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Sports

Warming Up for Recreational Sports

March Madness is here and spring is right around the corner! Baseball has started Spring Training and the weather is starting to get nicer as the days get longer. For all of the avid basketball fans and recreational players, it’s exciting to watch the college basketball season come to a close. Many of us don’t do as much physical activities in the winter as we do when the weather starts to get warmer. We all can reminisce on the “good old days” when we were able to just go for a run or play a sport without warming up. However, the more time you’ve spent away from an activity should mean more time that you spend on a quality warm up and cool down. This is important to help prevent injuries and ensure you’re feeling great for the next days.

Taking 5-10 minutes to go through some light stretching and dynamic movements is important for your well-being. Here’s an example of a simple warm up you can do before most physical activities:

1) Light Jogging ~3-5 minutes

2) Walking Quad stretch (kick your heels up to your butt while stepping forward)

3) Frankenstein’s (lightly kicking leg straight in front while walking forward)

4) Lunge with Reach (step forward with one leg then bend both knees to 90 degrees and lift arms to the sky)

5) Side Lunges (with toes facing forward, step sideways bending one leg while keeping the other straight then step to the other side)

There are many different warm ups and ways to make it more for your activity. Your Exercise Physiologist can develop a specific program for you. Remember the goal of a warm up is to get your body ready for the activities it will soon be doing. Increasing your heart rate and increasing blood flow to skeletal muscles will decrease your chance for injuries during sports. Most importantly, have fun out there and be safe!

 

Corynne Pereira

Sports Spotlight: Strength Training for Sprinters

In the third part of our Summer Sports Spotlight, we focus on strength training! This is a last of our three part series on how to increase your sprinting mechanics and get faster. If you are interested in checking out our other articles, check them out here!

Single Leg Squats vs. Bilateral Squats
Let’s look at the differences between the traditional squat and the single leg squat. The traditional bilateral back squat allows you to push a heavy amount of weight, more weight than you can on a single leg. This will help you recruit more muscle fibers to build up your lower body strength. During a back squat the weight is often centered through the heels to ensure the posterior chain is being recruited. Posterior chain recruitment is important to increase the strength of your glutes and hamstrings. Your glutes are primarily involved in hip extension, the key to any running performance.

What makes single leg squat training more effective than traditional squatting if I can’t lift as much each rep?

Well if each leg can lift 135 lbs each leg you’ve actually outdone your bilateral squat by 20 lbs! This is called the bilateral force deficit; in short it means you can lift more by adding the weight of each leg than you can by using both legs together. When looking at the transfer-ability of each squat position, it’s easy to see that single leg squats will directly correlate to your sprinting performance.

First off, a sprint only occurs with one foot on the ground at a time, so mirroring this in training will help strengthen the body unilaterally. This is even essential in correcting muscle imbalances that may be holding back your potential. Second, observe the increased tibial angle in the single leg squater. During a sprint the weight of each step should be focused through your mid-foot, this allows for maximal propulsion through the ground.

Although a mix of both can be good for variety, you can try switching your focus to single leg training. Here are some other single leg exercises that you can incorporate:

  • Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts
    • Great of developing balance and hamstring recruitment
  • Weighted Step Ups
    • Great for unilateral hip and knee extension
  • Single Leg Glute Bridges
    • Add a weight to the hips to add extra difficulty towards your hip extension

By Dave Albaranes

Sports Spotlight: Improving Your Sprint Performance

Here is the second part of our Summer Sports Spotlight! This is a three part series on how to increase your sprinting mechanics and get faster.

Improve your sprinting technique

Without ever lifting a weight, it is possible to get faster just be learning to be more efficient! Here are some common aspects of running that get overlooked, along with some techniques to improve them!

  • Strike the ground at the mid foot. By making a heel-to-toe contact as you run you aren’t optimally utilizing your ground striking mechanics!
  • Keep your shoulders relaxed and avoid from shrugging
  • Keep a symmetrical rhythm between your arms and legs and be sure your arms aren’t crossing over your body.

Increase your overall strength

  • The stronger you are, the more force you’ll be able to produce into the ground. This force will be generated from your type two muscle fibers rather than your type one fibers and understanding the differences between these two fibers is the key to ensure you’re training properly.
  • Type one muscle fibers are used to maintain exercise and activity for a long duration of time, which means their ability to generate short term maximal power is limited while type two fibers are explosive and meant to generate a high amount of power for a single rep or a short duration.
  • The best way to grow these type two fibers are to make sure they’re being trained against resistance. Look at the picture to the right and ask yourself, “Which of these two athletes lift in their program?” The answer should be obvious. By using weights at a high enough resistance to build strength (thus leading to increased type II fiber size) he is placing his muscles under the similar demands of generating maximal force into the ground.
  • Although it may seem counter-intuitive to hit the weight room instead of the track to get better at running, you need to have a balance of both. Adding in weight training to your running program could be the key to breaking out of your plateau!

 

Improve your triple extension

  • Triple extension is the simultaneous extension of your ankles, knees, and hips.
  • Improving your explosiveness through this position will let you move faster by improving your stride frequency, this is the amount of times you complete a full stride cycle during your run. The main difference between sub-elite and elite athletes is stride frequency, meaning it’s more beneficial to take frequent steps rather than taking just longer steps.
  • Olympic lifts are exercises that are specific to improving triple extension and are designed to improve explosiveness. These exercises involve total body movement performed as quickly as possible. Note that in frame one and two of the picture (featured left) the athlete has performed a hang clean by moving into triple extension to drive to bar off the floor.

 

Talk to one of our certified strength and conditioning specialists if you feel incorporating Olympic lifts and improving triple extension would take your game to the next level.

 

By Dave Albaranes

Sports Spotlight: Warm Up Drills for Sprinting

With the summer upon us, many athletes are taking the advantage of the weather to train outside. For athletes working on improving their linear speed, this is the best time of the year to get out on the track. This is a three part series on how to increase your sprinting mechanics and get faster!

We’ll start with technique! Before you even work on your explosiveness or lift a weight, lets ensure you’re correctly doing everything you can to get the most out of your mechanics. Here are 3 warm-up drills to help improve efficiency in your speed workouts.

Warm-up Drills

A-skips

 

  • A-skips are high knee kicks with reciprocal arm movement.
  • They get your hip flexors warmed up so they will be prepared to fire fast when you need them too.
  • It helps teach how to coordinate raising the opposite arm to your lead leg.
  • Moving through this position quickly will help improve your explosiveness. (More on this in my next article on triple extension)

 

B-skips

  • B skips are A-skips followed with a full knee extension out.
  • B skips emphasize keeping the foot strike in the proper position.
  • Accelerating your feet to the ground helps ensure you can translate the drill into your actual sprint.

 

 

Wall Sprints

  • By keeping yourself at a 45 degree angle (what’s called your power line) against the wall, you put yourself in the best position for acceleration.
  • By holding power line and working different marching techniques you can train your sprinting mechanics without going anywhere!
  • Be sure to keep your hip drive high, your shin at a 45 degree angle, and your toes up!

 

 

Check in with Peak’s strength and conditioning specialists to learn these warm-up drills and have your sprinting form critiqued! Throwing these in your warm-up will help you fire your running specific muscles and keep you injury free by improving your technique. To help you further cut your sprint times down, check out my next upcoming article on improving your explosiveness by increasing your triple extension!

 

By Dave Albaranes

Anatomy of the Elbow & Shoulder for Baseball Players (Part 2 of 3)

In our previous article, we discussed the importance of stretching and strengthening the hand. (Didn’t see it? You can read it right here!) However, there is more to the upper extremity than just our hand and forearm; it is also important for baseball players to stretch and strengthen their elbow and shoulder joints.

Moving up the chain, we will discuss the muscles that cause flexion (bending) and extension (straightening) of the arm at the elbow joint. Baseball players tend to focus on the triceps (muscles located on the back of the arm) because it is involved in the extension of the elbow, which as we know happens when you throw a ball. The concept that most people forget is balance in the body. Every joint in the body has muscles that allow for movement to happen. If we have muscles which extend the arm, we have muscles to bend the arm as well. The biceps’ action is to flex the arm (think when someone says “make a muscle”). This muscle needs to be able to stretch very quickly when the ball is thrown and needs to be strong enough to handle the force that the triceps are putting on the elbow joint to help with elbow health. Strengthening both the triceps and biceps, as well as, stretching these muscles can contribute to increased velocity, distance, endurance, and overall health of elbow and shoulder.

The third portion of the upper extremity is the shoulder. Most baseball players know the importance of a proper warm up because it helps to loosen up the shoulder joint. But starting at the fingers and moving up the arm to the shoulder will allow for the muscles to warm up and strengthen in a functional way. (Remember our post about the hand from January 19?) Just like the other joints, you want to strengthen the opposing muscle groups; however, the shoulder joint is a little more complex. Since the shoulder has a larger range of motion than the elbow, it requires more muscles to create the movement. Strengthening the shoulder properly in all ranges is important for increased performance and joint health. Stretching the shoulder is vital because of how aggressive the movement of throwing is. Muscles are contacting and relaxing so quickly, that if not properly warmed up it is very easy for an injury to occur in any part of the chain if not moving properly.

 

 

By Corynne Pereira