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Sample Articles/Programs from SportSpecific.com
Here's a few sample articles to give you an idea of the kinds of things you'll find in the Subscribers Area of SportSpecific.com These articles are reprinted as they originally appeared.
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Does It All Come Down to the First Ten Yards?
Michael Boyle
I have always been a ten yard dash proponent. When we test speed, regardless of sport we test the ten yard dash. In fact, I wrote an article previously that questioned whether we really ever tested speed in most team sports. If we choose to be specific, what we really evaluate with tests like the 40 yard dash is acceleration. The best sprinters in the world accelerate for up to sixty meters. That means that each ten yard split continues to get lower up to sixty meters in a world-class sprint race. A forty yard dash is a test of acceleration ability, not speed if we want to get our physics right.
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"The Business"
Alwyn Cosgrove and Jason Ferruggia
This article was written in response to a trend that both Jay and I experienced. We were getting approached by trainers asking us for business advice and how to "jump the ladder, get out of the trenches and avoid training clients for a long time". We are all for helping motivated individuals fast-track their career, but the fact that a trainer is asking how to avoid training people, didn't sit well with us. We all get started in this industry through our desire to help people. If you don't want to be in the "trenches" helping people - maybe this industry is not for you. You know who you are. . . .
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Should You Stick to the Recipe?
Michael Boyle
Anyone who knows me knows how much I like analogies. One area that continues to frustrate me is talking to trainers about programming. Often the conversation goes something like this, "I use a little of your stuff, a little of Mark Verstegen's stuff and mix in a little of …". In trying to describe how this works or potentially doesn't work I've decided that a food analogy may be the best route. Some people can really cook, others need cookbooks and recipes. Some people write cookbooks, others read cookbooks. Even in the restaurant world, there are cooks and there are chefs. Cooks follow the recipes, chefs create the recipes. Even those who know anything about cooking understand that every ingredient in a recipe has a purpose. You wouldn't bake and simply leave out flour would you? The key is to figure out if you are a cook or a chef. Here are some basic guidelines. . . .
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25 Years, 25 Mistakes
Michael Boyle
This year I'll enter my twenty-fifth year as a strength and conditioning coach. Last month I watched Barbara Walters celebrate her thirtieth year with a special called "30 Mistakes in 30 Years." I'm going to celebrate my twenty-fifth anniversary by telling you my top twenty-five mistakes. . . .
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A Day in the Life
Michael Boyle
I often get asked, "How do you get so much done with your business, coaching, writing, speaking etc". I usually try to give a humble answer and mumble something about hard work etc. The truth is there is a method to the madness and I'd like to share some of the things that have increased my productivity: . . .
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Female Strength
A forum post about women's inability to do chinups prompted me to post these videos. They are not and were not made to be technique videos. They were simply to show how strong our girls were in 1998. . . .
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ACL Injury Prevention Is Just Good Training
Michael Boyle
Is ACL injury prevention just good training? I think so. The program we use for ACL injury prevention is actually the same program we use with everyone! The truth is ACL injury prevention programs often consist more of packaging than new concepts. Calling a program an ACL prevention program may be nothing more than a way into the head of the athletic trainer, physical therapist or coach. But, if that's what it takes, I'm all for it. However, as coaches we have to realize that we should be practicing great injury prevention concepts with all our athletes and our weekend warriors. . . .
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Understanding Sports Hernia
Part 2
Michael Boyle
Prevention and Rehabilitation of Sports Hernia
Sports Hernia Prevention
A big key in prevention of any injury is to use appropriate screening techniques. For screening athletes I am a proponent of Gray Cook's Functional Movement Screen ( www.functionalmovement.com) The FMS is a seven part screen designed to predict risk of injury and should be done in it's entirety on every athlete at least once. Of particular interest in the sports hernia area is the FMS- Hurdle Step (a test of the hip flexion pattern). An impaired hip flexion pattern usually demonstrates a lateral shift of the pelvis when attempting to flex the hip. This would indicate an impaired hip flexion pattern. In the impaired hip flexion pattern it is theorized that the deep flexors (psoas and iliacus) are weak or inhibited. This forces the athlete to use quadratus lumborum to hip hike to create the illusion of hip flexion. In essence, lateral flexion of the pelvis on the spine raises the hip. Cook advocates not focusing on individual muscles but rather on fixing the pattern. To fix the pattern we have adopted a "top down" approach to attempt to recruit the deep hip flexors. . . .
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Box Hip Flexor Stretch
Stretching the psoas and iliacus can be difficult without a partner and a table. The other day I came up with this idea to get all the things we need in a good hip flexor stretch. . . .
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Does It Hurt?
Michael Boyle
I get asked rehab questions all the time. I have rehabilitated athletes in almost every major sport who were told they were "all done" by a doctor or a team trainer. Because people know my background, they often ask for advice. Most of the time they ignore the advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. They say "it only hurts when I run", I say things like "don't run". . . .
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Understanding Sports Hernia May Mean Understanding Adduction
Michael Boyle
Last year I wrote a piece called Understanding and Training Hip Flexion (www.strengthcoach.com/members/1283.cfm ). The idea was to take a look at muscles of the hip and how these muscles function from a slightly different perspective. This process led me to continue to study the hip and how we look at this critical area. One of the things I pride myself on is continuing to try to learn. Fortunately or unfortunately I feel like the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. An area that has become of increasing interest to me, and to many others in the fields of performance enhancement and physical therapy, is the area of sports hernia. It seems like every week another athlete is having surgery for a 'sports hernia". In order to begin to understand the concept of sports hernia, the first thing we need to do is attempt to describe a sports hernia. In the technical sense, the sports hernia is a tear in the lower abdominal wall in the inguinal area. Unlike a classic inguinal hernia there is rarely a significant tear that results in a bulge. Rather there is a gradual onset of pain in the lower abdominal area, usually beginning as groin pain. . . .
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