This Week on The DS Blog
By · CommentsWe’ll I know it’s been a long time since we put out our last blog entry and I just wanted to say it will never be that long between entries again! I think I’m still suffering from P.K.C.S. (Post Kids Camp Syndrome).
Speaking of kids camp, I want to mention how awesome the kids were this summer and how hard they worked! Their workouts were really tough and demanding, but never, ever did I hear them complaining. Everything from their flexibility to their coordination improved dramatically in the 4 weeks that they were with us. We are definitely looking forward to many of the athletes continuing to train with us year round in our Sports Performance classes beginning September 13th.
Alright, my first article is a MUST READ for all of the parents that have kids participating in sports.” More Kids Falling Prey to Sports Overuse Injuries” by Serena Gordon pretty much sums up my feelings on the huge problems I see in youth competition today. In this article, Dr. James Andrews, President of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, explains why he is seeing an alarming number of young kids experiencing adult-type injuries while participating in organized sports. Check this article out and protect your young athletes future!
Next up, is “Hip Flexors vs. Abs” by Master RKC Jeff O’ Connor, my team leader at my RKC Certification. The hip flexors are a hot topic within the RKC community. And If you hadn’t noticed, the powerful hip flexors can present a problem for the body unlike any other muscle. With an increasingly more sedentary population, we are now seeing how seriously functional movement is affected when flexors are short and tight. We try to stretch our flexors before, during and after each workout. Jeff has come up with a good little exercise that he calls the “ballet leg drop”, which cues you on how to get the hip flexor to relax while engaging the abs. In many ab exercises, the back is doing the bulk of the work. Take it from me, I enjoy an ab exercise that doesn’t require me to do 1000 reps to feel like its working. Well this ain’t one of those! We will definitely be implementing this into our dynamic warm up.
Last article this week, is from one of our own, Mike Davis DPT, ART., entitled “A.R.T. Your Way to Increased Performance”. What do you know… another important article for parents who have kids that participate in sports! Simply put, if your young athlete isn’t engaging in some sort of soft tissue therapy, I can certainly guarantee you their movement mechanics and performance are not going to be up to par. Soft tissue therapy by definition is the assessment, treatment and management of soft tissue injury, pain and dysfunction primarily thru the neuromusculoskletal system. Thru A.R.T. or other soft tissue therapies, an athletes mobility, stability and neuromuscular efficiency all can be addressed . This in turn will improve functional movement. There are so many amazing benefits to A.R.T., that most knowledgeable folks in the sports arena will tell you, that knowing a reputable provider could be an athlete’s best friend! I’ve met a few A.R.T. providers over the years and I know this may seem a little biased, but Mike Davis DPT is one of the best in the business. How do I know? Because all of the A.R.T. providers that I’ve met have told me so!
If you would like to contact Mike, his e-mail is: mikedavisdpt@gmail.com
Video of The Week- Kettlebell Timed Sets
This week I’m posting an old video of my girl Ashley Masters , who will be going to her RKC Certification next weekend. Ashley is performing a kettlebell timed set. Although I don’t use this style of training in my workouts a lot, I think it’s perfect for those building up to an event or competition. I find that I can challenge clients mental toughness, enhance their strength endurance and also decrease volume and training time with these types of workouts. Check it out!
Stay Strong… Kettlebell Strong!!
Power Training for In- Season Athletes
By · CommentsAt Dynamic Solutions, we believe in athletes remaining on a year round training program. But, we all know how hard this is to pull off, with so much of an athlete’s time dedicated towards practices and games. Although it may seem like its impossible to fit working out and practice in on the same day, I can proudly say I did it for 4 years.
While playing football at U.V.A., during the season we were required to workout at least 3 times a week and many of us would train up to 5 times a week. Workouts would start after your last class, lasting about 45 minutes, just in time for a 2 hour practice. Although this may seem difficult for many to pull off, we all wanted to better football players and knew the only way to get better was thru HARD WORK!
Our workouts mainly focused on Power and usually involved Olympic style lifting and low level plyometrics. Snatches, clean and jerk and high pulls were a few of my favorites. These lifts are perfect for in-season training because so much more is accomplished in fewer exercises than any other style of training. Also, I really like these exercises for high school athletes. The more exposure they have to Olympic training the more prepared they will be for sports after high school. What college coach doesn’t want a powerful athlete?
Here’s a few videos of the type of workouts we like to have our athletes perform while they’re in-season:
Stay Strong…Kettlebell Strong!!
1st Week of Speed & Athletic Development Camp
By · CommentsWe’ve just concluded the first week of our speed and athletic development camp and I have to say, kids camps are no joke! If you’ve ever been to a Dynamic Solutions class, you should know I pour every ounce of energy I have into teaching a class. Let’s just say 4 hours a day with 50 plus kids between the ages of 8-12 has tapped my reserves. But I’m loving every minute of it!! We have all kinds of athletes participating in this camp, which is awesome! I knew when we promoted this camp as a Speed and Athletic Development camp, we would be getting all kinds of athletes signing up. I didn’t think we would have kids that participated in archery, diving, water polo and golf though. These are awesome kids that believe that getting stronger will ultimately enhance their skills in their sport of choice. I love it!
On Tuesday we had 30 of the athletes get their 40 yard dash filmed for technique corrections. This is the first and most important part of our MTS training program. With this program they will be receiving extensive feedback on what is the proper way to increase their top end speed and how to improve movement mechanics. Combine all the strength training were going to be doing in the studio and an awesome speed training program put together by myself and CEO of MTS, Vince Stephenson, and I know were going to have some pretty good looking athletes come August!
Finally, I want to say how impressesive the young athletes have been. One of our goals for them during this camp was to be able to perform a pretty good looking squat . Well, we taught them how to perform unresisted wall squats on Monday and on Wednesday they did wall squats using light kettlebells for 2 sets of 10. Introducing resisted squats this early into camp is a testament to how athletic these kids truly are! If you take a look at the video below you can see how excited I was to see them squatting so nicely. It’s awesome when you see kids from 8-12 years of age dedicated to becoming better athletes!
New Product (Spark Energy Drink)
Next up, I am going to talk about a new product I recently began to use, SPARK ENERGY DRINK. Now, I must admit I used to be the guy searching for that quick energy burst before working out. After suffering over and over to the inevitable energy crash that follows one of these drinks, I chose to go another route. I started taking my Cruciferous Vegetable Sprout Supplements before working out and that seemed to work well for me. Than about 1 month ago our client Brad Gavel gave me a free sample of SPARK to try. Now Brad, knew how picky I was about the food I eat, but insisted that SPARK was the “Real Deal”and gave me some resources to check out. I was amazed at how many major college programs and professional teams were using and endorsing SPARK. I heard rumblings about SPARK, but I had know idea how big it had become within the NCAA. Well, I tried SPARK before a big dead lifting day and I could not believe how good I felt! I set a PR in the dead lift that day although that was not my intention. I wanted to workout longer but had to get to a client. To tell you the truth I think I could have gone on for another 2 hours!! I’m really not the type of person that goes around endorsing different products, trying to get people to buy stuff that I feel is okay at best. I will let others know when there is a product out there that I’m taking and think it’s something that could possibly be good for them. Well, this is one of those products! Many of our clients in the studio are currently drinking SPARK and they seem to love the benefits as well! We have SPARK in the studio and if you are currently a client of ours and would like to try it to sample it just let us know. If you are not a client but would like to try to purchase SPARK please see the link below. I know you are going to like it! We have not had any negative feedback yet!!
Here are a few benefits of taking SPARK:
1. enhances mental energy and focus
2. provides support for long lasting energy
3. helps fight occasional drowsiness
4. Contains 21 vitamins, minerals and nutrients
5. Sugar free and only 45 calories.
Order Spark here
Stay Strong… Kettlebellstrong!!
