Peak Performance Women Pull for Charity

So a few Saturday's ago we hosted a charity training session at Okanagan Peak Performance. The goal was to raise funds for a team of women we work with that is competing in the Pull the Plane Challenge.

And while it may seem weird to state these ladies are competing in this charity event this is no mistake. These women aren't entering this event just to take part. When I mentioned the winning time from previous year's was 9-11 seconds their reply was 'we'll do it in 8!'

Right on! I love that answer!

But back to the fundraiser.

We managed to raise $700 in a one hour training session. And many of you that weren't able to participate still were very generous to donate to this cause.

In addition to the $700 raised from the training sessions I know Ric's Grill Restaurants, a Kettle Valley business and Dairy Queen (Gorges family) all made sizeable donations as well.

So needless to say, in addition to the forth coming effort to actually pull the plane there will be a large donation being made for this cause.

And on this Friday, May 11 these 12 ladies are going to pull the plane.

They've even got costumes. I know they got shirts from Big Kahuna because Megan keeps me in the loop on these types of things. But I didn't know about the tutus!

And apparatently they bought 13.

I wasn't too sure what the extra one is for until I realized that I am leading the warm-ups for all the teams competing in this event...

So that got me thinking about what I will do with these teams to get them ready. Because I will have all of about 3 minutes to meet them, warm them up and then send them over to pull the plane for 10-30 seconds or so.

Here's a sneak peak of what they're going to do.

1. Mobilize We want them to have adequate range of motion at the ankles, hips and upper back. Imagine holding the rope and leaning your body forward. The ankles dorsiflex. The hips extend and the spine stays neutral.

2. Activate Next we want to make sure they have stability through all the joints we've just given range of motion. So this will include some calf and ankle drills, a glute exercise as well as something to stabilize the trunk.

3. Movement Prep We'll go through a few movement to start including other muscles and joints in a variety of movement patterns. The movement prep goes from slow to more tempo, from uni to multi planar, from minimal rotation to more rotation and small level changes to larger level changes.

4. Maximal Recruitment We aren't warming these people up for a marathon but an event lasting less than a minute. And if everything goes according to plan for some teams much less than a minute.

Knowing this we want to make sure all relevant musles are fully activated, warmed up and ready to fire. There's no saving it until the 4th quarter for this event.

And that's it.

I'll get around 3 minutes with each team. There are going to be a variety of ages, sizes, abilities and personalities. And with these types of things there are always some surprises. But that's part of what makes it fun.

If you want to check it out the event runs this Friday May 11 from 11 am-3 pm out by the airport.

Good luck to all participants.

Chris