Youth Training - Mind and Body!

Have you been searching for a performance coach to work with your young athlete?

Do you want programs for young athletes that need mind and body training for their sport?

One can make physical strength and speed gains while increasing knowledge on how to focus and reduce anxiety to improve sport performance.

Todd is a Fitness Professional with a background in Psychology that has been working with young athletes since 2004.

Sessions are private and on location.

In your gym, you're #1.


Contact me for more information.

Todd at altiusfitness dot com

Spare Their Spines Please

This one is going to be quick and painless with more to follow. It's just getting too late for me to get a full on rant going. I'd be up all night.

Well it has happened again. I have started working with another young athlete who is competing at a national level. And the condition, the stability of the core muscles, which determine power, speed and range, are lacking.

Are the coaches blind to this. This athlete suffered a back injury over a year ago and still needs a complete reno of the core stability technique. FROM SCRATCH!

I've seen this in every young athlete in a wide variety of sports I have worked with. Football, track and field, hockey, basketball, and raquetball. Local, provincial and national athletes were alike, all needed a core tune up.

I will put this out there before I drop off into sleep-world. DON'T do more situps. Dear lord, please no.

Core stability comes from stable core activities like planks.

So be on the lookout for your athlete. Have them or the team do lunges. If they can not keep there upper body upright you had better get to work ASAP. That is an injury waiting to happen. It could show up in the back, neck, hip, knee, or ankle. But it will show up.

Well, so much for keeping it short. I just don't want to see kids get hurt unnecessarily.

Have a wonderful week and weekend.

If you want any info on core training contact me!

In health,

Todd

On Site Hop & Stop Testing

This test reliably measure force production, force absorption and symmetry between the lower extremities.

When you read the numbers on injuries they are hard to grasp. Then when I began to shop the knee test around I immediately was told of friends and family members who have busted or really sore knees.

Knee pain comes from a variety of factors: ability to produce force through the knee, force absorption and symmetry. Why symmetry? If one knee is always favoured over the other, one of them is either going to wear out or the other is going to be asked to do a little too much some time. Neither is a good situation!

And incredibly girls are 3 times more likely to injure a knee. Some studies indicate a higher risk than this but they weren't well referenced.

Here is a short clip that shows one of jumps measured in the test. We would have measured from the toe from start to landing. This particular aspect of the test does not require the participant to "stick the landing".



What's important here? Isolating the power leg and keeping the swing leg static. Measurements are much easier to record reliably, crunch and assess.

The complete test, assessment and programming can be done on location and takes approximately an hour. If you have a team or an athlete that could use or needs to have a reliable test that can be used to create a lower extremity fitness program and be able to follow it up reliably drop me a note and we'll discuss the possibilities.

In health,

Todd

Thank you to this client who allowed me to film this and use it for demonstration purposes.