Youth Training Programs

Attached are your active recovery training and nutritional protocols for next week  – please review each day’s notes and video links. Pay close attention to the notes associated with each day’s protocols – it is my goal to ensure that you have a clear understanding of what you are trying to improve physically and mentally every time you begin a workout.  If you surpass either the duration and/or the intensity levels you are actually hindering your recovery (mentally and physically).  

Overload Principle

When it comes to athletic improvement, a key ingredient is called Incremental Loading (aka-Overload Principle); adding slightly more volume, intensity and/or duration to stress the muscular system (and it’s supporting systems) to create performance adaptations.  What is fascinating with the development of muscular strength & endurance is that the brain is one of the biggest components that keep athlete from achieving full potential.  The reason for this is because we feel that the next level of strength, speed or endurance “is hard”.  Think about it, how many times have you looked at your workout and thought “This is going to be tough!” only to find that it wasn’t as tough as you thought it would be.  The actual cause of this is associated with being familiar with what you are asking your body to complete. 

To put into another context, have you ever noticed that it seems like a mile is a lot longer when you are driving it for the first time when following someone’s directions?  This is because you are “not familiar” with the drive.  The same thing happens with muscular adaptation. As you become more “familiar” with certain load levels & durations, your mental approach to the activity becomes more comfortable – this is why you will hear  me say that consistency is a imperative for your long term progression. 

Ironically, this is where the value of a warm up comes into full swing.  As we have discussed, the warm up is intended to “turn on” the nervous & muscular systems to handle each workout.  One of the biggest frustrations for athletes occurs early in a workout when the intensity is brought up too fast and the accumulation of lactic acid is too much for the body to accommodate, this leads to a burning sensation (due to the acidic nature of blood lactate) and a reduction in the power that a muscle can produce.  This is why you see “please don’t cut this warm up short” so many times within your weekly schedules.  Though it appears redundant, it is one of the most frequent mistakes made during the week when trying to get a workout in around the other aspects of your life (family, eating, sleeping, work or school). 

However, when the body is provided the opportunity to warm up correctly, it is prepared to handle higher load levels (though the increase in load from week to week may seem minimal) and duration levels resulting in improved athletic ability.  When you notice that your pace/speed levels are getting faster at the same effort level, that’s when you can see the results of muscular and cardiovascular improvement.  If you stay injury and illness free, there is literally no end to your long term potential as an athlete.  Another tool towards Working Smart, Not Hard and Avoid Overtraining!

Yours in sport & health,

-Coach Robb, Coaches and Staff

Thought for week:

“Staying focused on your personal goals and objectives in a world which is doing its best to make you feel like your goals are unrealistic, means that you will have to fight the hardest battle you may ever fight.”