Blog

Keeping It Simple

Today’s social media blitz shows top athletes performing extraordinary exercises and drills that almost look impossible. Sure, they look cool, but are they really beneficial? Are they for everyone? I recently spoke at a seminar and the common notion was “master the simple stuff.” This is true not only for the amateur athletes but professional athletes as well. Simple exercises such as the squat, lunge and push up are not always as simple as they may seem. Minor defects in mechanics can lead to asymmetries in strength, stability and flexibility. These defects can lead to decreased performance and injuries.

How Fatigue Can Cause Injuries

The body’s lower extremities connect and distribute weight throughout movements in our daily life. Energy absorption stems from the biomechanical mechanisms of which our body approaches movements.  Improper kinematics performed by one area of the body influences other lower extremities and can produce negative consequences. Inadequate strength, control, and/or alignment of the body’s structures upon ground-reaction subjects different lower extremity areas to injury. It is through the incorrect movements 

Get Stronger, Not Bigger

All the hype on social media today stresses how cool it is to be huge and lift heavy weights. You can’t look at Instagram, You Tube or Twitter without seeing some pro athlete or someone trying to be a pro athlete lifting an outrageous amount of weight one time and showing how big or “jacked” they are. It looks and is impressive, but what you might not know is how much pain they have in their joints, how limited their flexibility is and how they can’t move fluidly. The goal of strength training is to 

Guest Blog: Stop Blaming Injuries on Bad Luck

Whether you're an athlete, sport coach, strength & conditioning coach, rehab pro, or weekend warrior you can't afford to keep chalking up injuries to bad luck. As soon as you do that you're suggesting that all training, nutrition, and recovery strategies are all for show. In other words you believe that there's little you can do about frustrating and debilitating injuries.

Sliding Techniques in Baseball: Which is Safer? Which is Faster?

If you've been paying attention to the Major League Baseball season, and particularly if you're an Angels fan, you've probably heard about Mike Trout's injury that is going to result in surgery and DL stint for the first time in his career.  Trout injured the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb while sliding head first into second base.  This is a somewhat common injury in baseball due the prevalence of head first sliding, which is why you see many players now donning a protective hand and finger guard while running the bases.  Clearly, this indicates that there is an increased risk 

How You Jump and Land Matters

Many sports involve jumping and landing.  In some sports like basketball and volleyball, your ability to jump high is a deeply valued skill and will help you excel.  Every jump and land is an opportunity for injury, which is why at Compete Sports Performance and Rehab, you'll often see our Strength Coaches working with young athletes on their landing mechanics, whether it's with both legs or single leg lands.  

Guest Blog by Tim DiFrancesco-5 Mistakes New Lifters Should Avoid at all Costs

It kills me to see people start up a new weight lifting habit only to crash and burn due to unnecessary mistakes. Why is it important to include responsible lifting in your approach to being awesome? To put it simply, lifting heavy stuff the right way makes you strong and strength drives performance. I want your lifting habit to last forever so let's cover 6 completely avoidable mistakes that new lifters commonly make:

Sports Performance Training Isn't Just for Improving Performance

When we think of sports performance training, we think of getting faster, jumping higher and getting stronger so we can be better at our sport. Though it is true, we train to get better at our sport, but what can be forgotten is that we also train to prepare for the demands of the upcoming season. A solid sports performance program will address these needs by looking at the special demands of each sport, common injuries and include the little things that will help keep athletes healthy throughout the season. Let's be honest squatting heavy weight, flipping tires and parachute sprints look really cool compared to hip mobility

Performance Tips #10: Medicine Ball Bound Toss

Recovering After a Long Season

The hockey season can be a grind. Most youth players start practicing in August and finish games in March or April. That’s eight to nine months of two to three practices a week and anywhere from 25 to 60 games or more played, not to mention any private lessons and dryland. This can take a huge toll on an athlete both physically and mentally. In the 2002-2003 NHL season, the Mighty Ducks played 113 games including the regular season and pre and post season. It was a great run to the Stanley Cup Finals that ended in June. By the time everyone one got home, it seemed like the training camp was around the corner. Instead of having time off to recover, everyone went right back in to training. This affected both their physical and mental preparation for the following 

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