Home Posts tagged "Nancy Newell"

Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 2/21/18

Here's a little strength and conditioning reading to get you over hump day:

John Kiely on the Past, Present, and Future of Periodization - I really enjoyed this podcast from Mike Robertson and John Kiely. It's an excellent resource on the program design front.

It Needs to Be Said: Throwing Doesn't Build "Arm Strength" - Your throwing program may build arm speed and arm endurance, but it's not building arm strength. Give this article from my archives a read to learn more.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 5/15/17

I skipped a week of this recommended reading installment, but I'm happy to report that it allowed me to stockpile a little extra content for you. So, here are six recommendations instead of my normal three:

Why a Pro Approach Will Fail When Coaching the Youth Athlete - Former Cressey Sports Performance intern John Dusel wrote this great post for Nancy Newell's site.

4 Steps to Deeper Learning - My good friend Mike Robertson wrote this up with up-and-coming strength and conditioning coaches in mind, but the lessons really apply to any industry.

Does Diet Soda Cause Strokes and Dementia? - As always, the crew at Examine.com cut through the noise and give you the low down on recently published research.

The Truth About Kids and Resistance Training - I received a question the other day about whether resistance training was appropriate for kids, and I quickly "referred out"...to myself! I wrote this article up eight years ago and it's still right on target.

The San Antonio Spurs, Made with 100 Percent Juice - This is a nice shoutout to Brian St. Pierre for his nutrition work with the Spurs.

Want a White Collar To-Do List? Start With Some Blue Collar Work - My business partner, Pete Dupuis, shares some insights on the entrepreneurial side of fitness.

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3 Factors that Contribute to Arm Injuries in Softball Players

Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance coach, Nancy Newell. Nancy is a rock star when it comes to working with our softball players, and today you'll see why. Enjoy! - EC

The conventional belief in fast-pitch softball has been that the underhand throwing motion places minimal stress on the shoulder and pitching-related injuries are therefore rare. As such, unlike its baseball counterparts, the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) has zero pitching regulations in place to monitor pitches thrown per game, innings played, rest between appearances, and number of required pitchers per team. This mindset puts these young athletes at a higher risk of injury. Here’s why:

1) Significant forces and torques are experienced at the shoulder and elbow.

It’s true the forces and torques experienced at the shoulder for females do not match the forces produced with overhand pitching in males. Males typically have bigger frames (height x weight) and muscle mass to produce higher forces than their female counterparts, so we should expect to see higher forces in males verse females. However, the forces produced by females relative to their height and weight are significant enough to cause injury to their bodies over time.

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During the deceleration phase, baseball pitchers create forces at the shoulder measured as high as 108% of body weight in professional pitchers. Softball pitchers on the other hand have to resist glenohumeral distraction forces of up to 80-94% of bodyweight while also controlling a maximum internal rotation torque velocity greater than 5,000 degrees per second. The combination of high rotational forces at the shoulder and elbow place a stressful workload on the biceps tendon, pectoralis major, and subscapularis to resist internal rotation and forward translation of the humerus along with pronation of the forearm. Consequently, Shanley et al. noted up to 80% of all girls playing high school softball reported having shoulder injuries (discomfort, pain, or strains). Barrentine et al. (college pitchers) and Werner et al. (youth pitchers) both demonstrated that compression forces needed to resist distraction at the shoulder were close to 1x body weight.  Furthermore, the Werner group noted, "Excessive distraction stress and joint torques at the throwing-arm elbow and shoulder are similar to those found in baseball pitchers."

Note from EC: as an interesting aside, another study from the Werner group demonstrated shoulder stress almost 20% lower in elite (Olympic) softball pitchers even though their velocity was significantly (5mph) higher. This parallels what we see in high-level baseball pitchers; the best athletes out there find more efficient ways to pitch, and understand how to effectively distribute stress across multiple joints. They're also generally stronger, and therefore able to tolerate higher training and competition loads. This is just a friendly reminder that your untrained 14-year-old isn't highly trained, biomechanically efficient, or skeletally mature.

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2) Pitch counts are extremely high.
 
Young female athletes are now specializing in softball year round and playing at least 52 and sometimes upwards of 72 games per year. These athletes play for their high school team (12 games); participate in summer ball or tournament play which have around six 3-day showcases with up to nine games per tournament (30-54 games); fall ball (10 games); then attend numerous winter clinics.

A 2016 Lear et al. study helped shed some much needed light on daunting pitch count numbers being thrown by young women. It has been reported that high school softball pitchers may average about 99 pitches over 5 innings of work. Lear additionally stated, “In tournament play, youth players may throw every game of a weekend tournament, reaching upwards of 1,200 pitches in a 3-day event.”

Dr. James Andrews, a renowned orthopedic surgeon and authority on the topic of throwing injuries, had this to say in his 2013 writing of Any Given Monday: “There is a common belief that the throwing underhand is a natural way to keep a player safe from injury, but this is definitely not true. The repeated movement and velocity of pitches thrown, even in the windmill style, are now even tearing the ‘Tommy John ligament,’ resulting in a UCL injury. Pitching limits matter in softball as much as they do in baseball.”

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3) Kids are lacking in the strength and conditioning department.
 
Compounding these issues is the fact that many young athletes do not get exposed to strength training until their freshman year of college, resulting in poor rotator cuff strength, scapular control, and a lack of both muscular and kinesthetic awareness. These factors, coupled with kids spending less time outdoors and more time on their couch absorbed in a digital reality, is not helping the situation either. Just to put this in perspective, WebMD noted that 85% of kids aged 14-17 own cell phones and spend an average of 6 hours per day checking social media and playing games. Without a solid foundation of strength and conditioning, young athletes are at a higher risk for injuries to begin with; with a program, their bodies are more prepared for the demands their sport places on them. Take three of those hours staring at a screen and devote them to a consistent strength and conditioning program and we have a different story.

Closing Thoughts

Softball pitchers will continue to be negatively impacted by the effects of overuse unless associations above implement a change. Until then, softball pitchers need to focus on:
 
• Getting stronger
• Tracking pitches thrown
• Effective and honest communication with coaches and parents
• Putting the softball down for a few months

About the Author

Nancy Newell (@NancyNewell2) is a strength and conditioning coach at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA. Nancy earned her Bachelors Degree in Fitness Development from the State University of New York at Cortland. You can read more from her at www.NancyNewell.com.
 

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 10/25/16

Before we get to the recommended content for the week, can we talk about how awesome it is to have a Cubs/Indians World Series match-up?!?! With four Cressey Sports Performance (CSP) guys in this series, you can bet that I won't miss a single pitch. I'm flying out today for Game 1 in Cleveland, but before I do, here's some strength and conditioning reading to hold you over for a few days!

Long-Term Success: What You Can Learn from Corey Kluber - With CSP athlete Corey starting Game 1 of the World Series, it seemed like a good time to reincarnate this article I wrote for Gabe Kapler's website back in 2014. Yesterday's article (here) on MLB.com reaffirmed my thoughts even more.

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Why Nutrition Science is So Confusing - Dr. John Berardi has a knack for making the complex seem simple, and in this infographic, he discusses why things have gotten so complicated on the nutrition front in the first place.

How to Write Better Youth Warm-ups - At our Massachusetts facility, Nancy Newell heads up the CSP Foundations program, which is geared toward 7-12 year-old athletes. They have an absolute blast and it has a lot to do with Nancy's contagious energy and fun programming.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 9/12/16

Happy Monday! Well, at least it is for me. I'm pumped about the Patriots' season opening win on the road against the Cardinals last night! Let's keep the good vibes rolling with some recommended reading from around the 'Net over the past week:

3 Laws to Master Coaching Young Athletes - Cressey Sports Performance coach Nancy Newell does an awesome job with our CSP Foundations (7-12 year-old) class, and this blog shows why. The kids have a blast and learn a ton in large part due to her enthusiasm and fun approach to coaching. 

Performance Metrics in Professional Baseball Players Before and Surgical Treatment for Neurogenic Thoracic Outlet Syndrome - In light of the rise in TOS surgeries in professional baseball, I thought it'd be good to link to this recent publication from Dr. Robert Thompson's group in St. Louis. It's important to note that the case studies in question were performed between 2001 and 2014, and they've actually improved the surgery and rehab in the two years since then. I'd venture a guess that outcomes are even better now.

3 Tips for Transitioning Your Training Model to Semi-Private - When folks come to observe at one of the CSP facilities, invariably, they wind up asking the question, "How can I do this with my clientele?" In this blog, Pete Dupuis provides a thorough answer.

Elite Training Mentorship - Just a friendly reminder that the CSP staff uploads content to this resource every month, and the September update includes an awesome webinar, "Coaching, Cueing, and Performance," from Miguel Aragoncillo.  

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To think, this all started with a handful of HS baseball players during the summer of '07... #cspfamily #elitebaseball #CSPpitching

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 8/8/16

I'm wrapping up my California trip tonight, but didn't want to leave you hanging on this week's recommended strength and conditioning reading/listening. Here are some good ones to check out:

EC on "The Impact Show" with Jim Kielbaso - This might have been my favorite podcast I've ever done, as I feel like Jim and I covered a lot of ground on the business and coaching sides of the equation. He's got some quality stuff in the archives of this podcast, too, so I'd encourage you to check some of his previous episodes out as well. 

Invisible Influence - I've become a big fan of Jonah Berger's writing in a similar way to how Malcolm Gladwell won me over years ago. If you're interested in the factors that govern behavior and decision-making, Berger's stuff will be right up your alley. His commentary on "social facilitation" has immediate utility for those in the fitness industry.

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Softball and Humeral Anterior Glide - If you like my baseball writing, you'll also enjoy CSP coach Nancy Newell's blogs on training softball players. This is one such example.

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Crossing Dodger Stadium off the bucket list with great friends. #cspfamily

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Register Now for the 5th Annual Cressey Sports Performance Fall Seminar!

We're very excited to announce that on Sunday, September 25, we’ll be hosting our fifth annual fall seminar at Cressey Sports Performance. As was the case with our extremely popular fall event over the past four years, this event will showcase the great staff we're fortunate to have as part of our team. Also like last year, we want to make this an affordable event for everyone and create a great forum for industry professionals and fitness enthusiasts alike to interact, exchange ideas, and learn. 

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Here are the presentation topics:

Pete Dupuis -- Business Before Branding

All too often, business owners put the cart before the horse by focusing on branding before establishing a solid business foundation. Before you worry about creating the most memorable hashtag on Twitter, you need efficient systems, a sound team, and concrete training philosophies. Anyone can convince a client to hand over their money once, but a consistent and predictable service retains the lifetime value of a customer. In this presentation, Pete will take an in-depth look at the core values, systems and principles that helped to create the foundation of our success at Cressey Sports Performance.

Miguel Aragoncillo -- Enhancing Performance with Plyometrics

Are you using bounding, jumping, skipping or hopping in your exercise programs? From track and field to team sports, plyometrics can enhance your performance. Miguel will cover plyometric basics to address various aspects of speed and power development. Whether you're a trainer or want to improve your own performance, this presentation will cover coaching and programming based on your goals. This presentation includes a hands-on component to identify specific techniques when performing jump training.

Greg Robins -- Lessons in Savagery

Nothing can replace old fashioned hard work in the weight room, but a savage work ethic and intelligent programming don't have to be mutually exclusive. Greg will share several important lessons to get strong, build muscle and become a savage without sacrificing the fundamentals of quality physical preparation.

Chris Howard -- What Massage Can Do for Your Strength Training

Massage therapy is often used to treat pain in the strength and conditioning setting. However, after seven years as a strength coach and massage therapist, Chris has developed methods to integrate massage into training programs for improved performance in healthy individuals. In this presentation, Chris will share his lessons learned on how massage therapy can benefit professional athletes and weekend warriors alike.

Tony Bonvechio -- Reverse Engineering the Novice Powerlifter

The rising popularity of powerlifting has sparked a resurgence in heavy barbell training for people of all ages and experience levels. Tony will discuss how to handle a brand-new powerlifter, including considerations for fine-tuning their technique, writing their programs and preparing them for their first competition. This presentation will feature hands-on movement and technique assessments to highlight what truly matters when evaluating powerlifters.

Nancy Newell -- Tackling the Road to ACL Recovery

An estimated 80,000 anterior cruciate ligament tears occur annually in the United States. The majority of these injuries are suffered by 15- to 25-year-olds who want to get back on the field or court as fast as possible. Nancy will examine current research regarding graft selections, risk factors, and how the strength and conditioning coach can help athletes recover both mentally and physically.

Eric Cressey -- Forecasting Fitness

Fifteen years after entering the industry, Eric will make some projections on what the next 15 years will look like in the fields of health and human performance. He'll pay attention to the business, training, and clinical sides of the equation to help fitness professionals to position themselves correctly in the years ahead.

**Bonus 2:30PM Saturday Session**

George Kalantzis and Andrew Zomberg-- The Method Behind CSP Strength Camp Madness

Group training is rapidly overtaking one-on-one training as the most profitable fitness service. However, an effective group fitness system is often difficult to create and sustain. In this session, George and Andrew will take participants through an actual CSP strength camp. The training session will be accompanied by a brief presentation and handouts that dive into the components of programming, coaching and marketing strategies to drive new business and client retention within a group training model.

Location:

Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

Cost:

Regular Rate – Early Bird (before August 25) $129.99, Regular $149.99
Student Rate – Early Bird (before August 25) $99.99, Regular $129.99

The early bird registration deadline is August 25.

Date/Time:

Sunday, September 25, 2016
Registration 8:30AM
Seminar 9AM-5PM

**Bonus session Saturday, September 24 at 2:30pm.

Continuing Education

0.8 National Strength and Conditioning Association CEUs (eight contact hours)

Click Here to Sign-up (Regular)

or

Click Here to Sign-up (Students)

We’re really excited about this event, and would love to have you join us! However, space is limited and most seminars we’ve hosted in the past have sold out quickly, so don’t delay on signing up!

If you have additional questions, please direct them to cspmass@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!

PS - If you're looking for hotel information, The Extended Stay America in Marlborough, MA offers our clients a heavily discounted nightly rate of just under $65.00. Just mention "Cressey" during the booking process in order to secure the discount. Their booking phone number is 508-490-9911.

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12 Elite Athletic Development Coaching and Programming Lessons

With this week's release of Mike Robertson and Joe Kenn's Elite Athletic Development 3.0 DVD set, Cressey Sports Performance coach Nancy Newell and I put our heads together to highlight 12 of the key takeaways from this great new resource. 

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1. Coaching jump and landing technique is a must.

The “athletic position” occurs in every sport. If you want athletes to apply force, they also need to understand how to absorb force. With ACL injuries on the rise, it’s no surprise that 60-70% of these injuries result from non-contact incidences. This means that kids are getting hurt because they haven’t learned or practiced this technique.
Try these approaches:

a. Deceleration on two legs (Vertical Jump with Stick)

b. Deceleration on one leg (Heiden with Stick)

c. Upper body deceleration (Medicine Ball Work)

2. Don’t count the reps; make the reps count.

It can be challenging for a youth athlete to perform a set of ten bodyweight squats with perfect technique.

[bctt tweet= "Remember: the single-most transferable trait of an excellent program is confidence."]

If you start to see their form going down the drain, break the reps up into smaller pieces of success. Instead of performing one set of ten reps, you might perform five sets of two reps. The athlete will gain confidence, learn and retain HOW to perform the movement.

3. Teach athletes to “push,” not “pull.”

A common mistake athletes make is having the mentality to “pull” weight off the floor. When we pull weight off the floor, a large portion of that force produced comes from our lower back. If you can teach an athlete to apply force into the ground by “pushing,” a large majority of that force comes from our posterior chain and creates a strong, stable base for our bodies to produce force.

4. Use single leg strength to achieve stability and control, not maximal strength.

While incredibly important, single-leg work is not the best way to get “globally” strong. In a bilateral exercise such as the squat and deadlift, you have a larger base of support to move more weight using mostly prime movers (hamstrings, quads, glutes). A single leg exercise with a smaller base of support places more emphasis on owning and controlling our bodies through multiple planes of motion. Use single-leg exercises to fill in the gaps between maximal strength and stability.

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5. Attitude controls your efforts.

One of the most impactful quotes Joe Kenn had during Elite Athletic Development 3.0 was, “You’re not giving good effort with a bad attitude.” Young athletes feed off coaches’ energy, so if you're upset about something personal that happened and you bring that to the weight room, your athletes will likely adopt that same poor attitude about today.

[bctt tweet="Your attitude is the number one dictator of the success of your program."]

You need to have the utmost confidence in yourself to achieve what you set out to complete for each day.

6. Get young athletes proficient in fundamental movements.

This may seem like a no brainer; however, many coaches are willing to place an external load on an athlete before they can confidently control their own bodyweight. Fundamentals are the building blocks for getting stronger, performing better and – most above all – staying injury-free. Youth training should not be about a “quick fix.” It should be about developing efficient motor patterns, skills, and confidence to form a robust foundation for long-term athletic development.

7. “Once relative strength is compromised, continuing to focus on maximal strength becomes an issue.” -Loren Landow

Robertson and Kenn highly urged everyone to over-emphasize general basic strength qualities because strength is a skill. Once you start to “own” this skill, you can start to add layers to challenge your mental and physical strength. Use layering to prepare your athletes for the next phase of training. As an example:

Phase 1: Bodyweight w/3second quasi ISO hold
Phase 2: KB Goblet Squat w/3second lowering/ Explosive concentric
Phase 3: 2KB Squat

8. “There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.”

In your personal life, career, athletics you can’t be afraid to work hard. The most valuable teaching tool is experience, and experience comes from jumping on opportunities to learn from smarter, more experienced people than you. Set your goals high, but don’t jump stairs.

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9. Building a more robust athlete comes from the bottom of the pyramid.

If you want to maximize your training results, you have to maximize recovery. One way to kick start recovery is to be consistent with the little things at the bottom of the pyramid (sleep, nutrition, and soft-tissue work). These variables can have a dramatic impact on one's ability to feel good and stay healthy for the long haul. For example, take an athlete who works out 3x/week for one hour. That’s three hours out of 168 hours in a week. Your training makes up less than 3% of your week, but those "tiny" elements at the base of the pyramid that make up a big chunk of the remaining 97%.

10. An efficient warm up has three broad components:

a. Physiology - We want our athletes to warm-up to increase tissue temperature, improve joint lubrication (especially for the older athletes), and fire up the nervous system.

b. Biomechanics - We aim to optimize alignment; isolate then integrate; and sync up the nervous and musculoskeletal systems.

c. Specific - We want to reflect the actual nature of the activities that follow, whether we're incorporate lifting weights or training speed/power. 

11. High-intensity/anaerobic exercise is built from a low-intensity/aerobic base.

Focusing year-round on just high-intensity work with your athlete will result in a less than impressive work capacity and performance. Instead, use various forms of cardiac output work to expand your pyramid base and help your reach higher anaerobic peaks.

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12. Everybody is an athlete.

Regardless of age and training experience, everyone can benefit from training power. Power is vital for overall athleticism, but it is unfortunately one of the first physical qualities we lose as we age. By respecting all the elements on the force-velocity curve you can help anyone get stronger, faster, and more explosive.

Here's an extended warm-up example that would constitute power training in these individuals:

-Low amplitude/high velocity (jump rope)
-Upper body throw (overhead med ball stomp)
-High amplitude/low(er) velocity (Heidens)

As I noted earlier, Mike Robertson and Joe Kenn's new Elite Athletic Development 3.0 seminar DVD set is on sale for $100 off through this Friday (7/22) at midnight. I would consider it an outstanding investment for any strength and conditioning professional. For more information, head HERE.

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About the Co-Author

Nancy Newell (@NancyNewell2) is a strength and conditioning coach at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA. Nancy earned her Bachelors Degree in Fitness Development from the State University of New York at Cortland. You can read more from her at www.NancyNewell.com.

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