, and/or experiencing some sort of bodily pain.  Once I evaluate what they had been doing, I can see that the exercises may be correct, but the way they have been doing them was ineffective because of lack of attention to the detail.  In a large sense they were just going through the motions, usually with one focus of just getting through the workout.  Optimizing your efficiency to getting results takes being detail oriented.  That means being able to focus on a few things at once, moment to moment.  Otherwise known as multi-tasking.

Do you ever feel like you are tipping the scale in more ways than one?  Overwhelmed?  Too much of this or that, and before you know it, you're heading in a downwards spiral of inconsistent exercise and eating poorly?  Read on, and I'll show you how to make it all work in your life.

By Adam Friedman, CSCS
Founder of Advanced Athletics

Basketball is a highly demanding and competitive sport. Therefore, it is highly stressful to the body, and often leads to injuries related to overuse or contact with the floor or another player. On average almost half of the players on a basketball team during the course of a season experience injury, and in some cases multiple ones. In any given season, the number of injuries can be the major difference in wins and losses.

In approaching the design for a basketball strength and conditioning program, it is essential to know the common injuries, and how to reduce risk. The greatest number of injuries resulting in more than seven sessions of time loss involved the knee, whereas the most common injuries causing fewer than seven sessions of time loss involved the ankle. The most common cause of injury is contact with another player, especially in the "key". Injuries occur 3.7 times more often in games than during practice.1

Part I.

First take a look at what you have been doing the past three months and slowly integrate the following principles in discovering what is the next step in your fitness lifestyle.

Part II: Know your goals

I. General Health

A. Represents prevention of some common, or hereditary health risk factors such as:

Fitness Goal & Commitment Level Flow Charts: (time is based on % of time during a 90 minute workout session)

Chart Definitions:

Goals: The list below represents common fitness goals. Some are closely related and will have many similarities, and yet still have some differences. The F.I.T. information is based on very general guidelines for healthy individuals.

One of the key components of success for an athlete is a Strength & Conditioning program focused on performance and prevention. 

Improving performance is the obvious overall objective in sports.  But participating in sports increases the chances of being injured, either through physical breakdown, or contact. So a major responsibility of an athlete or a coach is to reduce the odds or severity of injuries by implementing a solid program of strengthening, self-myofascial release, stretching, core work, and cardiovascular conditioning. This will simultaneously counteract the physical stresses, reducing the likelihood of injuries, while enhancing the performance of the entire musculoskeletal and nervous system. 

The right program is determined by assessing each sport’s specific demands, as well as each athlete’s individual needs.  By identifying the body’s highest vulnerabilities, a well-designed and comprehensive exercise action plan can be administered to protect those areas. 

Implementing a systematic routine that centers on safety automatically increases the chances for success. The great news is that many of these exercises may be modified to also improve performance through their progression.

Three areas to focus on for a sports Strength & Conditioning program are:

• Improving core strength through a regimen of various exercises that will progressively develop the ability of the core musculature to optimally function in stabilization, and the production of force in all three planes of motion.

• Improving joint mobility, stability, and strength through a progressive scheme of resistance training, and stretching that will either isolate and/or involve the muscles in creating optimal function at the joints.

• Reinforcing proper mechanics, improving power, and control of the movements at speeds equivalent to the demands of the sport by incorporating a progressive scheme of speed, agility, and plyometric drills that mimic the demands of the sport.

If you would like to receive an Advanced Athletics’ program, or one-on-one training, please inquire through our contact form .  We work with all levels and age groups who are looking to achieve optimal athletic performance in any sport, and reduce the risk for injury. The array of services is designed to support your geographical and financial situation.  Based on your needs we can assist you through phone coaching, and periodically updated programs. Advanced Athletics has a high level of success because we believe that when you win, we win.