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Articles by Andy Haley
27 Awesome Core Exercises for Athletes to Build Strength and Fight Back Pain
Working out can build you up or break you down. That’s especially true when it comes to core exercises. Perform the right moves the right way and you’ll get stronger, more athletic, and—barring injury—more likely to enjory a life free of back pain. But doing the wrong exercises—or doing the right ones with poor form—and can cause a host of problems.
Why the Goblet Squat Is the Best Squat for Young Athletes
The Goblet Squat is a lower-body exercise in which you hold a dumbbell or kettlebell with both hands in front of your chest. It’s the ideal Squat variation to teach young athletes proper squat technique; however, it can be used to build strength for everyone.
6 Reasons Why You Should Never Skip Leg Day Again
“Friends don’t let friends skip a leg day.” Google this phrase and you will see a number of photos showing guys who have jacked upper bodies and twig legs. Here’s one example: And here’s another: The phrase is good advice because it’s all too common for people to skip a leg day. Leg workouts are hard, no doubt. Squats, Deadlifts and other leg exercises are physically demanding, and the soreness afterward can be beyond unpleasant.
How Football Sizes Change at Each Level of the Sport
Footballs come in several sizes to accommodate athletes of different ages. Younger athletes use smaller balls, and football sizes gradually increase as athletes advance to higher levels. “We have different football sizes because it would be very difficult for a 9- or 10-year-old kid to throw an NFL ball,” explains Kevin Krysiak, Director of Global Innovation Team Sports at Wilson, the primary supplier of footballs to the NFL and NCAA.
The Single-Leg RDL: How to Perform It, Common Mistakes and Advanced Variations
The Single-Leg RDL is a Potent Exercise For athletes, it develops the single-leg strength needed to be explosive off both legs when sprinting, jumping, and changing directions. It also focuses on the glutes and hamstrings, which are the primary drivers of the skills just listed. More importantly, the Single-Leg RDL helps to eliminate strength imbalances on the left and right sides of the body and improves lower-body stability, which protects the knees from injury.
Football Field Dimensions and Goal Post Sizes
In American football, the standard field dimensions are 120 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide. The last 10 yards of length on either end of the field are considered “end zones” in which a player scores. These dimensions are consistent for football played at the high school, college, and professional (NFL) levels. Length of a Football Field The total length of a football field is 120 yards. The playing field is 100 yards (300 feet) long, and each end zone is 10 yards (30 feet) deep.
Summer Training Guide: Lacrosse
The Workout Lacrosse is by nature an explosive sport. When you’re training to improve your explosiveness, it’s not strength in terms of pure numbers that’s truly important. It’s speed of movement—how quickly you can perform each rep accurately—that counts the most. Mark Cinelli’s program uses three full-body workouts per week to increase your strength, power and athleticism. You’ll also enhance your speed and agility on the field.
Summer Training Guide: Softball
The Workout As a softball player, you’re probably playing consistently over the summer. This is the time to focus on maintaining your performance with an in-season program. Two workouts per week should help keep your entire body strong and injury-free. The workouts feature multi-joint lifts, which work several muscle groups at once, so you can challenge most of your body with a few exercises.
Football Summer Training Guide
The Workout In the summer, you need to get your strength and conditioning into varsity shape. Todd Durkin’s approach is to pack a lot of gym work into a small amount of time to build muscle (so you can handle getting hit and deliver more powerful blows of your own) and improve your ability to meet the cardiovascular demands of running and blocking. It’s everything you need to catch your coach’s attention and dominate double sessions.
3 College Strength Coaches Explain the Biggest Training Mistakes Made by High School Athletes
Are you prepared to make the jump to collegiate sports? Most of what you do on the field during high school is to prove to a college coach that you can, in fact, compete with the bigger, faster, stronger and smarter athletes at the next level. Yet the transition is still certain to be daunting for all but a select few highly gifted athletes. Beyond the field of play, there are other adjustments to contend with. Demanding coaches. A jam-packed schedule. Schoolwork. Living away from home.
Summer Training Guide: Baseball
The Workout You’re probably playing summer ball right now, so you need to do in-season training. Greg Robins, a trainer who specializes in working with baseball players, views summer as a critical time. High school baseball players are still developing, and summer is the perfect time to improve your game.
How to Get Faster With Mini-Hurdle Drills
Mini-hurdle drills are one of the best tools for getting faster and more explosive. That is if they’re done right. Too often athletes will do mini-hurdle drills without a plan. They simply set up a course and jump or hop through the hurdles without much thought. A set is considered a success if you manage to get through the course without kicking one of the mini hurdles. There are two problems with this approach. One, haphazardly jumping over hurdles doesn’t guarantee you will actually get faster.
You need to have the ball in your possession to win football games. The last thing you want to do is fumble during a critical play. Improving ball security should be at the top of your list. Fumbles are preventable. Yes, some result from good defensive plays, but the majority of fumbles occur when players fall to the ground or are off balance.
Quarterbacks: 4 Tips to Keep Your Throwing Shoulder Healthy
Quarterbacks need to take care of their primary athletic weapon—their throwing shoulder. A strong shoulder can produce powerful and accurate passes, while reducing the risk of an injury from a hard sack. QBs share common concerns with baseball pitchers, but according to Dr. Wayne McGough, an orthopaedic surgeon at the renowned Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center (Birmingham, Alabama), quarterback shoulder injuries present a different set of problems.
The Signs of a Torn Meniscus and How to Fix It
The knee is an incredible joint. It can straighten and bend while supporting your body weight—or more if you’re lifting weight—and handle the stress of athletic movements such as sprinting and jumping. And it can do all of this smoothly and without pain thanks to the meniscus. We talked to Dr. Christopher Kaeding, an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, to learn more about the anatomy of the meniscus, injuries and treatment.
Hockey Players: Should You Stand or Sit on the Bench Between Shifts
Most hockey players sit orderly on the bench, taking a breather between shifts while watching their teammates on the ice. But sometimes, you may see an entire team standing up on the bench, actively cheering their teammates throughout the game. What is the best option? Opinions differ. We spoke with two high-level hockey experts to get their thoughts and help you choose what’s best for you.
Here’s the Actual Résumé Tom Brady Put Together Before He Knew He’d Make it in the NFL
Love him or hate him, Tom Brady is undoubtedly one of the best—if not the best—quarterbacks ever to play in the NFL. But no one could have predicted his extraordinary success after he was drafted in the sixth round. Even Brady was prepared for a career outside of football. BroBible dug up an old Facebook post from Brady, where he posted his résumé coming out of college. With his 3.3 GPA and several academic honors, Brady was an excellent college student outside of football.
The Best Sciatic Nerve Stretch Exercises to Alleviate Leg Pain
Do you suffer from chronic leg and hip pain that simply won’t go away? If so, there’s a good chance that you have sciatica, or pain that’s caused by pressure placed on the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the human body. The nerve travels from your lumbar spine (lower back) and goes through your hip and thigh all the way down to your foot. This large nerve allows your central nervous system to communicate with the structures in your hip and leg.
The Simplest Way to Know When You Should Add More Weight to an Exercise
To make gains, you need to gradually increase the difficulty of your workouts. As your workouts get harder, your muscles will become bigger and stronger. This is the concept of progressive overload. Exercises must place additional stress on your muscles, either by lifting more weight or doing more reps. Over time, your muscles adapt to the stress, and you must once again increase the weight or reps. This is the marker of progress. However, progressive overload can be a bit complicated.
How To Perform The Eccentric Calf Raise
The Eccentric Calf Raise, an exercise that increases explosive calf strength. Muscular Benefits Increases explosive calf strength Improves deceleration Eccentric Calf Raise Sports Performance Benefits The calves are not the largest lower-body muscles, but they’re among the most important for every movement that involves foot-ground contact. Developing explosive calves will help you push off the ground harder when running and jumping or against the ice at the end of your skating stride.
8 Ways to Use a Weight Vest in Your Workouts
Bodyweight exercises are fantastic. You can train your entire body and get a great workout with no equipment. However, they are limited in the amount of strength they can build. At a certain point, athletes get too strong to make further strength gains with bodyweight exercises. For example, if you can do a set of 40 Push-Ups, you’ll build muscular endurance more than strength. This is why when we lift weights, we always try to lift more—to challenge our muscles and promote strength gains.
How to Do Dips the Right Way
Dips are a bodyweight exercise that develops the triceps and other upper-body muscles. The exercise begins when you hold on to parallel bars with your arms straight. You then bend your elbows until your upper arms are parallel to the ground before driving up to the starting position. Here’s everything you need to know to correctly perform Dips, avoid common mistakes and build bigger and stronger triceps. How To Do Dips To perform Dips, you need parallel bars, a dip stand or a dip machine.
How the Fire Hydrant Exercise Can Improve Your Performance
The Fire Hydrant exercise is extremely popular among those looking for a firmer butt. But just because it’s a staple in most “butt lift” videos doesn’t mean that athletes can’t benefit from it. The concept of the Fire Hydrant exercise is simple. From an all-fours position, you lift your leg up to the side to engage your glutes. The exercise specifically targets the gluteus medius, the muscle responsible for moving the leg sideways away from your body (technically termed abduction).
5 Drills to Improve Your Soccer Dribbling Skills
Like any skill, practice makes perfect with dribbling. The more reps you perform to perfect your technique, the better you’ll be able to perform on the field. Over time, even the most complex moves will become second nature. Here are five drills you should incorporate into your practices to become the best dribbler on the field. 1.
6 Ways Athletes Ruin Their Bodies During Their Sports Season
Your in-season schedule can be tough to manage. You’re challenged physically during practices and games, and then you’re challenged mentally with school and other obligations. Sometimes this might cause you to skip out on things that could end up hurting your athletic performance. Or you might fall prey to bad habits that make your life all that much harder. So how can you maintain your in-season schedule and prime your body for optimal athletic performance?
Improve Your Lacrosse Power With These Exercises
For lacrosse players, power is the key to playing at a high level. The more power you can generate, the faster you’ll be able to do everything on the field, including sprinting and executing game skills. Power is the combination of strength and speed. The faster you can exert strength, the more power you can produce. This is also called the rate of force development. On the field, your rate of force development needs to be as quick as possible.
4 Things You Should Never Say to Your Kid's Coach
The parent and coach relationship can be tenuous at best. Some parents are extremely demanding and overbearing, and coaches may not be giving you or your kid what you want. Are coaches always right? Absolutely not. But there’s no need to make a bad situation worse. Newsflash: You’re not always right either. Too often, this dynamic creates a recipe for disaster. A fractured parent-coach relationship causes unnecessary tension and drama around the team.
8 Awesome Deadlift Variations and What They Do
If you’re not doing Deadlifts in your training program, you have a problem. It’s one of, if not the most important exercises you can do to get better at your sport. Not convinced? Just look at the benefits of the conventional Deadlift—the fancy term for the Deadlift version you see performed most often: Develops glute and hamstring strength and power. These muscles contribute to nearly all athletic movements, including sprinting and jumping.
3 Oblique Workouts That Build a Strong (and Ripped) Core
You’d be hard pressed to go into a gym without seeing someone perform some type of oblique workout, rep after rep of twisting and/or side bending exercises to build a ripped stomach. But does this actually work? It turns out old-school oblique workouts don’t do much to increase core strength and might not give you the ripped look you’re trying to achieve. Here’s what you need to know about your obliques and how to train them correctly.
How to Stay Hydrated With Food During Your Summer Runs
Knowing how to stay hydrated during the summer is important. Water prevents heat-related illnesses and protects your muscles against cramping and fatigue. Still, whether because they aren’t thirsty or want to avoid stomach cramps, many athletes don’t drink enough water. Fortunately, drinking water isn’t the only way to hydrate. An easy way to take in extra water—along with a ton of useful nutrients—is by eating high-water-content foods such as the ones below.
Partner Up to Improve Ball Handling
Do you have someone to partner with to work on your ball-handling skills? If not, you should reach out and find someone because working with a partner can help. With a partner, you improve through accountability and sharing knowledge. Plus, practicing with a friend makes training fun. Accountability With a partner, you create accountability. If you make plans to meet a teammate two or three times a week, there is a better chance that you will practice. You depend on each other to show up.
7 Strategies for Overcoming Obstacles That Ruin Summer Workouts
You’re about to start your summer training program. You have a plan in place and are ready to hit the ground running, but you will inevitably face obstacles that have the potential to slow your progress. No plan is perfect. A small disruption in your training is no big deal, especially if you adjust accordingly. Issues arise only when you let these disruptions or bad habits go unaddressed. Then the excuses start piling up.
Does KT Tape Work?
Chances are you have seen it on people in the gym, athletes in the field, or may have it on yourself right now – KT tape. Those colorful strips of tape wrapping around limbs and joints in all sorts of directions. KT Tape (kinesiology tape), along with a number of other elastic sports tape brands, has become a popular tool when it comes to treating injuries and issues in the body. Some individuals swear by it, while others think it’s just a flashy sports marketing gimmick.
6 Backyard Games Designed to Enhance Your Sports Performance
The weather is warm. Your friends are together, enjoying the outdoors—maybe at a cookout. But you need to become a better athlete, so you need to go to the gym and work out. Spending time in the weight room and missing out on outdoor fun probably sounds pretty lame. There is no true substitute for lifting weight. You need to do your best to schedule your training sessions so you can get your workouts in—and give your best effort—while still having time to enjoy your summer.
A Summer Game Plan for High School Football Season
When preparing for high school football season, summer is time to practice your position(s) skills and focus on four off-the-field elements: Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise, and Stretching. It is hard during the school year to consistently eat or sleep well, exercise regularly, and stretch daily for greater flexibility and range of motion – especially when juggling academics or playing multiple sports besides football.
You Should Eat the Peel of These 15 Fruits and Vegetables
In all likelihood, the first thing you do when you eat an orange is tear off that thick peel and throw it straight into the garbage. Guess what? You’re missing out on a lot of nutrients. The peel of an orange has nearly twice as much vitamin C as the flesh inside. And thought it may seem gross at first, there are plenty of ways to eat orange peel The same is true of lots of fruits and veggies; the peel is often the most nutritious part, and can be eaten despite what you think. Bananas? Yep. Watermelon?
Quick Breakfast Meals for On the Go
Breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, yet 1 in 4 teenagers skip it. For some, hunger may not kick in right away in the morning, making it difficult to eat before school. And it can be hard to find the time to prepare and eat a meal before you have to dash off to school. But breakfast is critically important for high school athletes. They need adequate caloric intake to meet the demands of their sports and to function well cognitively in class.
How On Earth Are You Going To Remember All Of Their Names
If that sounds like an oversimplification, think of Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People. He writes, “A person’s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.” As Coach, it’s your job to use that sweet, important sound not only to get a player’s attention, but to recognize, motivate and influence them, on and off the field.
Summer Training Guide: Soccer
Download the Full Soccer Training Guide By Entering Your Email Address Below Email Address The Workout During the summer, soccer players need to strike a balance between building strength and making sure their bodies are prepared for the upcoming season.
Simone Manuel Earns Spot On U.S. Olympic Team
After failing to qualify for the Summer Games in the 100m free, the same event she won the gold medal in at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Simone Manuel revealed being diagnosed with Overtraining Syndrome in March, which required her to be out of the pool for three weeks. Manuel also shared with the press her mental health struggles, including bouts of depression.
SCOTUS Rules NCAA Prohibiting Student-Athlete Education Benefits Violates Federal Law
The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision Monday that the NCAA has gone too far in restricting access to education-related benefits to student-athletes. The court’s ruling concluded the NCAA to be in violation of antitrust laws by curbing the amount students could receive for things such as postgraduate scholarships to paid internships.
How To Help Young Players Love The Game
Did you know that 70 percent of children lose the love of playing games or sport by 13? However, once you understand the reason, you can guide your child to help them rediscover and maintain their love of the sport and the game. For The Love Of The Game In high school, the practice becomes too much and too intense, removing fun from the sport. Kids love to play together. When they can’t play together or alone, they lose interest. Maybe your child does not want to compete and wants to have fun.
Tips To Improve Your Volleyball Serve
Serving a volleyball involves more than just hitting the ball over the net. When executed correctly, it can be a valuable weapon that helps your team win matches. Each type of volleyball serve has a special purpose. The Standing Float serve moves erratically, making it difficult for opponents to accurately pass or defend it. The powerful Jump Float Serve is difficult for opponents to defend because of its speed.
A Youth Sports Coachs Guide To Physical Performance
Coaching at the youth level requires much more than what meets the eye. Coaches are responsible for total team development, from practice layouts and scheduling, technical and tactical skill acquisition, and even education of the sport depending on their working-age group. Often coaches are also responsible for the team fundraising, travel logistics, and keeping the parents satisfied. At this point, their plates are more than full, and the physical development of their athletes takes a backseat.
Get Stronger This Summer With These 6 Outdoor Workouts
After a brutal winter, it’s only natural to want to get outside and enjoy warmer weather. Unfortunately, most workouts take place inside gyms or training facilities. That’s why many athletes skip their workouts when the sun comes calling. But workouts should not be limited to indoors. You can add several simple workouts to your routine to train outside, enjoy the weather and add new challenges to your program. Next time you dread heading to the gym, try one of the outdoor workouts below.
How To Do A Kettlebell Snatch
Read More >> The Exercise The Kettlebell Snatch forces your body to quickly propel a heavyweight over a large distance. It improves your muscles' ability to fire quickly and produce max strength, which is essential for improving as an athlete. In particular, the movement engages the glutes, the largest and most powerful muscles in your body. Powerful glutes help you run faster, jump higher and improve virtually any athletic skill performed while standing.
How to Crush Your Entire Body in 10 Minutes Using One Weight Plate
Read More >> Workouts have a tendency to taper off toward the end. You crush your exercises at the beginning, then everything gets progressively less intense. That is simply unacceptable! When you play a sport, the hardest part of a game usually comes at the end. You have to push yourself to your absolute max to make critical plays when the game is on the line. Shouldn't your workouts evolve the same way? The end of the workout is the perfect time to blast your body with a finisher.
How to Treat Shin Splints
Read More >> Shin splints are the bane of many athletes, whether they're runners or just forced into running for conditioning (ahem, football players). But fear no more, there are many steps you can take to relieve the pain—or prevent it entirely. According to Dr. Matt Stevens, physical therapist and owner of Pure Physio (Strongsville, Ohio), shin splints are typically a compression injury to the shin bone.
Dumbbell Squat 101: A How-To Guide
Read More >> The Dumbbell Squat is a foundational exercise for any athlete who wants to build strength and power in the legs and hips, particularly in the quads and glutes. It eliminates the weight load on the upper back in the traditional Squat, a move that can cause technique problems for novice lifters. Through this guide, you'll learn how to perform the Dumbbell Squat to take your workouts to the next level.
11 Strategies for Getting More Done During Your Workouts
Read More >> When you work out, you need to get as much done as possible in the limited amount of time you have to train. Below are 11 tips and strategies that will make your workouts more efficient and effective. 1. Preview Your Workout Before you even step into the weight room, take a look at your workout. Review the exercises on your schedule and form a mental plan of what you need to do. If your gym is crowded, make adjustments based on equipment availability.
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