Spring Summer 2014 issue

The Performance Training and Conditioning E-Magazine of Athletes and Fitness Enthusiasts

Spring /Summer 2014

14� Med Ball training

Track your training with the Atlas Wearable

The latest sports performance book reviews

Eat breakfast to perform at your best

Elevation Training Mask is a patent pending "Resistance Training Device" that helps condition the lungs by creating pulmonary resistance and strengthening the diaphragm.

Elevation Training Mask will help you regulate your breathing, increase lung stamina, oxygen efficiency and increase overall mental focus. Training Mask can help your over all performance in all sports and daily living.

See the Training Mask Here!

in this issue:

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Editorial: The evolution of sports performance training Training Tech: Atlas Wearable fitness tracker hits the scene later this year Book reviews: get motivated with Relentless, get fit with Cardio Strength Training, and psyched up with The Man Watching.

Eat breakfast to perform at your best.

When training, if you PUSH, you better PULL and ROTATE! 

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Use sports psychology for the development of mental toughness To squat better and heavier think TORQUE! Your pre-game or pre-workout meal can be a big booster towards a championship season WSI Sports Wear puts tech in the your apparel Go with the 14” BIG BALLS for to add variety to your training When “Wanting it” just isn’t enough

What’s your training Philosophy? From the Editor

After years of workouts with athletes and main stream fitness clients

and helping them each reach their goals, I’ve come to learn a lot about not only training exercises, techniques, etc. but about human nature.

We all have this inner compass inside of us that helps to keep us on our path, gives us a sense of direction, and helps plot a way forward in our life. At best, it serves as our life philosophy on how we see the world and how we function in it.

The same should be said of how we train. Whether you are a competitive athlete in a team sport, into Crossfit, a P90X disciple, a yoga enthusiasts or into any other type of training methodology, it’s good to have a philosophy—-a training philosophy.

Why a training philosophy? It helps to serve as your training compass as far as where you are in your own training and where you want to go.

This philosophy doesn’t have to be rigid and un-yielding; it can be flexible based upon our constantly evolving training goals and where we want to go in life in our fitness endeavors.

The Mission The Pro Power mission is to provide training information to athletes and fitness enthusiasts by sharing training and conditioning ideals from various sources helping individuals to reach their personal performance potential.

Publishing

There are as many ways to train and condition as there are ways to create a great meal. The key to success lies in having a training philosophy that works with your needs to help you reach your goals.

Pro Power E-Magazine is published monthly in an online viewing format along with an accompanying online web site and blog.

Contact Information

What’s yours?

Editor: Daimond Dixon Web: ProPowerMag.com Email: PerformanceSport21@gmail.com

Daimond Dixon Pro Power E-Mag

Phone: (616) 633-1883

Training Tech Tech that adds variety to sports performance and fitness training Atlas Wearables is reinventing how fitness is measured.

The flagship product is a fitness tracker that identifies your exercises, counts your reps and sets, calculates the calories you burned and evaluates your form. Atlas measures your success; all you have to do is work out.

Name a sport and the athletes will tell you that strength training is critical to peak performance. Given it's nature, strength training is extremely quantifiable and yet athletes are still carrying paper tracking sheets around the gym.

Why? Because building a wearable sophisticated enough to track those movements is significantly harder than tracking walking, running, cycling and swimming -- all of which already have their own dedicated fitness trackers. Gym goers want a solution and are turning out in droves to vote with their dollars for Atlas, currently available for pre-order on Indiegogo.

Atlas is the first fitness tracker to automatically identify and track exercises. Atlas replaces manual tracking of which exercises you did, how many reps, which weights, etc. and provides beautiful and seamless data to help you fine tune your workouts.

Find out why Gigaom, Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company and others consider Atlas the wearable for 2014

Book Reviews: Relentless, Cardio Strength and The Man Watching From Amazon: DIRECT, BLUNT, AND BRUTALLY HONEST, Grover breaks down what it takes to be unstoppable: you keep going when everyone else is giving up, you thrive under pressure, you never let your emotions make you weak. In “The Relentless 13,” he details the essential traits shared by the most intense competitors and achievers in sports, business, and all walks of life. Relentless shows you how to trust your instincts and get in the Zone; how to control and adapt to any situation; how to find your opponent’s weakness and attack. Grover gives you the same advice he gives his world-class clients—“don’t think”—and shows you that anything is possible. Packed with previously untold stories and unparalleled insight into the psyches of the most successful and accomplished athletes of our time, Relentless shows you how even the best get better . . . and how you can too.

From Amazon: If you’re a guy with little time to work out and pounds of fat to burn, the thought of having to spend hours in the gym lifting weights and doing cardio can be a daunting proposition. Now, Cardio Strength Training solves both problems with simple, fast, and effective workouts that incorporate challenging, muscle-building combination moves and fat-frying cardio exercises to help you kill two birds with one stone.

Built on the same principles Robert Dos Remedios uses to train Division I collegiate athletes, Cardio Strength Training provides safe and innovative workouts and nutritional advice for anyone looking to drop pounds of flab and build a functionally strong physique. Every workout is no longer than 15 minutes and is built on the same training methods outlined in the highly successful book, Men’s Health Power Training.

From Amazon: As coach of the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, Anson Dorrance has won more than 90 percent of his games, groomed far more AllAmericans, and captured more NCAA championships than any other coach in the sport ten times over. Author Tim Crothers spent four years interviewing Dorrance and Tar Heels players from every era, along with players and coaches from rival college programs, to create the most comprehensive, intimate, and unfiltered look ever inside the most prolific dynasty in college athletics. Updated to include the story of the Tar Heels’s 2008 and 2009 NCAA championships, The Man Watching is the authorized biography of a fascinating man and the more than 200 young women he inspired to believe that anything is possible.

The books above are available in both print and tablet versions. See these great books here

Athletes: eat breakfast to perform at your best Skipping breakfast is a bad habit that can be detrimental to performance for athletes. The truth is that athletes skip breakfast for one of several reasons. Some have a queasy stomach in the morning and have trouble eating solid food early in the day. Some have simply formed the habit of not eating breakfast.

Some are convinced that there are no breakfast foods that they like. Or the most common reason that athletes skip breakfast is that they just can't seem to find the time to fit it in.

If you're like many athletes, one of these reasons is keeping you from eating breakfast in the morning and its hurting your performance. You've probably heard that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" since you were a kid. Well, it's true. Eating breakfast within one hour of waking up in the morning is really important to get you fueled for the day ahead. Breakfast gets your metabolism going and energy to your body and your brain.

If you skip breakfast, your body will go into starvation mode and start storing fat and craving carbohydrates.

fast ideas to get you started on the right track in the morning: 1. Make a smoothie. Smoothies are really quick to make and taste delicious. If you have a queasy stomach in the morning and don't like to eat solid food early, try making a fruit smoothie containing both carbs and protein. Liquid breakfasts are easier on the stomach than jumping right into solid food.

2. Prepare your breakfast the night before.If not having enough time in the morning is one of your biggest challenges to eating a good breakfast, try getting it ready the night before. You can pre-make a smoothie and store it in the fridge over night or soak some muesli in water in the fridge and simply add some hot water to it in the morning and it's ready to eat.

3. Make extra and store it. Some breakfast items store well so when you make them, be sure to make enough to have some later. Homemade granola stores great in a jar in the cupboard. If you're making some whole grain pancakes on the weekend, make a double batch and keep them in a sealed container in the fridge for a few days. Just pop them in the toaster when you'd like them during the week.

A healthy breakfast should include carbohydrate, fat, Caption describing picture or graphic. and protein.

4. Take it to go.

High glycemic We're not talking index breakabout take out from fasts like a bowl of sugared cereal, a a drive through; it's all about take toaster waffle, or toast will spike out from your own kitchen. Smoothyour blood sugar and leave you ies and other simple breakfasts like hungry a couple hours later. Incups of fruit and yogurt are easy to stead, add healthy protein and fat take with you. You can prepare sources to your breakfast in addition them the night before and just grab to carbs like Greek yogurt, granola, them and go, or make them in the and some fresh fruit. morning and take them with you. If time is tight, don't be afraid of taking Here are five quick and easy breakit with you-it's a far better solution

than skipping breakfast.

5. Commit to eating a healthy breakfast every morning for three weeks.More than anything, getting a good breakfast is all about creating the habit. It takes about 21 days to form a habit so commit to eating breakfast for just three weeks and it will become something that you do automatically and no longer have to try to fit in or plan for. You will just do it.

Give these five quick and simple breakfast tips a try. Eating a healthy breakfast in the morning will make a big difference in your energy throughout the day and will provide you fuel to perform at your best Erin Harner, MS, CHC is a sports nutrition coach and certified health coach. Through her business Empowered Athlete Sports Nutrition LLC, Erin empowers athletes throughout the United States and abroad to perform their best in sports and life. She supports athletes to reach optimal performance through optimal health. Boost your energy today by claiming your free gift at [http://www.empoweredathlete.com/]

If you PUSH, then PULL too…..

The body functions in a way that allows for a 3-dimensional lifestyle. We go forward, backwards, up, down, side to side—-we move in all kinds of directions.

Athletes need to enhance this ability more in order to achieve optimal performance results. And this means getting stronger and more powerful in all of these different directions.

When training, remember that whenever you push away from your body, whether its horizontal (ie DB Bench press) or Vertical (ie DB military press), also pull towards your body horizontally (ie DB bent rows) or vertically (ie DB high pulls).

This helps to balance out your bodys overall strength and power in different directions!

...and don’t forget to rotate!

Another great core strengthener, rotational movements can be done with a variety of objects and training tools.

These tools range from medicine balls, to plates, to dumbbells, to kettle bells. ...and while we are on the subject of multi-directional strength, don’t forget to rotate as well!

Rotational movements strengthen and reinforce our body’s ability to move from one plane to another with stability and balance.

Find a way to rotate in your workouts to create more multi-directional power and balance to your program!

Use sports psychology for the development of mental toughness The role of sports psychology shows how crucial it is for coaches and athletes to practice psychological skills for peak performance. Top athletes around the world from basketball, football, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis and golf will use sports psychology to gain their mental edge.

Sports performance specialists play a key role in keeping up the emotional health of athletes. Often, athletes -especially the most successful ones -find it difficult to keep up their emotional health due to psychological stress. It's been observed that athlete's psychological stresses commonly include: imbalance, ranging from tiredness, injury due to gastrointestinal disorders, sleep disorders, and tenderness and muscle strain.

Unfortunately, most athletes remain reluctant to confide themselves in a Sports performance specialist due to the alleged stigma. Nonetheless, many sports practitioners recognize the importance of consulting sports performance specialists, a psychologist, or a therapist for relief or to develop the requisite mental toughness.

Working with a sports psychologist is the only way to help athletes become aware of the possibility of a causal psychological requisite for a complaint and investigate into their emotional status as an integral part of their medical history.

A sports psychologist is, therefore, invaluable in conducting a non-judgmental questioning, so as to unveil inter-personal issues that may exist. Such examples are with the athlete's trainer, team mate, family member, or stress with regard to a forthcoming competition.

For concrete results, it is advised that psychological performance education should be integrated in an athlete's holistic competition preparation practice, performed correlatively with other exercise tools.

This will involve a teamwork effort among the training team, the athlete, and the sports psychologist.

Consult a sports psychologist, who is capable of teaching skills to help you to improve your learning process and motor skills, deal with competitive stress, and adjust the requisite level of awareness for peak performance.

Make sure that your sports performance specialist will design a training program that will help you to stay focused despite the many disturbances in a competitive setting.

About Philly Hypnosis and The Smoking Solution - Todd Stofka is the Director of Philly Hypnosis. The Stofka Method has helped hundreds of athletes create the behavioral changes and peak performance they want from professional and Olympic athletes, PGA golf professionals, Division I athletes, high school athletes, weekend warriors and child-athletes from many sports. Philly Hypnosis uses the best of Neural Linguistic Psychology and Performance Hypnosis to assist you change your personal sports destiny. Call for your consultation 877-557-7409 or schedule online at Philly Hypnosis

Torque

By Stephen Pruitt, MS Is it leg day? If you don’t necessarily have a leg day you should at least be squatting on a regular basis. Here’s the truth: A healthy dose of different squat forms in your training regimen will make you bigger, faster, and stronger. It’s science…

Any form of physical stress on the body will cause the body to react in defense (i.e. the release of hormones). Whether you’re banged up in a car accident or sprint a 5:50 mile the same hormones are released in a specific order. Epinephrine (adrenaline) has many responsibilities in the body, but in stress situations it usually releases first to activate the sympathetic nervous system and your fight-or-flight response.

The pancreas then increases output of glucagon to synthesize glucose (sugar) thereby increasing content in the blood, but it is usually countered a few minutes later with the output of insulin. Insulin comes along and forces the liver, skeletal muscles, and fat tissue to soak up that blood sugar. Insulin also increases cellular replication and protein synthesis. A few hours later your adrenal glands release cortisol to fight inflammation and again increase blood sugar. Finally, a day later the pituitary gland recognizes the damage that the body has experienced and it releases growth hormone and that is the good stuff that we want to get bigger, faster, stronger.

All of that was a long way of telling you that loaded squats engage more skeletal muscle groups on a greater demand than any other physical activity and therefore result in more hormone activity. Now that reason is in place we should talk about how to squat with the most power, stability and safety.

Your squat should consist of strong, complete flexion in the hip, knee, and ankle followed by even stronger extension of the same. We’re going to create that strong, stable squat by starting organized. Mark Ripptoe is a legend in weightlifting. He wrote the book Starting Strength among several other literary contributions. He explains very well the difference in body geometry for the different squat forms (i.e. high-bar, low-bar, front, overhead). We will discuss more on that in a later installment, but essentially you can’t expect to crush your strongest squat ever if your body is not set up for it prior to beginning the lift. (continued next page)

Coaching cues for low-bar back squat (getting organized): Approach the bar with your game face on; many athletes talk themselves out of a lift before getting to the bar… OWN IT! Take position under the bar with the bar resting just below the apex of your traps (for high-bar back squats) Your grip on the bar should be as close to the shoulder as you can manage; this will allow you to pull down on the bar during your squat, engaging critical upper body stabilization “Turn on” your butt; you cannot squat without engaging the glutes, so if you tighten those huge power house muscles prior to starting then you give yourself a head start Position your feet to turn out approximately 5-12 degrees; this will allow your femur to pass through your pelvis and will allow you to screw your feet into the ground creating torque in the knee and hip offering the safest position for ligaments Take a deep breath and hold it; this fills the thoracic cavity with air and tightens the abdominals and thoracic stabilizers GET ANGRY AND SQUAT HEAVY! Keep in mind that friends don’t let friends squat shallow. Your hip crease should pass below the horizontal plane of your knee on EVERY squat. Full range of motion is essential to proper development of length-tension relationships with muscle groups. With respect to the long and large muscle bellies of the quads and hams those length-tension relationships are so crucial for athletic potential.

Kelly Starrett, physical therapist and founder of Mobility WOD, has a great explanation of the importance of torque in the knee. Try this: On your right hand, wrap your middle finger over your fore finger as tight as you can get them. Now wrap your other hand around those fingers tightly to make a fist. Externally rotate your hand and feel the torque placed on the fingers. Now rotate your hand internally and feel the fingers release and almost completely separate if you can go far enough. This example is an almost perfect model of the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments in the knee (ACL/PCL). When you externally rotate your hip in your squat (or any athletic movement for that matter) you provide that essential torque on the ACL/PCL that stabilizes the knee. This same position torques the collateral ligaments as well. If your knees cave in or your hip internally rotates then you create slack in the ligaments and open a huge window of awful opportunity for strain and tear.

Stay tuned for more information on mechanics and good positioning for athletic movements.

Stephen Pruitt owns Kudzu CrossFit in Madison, MS. He has a Master Degree in Exercise Science, Health and Wellness with emphasis in Sport Rehabilitation and has recently been accepted to the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He is recognized by CrossFit as a Level 1 trainer with certifications in Olympic Lifting, Mobility and Strongman Programming. He is recognized by the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a Corrective Exercise Specialist.

Prior to owning a gym, he was a active-duty officer in the Air Force and consulted with several private clients on lifestyle changes to combat the fat. Having been an obese youth himself, Stephen coaches and consults athletes and clients with a true passion that only comes from experiencing the bottom of the barrel.

Although, he now focuses his coaching on enhancing the performance of youth and adolescent athletes, his heart still draws him to the fight against obesity.

Stephen is married with two dogs; his wife is also a fitness and nutrition specialist as well as a published fitness model. He can be reached at stephen@kudzucrossfit.com Kudzu CrossFit 113 Dees Dr. Ste B Madison, MS 39110 www.kudzucrossfit.com

The Pre-Game Meal: It Could Win Championships It’s about 4 hours before the game and I had a light lunch and I’m nervous about eating before the game but know I need to fuel my body in order to have energy. What should I eat?

Determining what to eat before the big game or event can be challenging for many high school athletes and you may not realize it will play a critical role in your overall performance. Many high school football programs provide pre-game meals to their athletes but those athletes who do not have the luxury of being provided with a meal are often left to fend for themselves. This poses a major challenge as the type of meal chosen is based on several factors such as time, location, and finances available. Those with limited time and finances are more likely going to select fast food for their option which also limits the number of healthy options available. For optimal game performance, the timing and meal composition are the two important factors.

Timing of the Pre-Game Meal Your last solid meal should be consumed 3-4 hours prior to the start of the game. This allows time for digestion and absorption. About 30 minutes before the start of your game, you should hydrate well by consuming a low sugar sports drink with sufficient electrolytes that does not cause a spike and crash in your blood sugar levels (i.e. Generation UCAN Pre-Workout).

Meal Composition of the Pre-Game Meal The composition of your pre-game meal will play a major role in your level of energy and comfort. Below is a list of options to choose from depending on your food preference. Every athlete is different in their caloric needs so experiment during fall practice with what works best for you.

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Turkey Sandwich on 100% whole grain bread or 6” sub, fresh fruit (banana, orange, apple), handful of almonds, water to hydrate (16-20 oz).

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Peanut Butter Sandwich on 100% whole grain bread, fresh fruit, skim or low fat milk with additional water to hydrate (16-20 oz).

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5-6 oz grilled chicken breast, 1- 1 ½ cups of pasta with a light red sauce, 1 cup of peas or corn, water to hydrate ((16-20 oz).

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Grilled Chicken Sandwich, fresh fruit, handful of nuts (almonds or cashews) green salad with light dressing, water to hydrate (16-20 oz).

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Grilled Chicken or Turkey Wrap, fresh fruit, green salad with light dressing, 1 wheat roll with a little butter, water to hydrate (16-20 oz).

What to Avoid with your Pre-Game Meal Your pre-game meal can also impair your performance if you don’t choose the correct balance of nutrients (carbohydrates, fat, and protein). Be sure to avoid the following.

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High Fat Meals (Fast Food Burgers, Fried Food, French Fries) – these are foods that will sit in the stomach for hours making you feel sluggish and uncomfortable.

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High Sugar Foods or Beverages – Sodas, Candy, Desserts, etc that will cause your blood sugar to drop and increasing fatigue.

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High Fiber Foods or Meals – although very nutritious, foods like broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and beans may cause excess gas and stomach discomfort.

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Sports Drinks –Most sports drinks contain sucrose, maltodextrin, or dextrose which causes a spike and crash in your blood sugar requiring you to drink more.

They also shut off your body’s ability to burn fat. In addition, the level of electrolytes are insufficient to match the volume of sodium and potassium you lose in your sweat.

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Energy Drinks – these are worse than sports drink because they may contain dangerous stimulants combined with caffeine that may potentially cause side effects during the game (i.e. rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood pressure, etc).

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New Foods – never try a food you have not had before as you don’t know how your body will react to it. Also experiment during the off-season.

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Spicy Foods – although you may tolerate spicy foods well when you’re not active, adding them prior to activity may not be a wise choice. You may increase your risk of heart burn and stomach pain.

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Raw Fish – there’s nothing wrong with a lean cut of sushi grade fish but in the event you don’t get the best quality, you may be paying for it during the game.

Tavis Piattoly, MS, RD, LDN is co-founder, My Sports Dietitian and a Sports Dietitian/Nutrition Consultant for the New Orleans Saints, New Orleans Pelicans, Tulane University Athletics . His web site is www.mysportsdconnect.com and he can be emailed at tpiattoly@mysportsd.com .

Over 23 years ago, Joel Wiens, an athlete dissatisfied with uncomfortable sports equipment that seemed to dampen everyone’s performance, began to experiment with compression apparel in combination with equipment.

The first successful item was the compression short that had a pouch for the athletic cup, providing a better fit without the discomfort of the strap.

With the purpose of making athletes more comfortable in performance, he asked some of his family to help him make the idea a reality, his Aunt Virginia, his brother Mark, his mother, and his grandmother all pitched in by sewing and developing his first products. His simple innovation ideas then grew to a successful JOC line of elite gear for many sports including baseball, hockey, football, and lacrosse.

WSI is 100% made in USA. Being located in the USA gives WSI Sports the edge over big companies that produce products overseas, because they can get their products to the customer faster, and WSI guarantees that their materials are superior to products made in other countries, because other productions often substitute cheaper materials.

Over the years, Joel and WSI Sports have developed many innovative products, including the WikMax® and HEATR® fabrics, and they expanded their products to even more sports, like cycling, hunting and skiing. They are even the official sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Ski Jumping Team.

Today, WSI still prides itself on providing athletes with maximum comfort, maximum protection, and maximum performance. Their passion for innovation has led to some cutting edge base layer technologies: WikMax® One of Joel’s more recent inventions is the WikMax® lightweight fabric. It contains hyper wicking and fast drying technologies that outperform the competition every time. The WikMax® works to keep the athlete dry and comfortable throughout performance. The fabric uses a “T” technology to rapidly push all perspiration to the outside of the fabric, and then spreads it out to allow for rapid evaporation.

This allows the wearer to experience a dry feeling no matter how much sweat they work up.

“We have found that players are wearing only one WikMax® shirt to get them through the entire game…This garment has done everything you told me it would,” says Mike Aldrich, Head Equipment Manager of the San Jose Sharks.

The Pro WikMax® Performance Pants/Tights are a great option for keeping your legs dry and comfortable in any weather. Worn by NFL pros such as Larry Fitzgerald and Matt Cassel, these pants use the WikMax® technology along with a 4-way stretch compression to allow for a full range of motion.

Next, we have the WikMax® Long Sleeve Semi Mock Shirt. This shirt will keep you drier than any other competitor’s product. The WikMax® shirt has proven to be the fast drying and most versatile base layer item because it can function in hot and cold conditions.

WikMax HEATR® is WSI’s most innovative line to date. HEATR® is a fiber that expands and generates heat as your skin contacts it. This can be a huge advantage for any athlete, because the ability to absorb, store, and release heat in a base layer can serve many different functions. The first is that it will get your muscles loose and warmed up much faster, this is great for preventing injury, increasing range of motion, and improved muscle performance.

Another advantage of this technology is that it helps get Oxygen to the blood faster, and increases blood flow in general. The increased blood flow and Oxygen in the blood allows for a faster recovery time within the muscles.

The third advantage is the heat. This can be beneficial in a few ways, if you are competing or working out in cold weather, the heat-absorbing fabric will be great for helping your core muscles stay warm and loose. If you are in moderate to hot temperatures, HEATR® products can be used to increase your core body temperature, thus getting your heart rate up and burning more calories throughout your workout.

Here is the HEATR® Pitching/QB Shirt. This is a great workout piece because it is body mapped with HEATR® over the core upper body muscles, and features ventilated WikMax® panels through the armpits and stomach to keep you dry.

Finally is the HEATR® Volt Pant. Like the Pitching/QB Shirt, this product is intuitively body mapped with HEATR® through the core muscles, and WikMax® through the rest of the pants.

For more information, please visit http://www.wsisports.com/, or visit WSI’s social media: Facebook: facebook.com/WSISports Twitter: twitter.com/WSISports1 Instagram: instagram.com/wsisports1

Excel Training sell’s excel templates for personal trainers, strength coaches, weight loss specialists, as well as functional movement specialists. Not just any excel template, completely automated templates with dropdowns and user entered databases helping you store and control your information. The vast majority of the work that we do is custom, made to order programs that are designed specifically for you. If you do not see something on this site that specifically meets what you need, please let us know, as whatever it is, it can be made. Whether you have 5 clients or 500 athletes, we have tools to make help you organize your training today!

14” Med Balls They are BIG and they come in a variety of weights to accommodate everyone; what I am talking about is the 14” medicine balls that have stepped their game up into the world of not only sports performance, but have become a fan favorite of fitness enthusiasts everywhere.

The uniqueness of these medicine balls and what sets them apart is their shear SIZE. The 14” diameter is a drastic difference from their smaller counter part, which means users have to use a little more core strength to use it effectively.

The big 14” balls are even better when they come “bounceless” —meaning they don’t bounce. This is especially challenging when it comes to rotational or forward wall slams, but this forces the user to throw with more force and velocity.

Types of throws with these monster balls include rotational, vertical, forward, floor slams—the list goes on and on and is only limited by your imagination.

The balls can be used in your workouts when training for power, strength, core and explosiveness. See the video below of the 14” ball in action, and if your interested in grabbing your own, click the Rogue fitness link at the bottom of the page and order yours today!

SLAMS

ROTATIONAL THROWS

Wanting it is not enough Each and every time you step on the court or walk in the weight room, you have a choice to make. You can choose to work hard or you can choose to not work hard. Not working hard is actually a choice. You are 100% in control of your effort and your attitude.

For this off-season to be as productive as possible, you need to choose to work hard consistently.

You must choose get better every day… even when no one else is around.

I want to jump higher. I want to gain 10 lbs. I want to be a better shooter. I want to play at the next level.

Merely wanting it is not enough. Everyone wants it. You must make the sacrifices necessary to make it happen.

You must train with purpose, train with effort, and train with consistency to make your goals a reality.

Let’s say your goal is to gain 10 lbs. this off-season. If I weighed you on April 1st and told you on September 1st I would weigh you again, and if you were 10 lbs. heavier I would give you $1,000,000 in cash, would you accept my offer?

Of course you would!

Do you think you would achieve your goal? Absolutely! In fact, I guarantee you would. You would be so focused and determined you would probably gain twice that. You would be so passionate about achieving your goal that you would attract support from everyone around you.

How can I be so sure?

Because your commitment would be unstoppable! You would go beyond just wanting it and you would make it happen.

You need to find a way to tap into this type of conviction even when there isn’t a million dollar prize involved. You need to approach your training with this type of mindset.

Unfortunately, there is a little voice that occasionally tries to derail you…

“I don’t want to work out today. I will get up extra shots tomorrow. I will lift weights tomorrow.”

If you let that little voice win, you won’t be successful. Trust me.

Staying committed is not easy. It’s OK if you need some help. In fact, I recommend you get some help. You need to find someone who pushes you to be the best you can be. Someone that holds you accountable. Someone that motivates you, inspires you, and encourages you. Someone that tells you what you need to hear – not what you want to hear. Someone that gives you energy. Someone who supports and strengthens your commitment.

Do you have a person like this in your life?

If so, make sure you tell them how much you appreciate you them.

If not, you need to find a person like that ASAP. Train hard. Fuel smart. Get better.

Alan Stein http://www.StrongerTeam.com

Alan Stein is the owner of Stronger Team and the strength & conditioning coach for the nationally renowned, Nike elite DeMatha Catholic High School basketball program. Alan brings a wealth of valuable experience to his training arsenal from over a decade of extensive work with elite high school, college, and NBA players.