Hey everyone, Coach Harry here! Yes,Coach Harry, writing a blog post, miracles can happen! This is my first one soplease bear with me! And if you have any questions, please forward them on toCoach Mlait, he loves answering all of them, and promises to get back to youwithin 30 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days a week! ;) Anyway, why am I writing this?  Well it's a crazy world out there right now, so I wanted to write one for the youth/adolescent soccer players, parents of players, and soccer coaches. I think we all agree it has been stressful in some way or another for everyone, and it is probably harder than ever for the players to progress and get better at football. I love the game, and I love coachingyouth players, especially. As an S&C coach, my goals for each player areto: Keep it fun, engaging, and educate themHelp and guide them with their goalsMake sure they can play the game wellinto their 60’s (Injury risk reduction, for my fellow S&C coaches outthere) I’m telling you this because I want you to know that I have a purpose behind everything that I do for the player, which is so important when it comes to coaching an athlete. I’m constantly asking myself why? Why am I making them do this lift? Why am I testing? etc. Hold up… just so you know I’m English(big shock right), and refuse to call football, soccer! So, from now on you’llsee football in this post, no more soccer nonsense! Anyway, back to the blog… So, I want to ask you, the player, thekid with the big dreams of one day making it as a pro , a couple ofquestions…  You all have goals, and you all havethings that you can control. So, what are you doing off...

Time for a pop quiz!!! What percentage of people wish they more time? A recent article I read mentioned that up to 80% of people wished they had more time. Does that surprise you? Would you be included in the 80%? If most people wish they had more time... And most have goals to be leaner, stronger and healthy... Than it would make sense to find ways to be as efficient a possible with the little time we have when it comes to training. With that in mind here are 10 Ways to Make Your Training More Efficient. 1. Put Yourself on the Clock - Are you aware of how long regular tasks take you to do? For example, how long would it take you to unload the dishwasher? If you're not aware then set the timer on the microwave for 4 minutes and see what happens. Typically we think things take longer than they really do. And unless we're on the clock and aware of diminishing time we can adopt a casual pace and stretch things out. Imagine packing for a flight that leaves in 2.5 hours and you need to leave for the airport ASAP. You might be able to pack in 5 minutes and be out the door. With your training set a count down timer at the start of your workout. If you have 20 minutes set it for 18 and hit 'start'. Change your settings so your screen doesn't go blank and you'll be able to see the time counting down as you train. You'll have a greater sense of urgency and make the most of your limited time. 2. Get Off Line - Make sure to turn your data and notifications off while you train. Set your phone to silent mode. We're not talking about...

One of the things we really put an emphasis on at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. is education. I talked about this many times before and the number of different ways we look to further our education and involvement with students.Recently I announced that we would be hosting the Okanagan Strength & Conditioning Conference. This two day event will bring in some of the top practitioners and researchers in our industry. And I say practitioners and researchers because these are people working in the trenches working with clients on a day to day basis. Or they are performing novel cutting-egde research that allows the rest of us to have a better insight as to what methods work better or ellicit a result sooner.So we feel very fortunate to have these guys coming not only to our region but to our facility. While there may be a day or two in August where our regular coaching or programming is altered to account for this opportunity please know that you will benefit immensely from the enhanced knowledge our staff will gain.If you are a fitness professional, coach, trainer, physiotherapist, massage therapist, chiropractor, physician or anyone else that trains or rehabs clients, you should attend this event.The registration page www.strengthconference.com is now open. Besides two days of presentations and learning we are also hosting an evening social and including some of the meals for the attendees. Register before June 1 for the lowest possible rate.Besides this conference we are hosting we are also going to start something else that new for our area and of special benefit to our members.How many times have you heard one of our coaches make reference of a book, study, recipe or something else and wished you had a pen and paper to make note of the reference?Maybe you have a...

Over the next few days you're going to see an emphasis on nutrition with respect to the content you receive.Why nutrition?Well because it has such a HUGE impact on the results you achieve. I mean we can put emphasis in our workouts. We can do more resistance-based workouts.And we can also put more efforts on our recovery by doing more stretching, foam rolling, immediate post workout shakes and get adequate sleep at night.But if you want the absolute best bang for your buck and return on investment than nutrition is the best place to start.With that in mind here are The Top 5 Reasons Nutrition Should be Your Emphasis for 2011 Health, Fitness & Performance Goals.Reason #1 - We may eat up to 20 times more than we trainIt's not uncommon these days for people to have their three squares a day, a post workout shake and a snack or two. This works out to 6 meals a day times 7 days and you have 42 meals a week.The average gym goer visits their gym less than 3 days per week. This is the average of people who have gym memberships! Many others get a lot less exercise than this.So if someone were eating 40 plus meals a week and training two times a week it's easy to see where there is huge opportunity to make substantial gains and improvement by modifying their nutritional plan.Reason #2 - We always consumeEven if you're the most serious, dedicated athlete out there, there will still be times when you'll take a day of rest.But most of us aren't professional. Or that serious. Or that motivated.And there will be times when we are sick. Or injured. Or travelling. And therefore not able to train at all.So while the outputs may slow, or stop altogether for brief periods,...

Last month I attend a seminar in Vancouver with Mike Robertson presenting. Mike is a great strength and conditioning coach from Indiana who put on a 2 day seminar related to the knees and low back. One of the points Mike covered during the weeknend involved the use of a balloon to illustrate core theory.I really liked his analogy and the use of the balloon to make the point. But I thought the point could be taken further. And expanded to other areas of core theory. So I made a note in my conference notes to develop the point further once I got home. And this has since been developed into the 7 Keys of Balloon Core Theory.To read the article go check out Mike's blog, robertsontrainingsystems.com, or click on the following link to go directly to the article:http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/7-keys-of-balloon-core-theory/After you have a read, make sure to leave a comment. Make sure to say:* What you liked about the article?* What other analogies there may be between a balloon and the core?* Anything new you learned from the article?All the best,Chris                                                                                                                                                                                                                     okanaganpeakperformance.com 'always moving forward'

LL said 'no tequila stories for you'Well I escaped from the last post with my dignity and reputation intact. We came close to the required number of posts for me to disclose an embarrassing story from my past. Thankfully some of you spared me the shame of having to broadcast this to the entire world. And I can tell you that I did in fact produce this less than flattering recollection of college days gone bad. Considering how the occasional rant or contraversial article gets a few more people riled up each time maybe it's best to leave that story buried in my memory where it shall stay.So that previous post had a couple of objectives. First of all it was to provide you with information and content regarding agave nectar.  Some of you mentioned seeing this product on the store shelf and a few others were brave enough to admit that you had in fact tried it. That's alright. The whole point of this blog is to provide you with content, information and resources to make tomorrow better than today. That might be related to fitness, performance or the rehab of an injury. And it could be related to your training, nutrition or recovery. I'm doing my best to seek out the simplest, safest, most effective ways to provide you with the best results for you efforts. Hence our motto 'always moving forward'.I've just got a couple more things to cover here before I sign off for the weekend. The first is a favour I'd like to ask of you. You see many of you email me and tell me how much what we're doing here has helped you. Or you might pass along your feedback in the comments section. Or at the hockey game, a movie or Costco. And I...

Hi there: If you've been following this blog for any period of time you're aware that I'm all about providing you with the best return on investment. I want you to realize the best results with minimal investment in time, finances, sweat or any other sacrifice you may have to make. But this isn't about seeking out the 'magic bullet' so no hard work has to be done ever again. Instead it's about finding ways to get in sync with your body and its environment so every effort results in forward momentum.And along the lines of forward effort and forward momentum there are times when we may slip back slightly. Think of the progress you make as the peaks you climb and the setbacks as being the valleys you fall into.Now here's the trick.You don't want your peaks to be too steep or your valleys too low. Notice I referred to the peaks in terms of steepness rather than height. I'll explain more about why height may be more crucial than steepness in a moment. But first consider the following.If you think of the expressions we have for when things are working well for us we refer to 'smooth sailing' or 'everything is on track'. On the other hand when we are having troubles we consider this a 'shipwreck' or 'off the tracks'.Let's look at how your rest, nutrition and training apply to the concept of peaks and valleys.Rest - We know that the body needs around 8 hours of sleep a night. And if we deviate up or down from this number significantly we run into problems. For example we can't stay in bed for days on end to make up a sleep debt. And we can't get by with 5 hours a night thinking we're fine. We need to...

Hey there: It's Hallowe'en weekend and in the past I've given you some strategies as the 'best' treats to eat this weekend. Or I've given you extra workouts to do before heading out for a night of partying but today I have something different in store for you. But before I get to today's tip I want to let you in a little experiment I'm running.The experiment is the Collins Health Project. What this involves is a behind the scenes look at the healhy and not so healthy things I do. Yeah I admit it. Every now and again I like to enjoy a beer, some pizza and maybe even some ice cream. But I have a standard to maintain, as do the rest of you. And of the best ways to make ourselves accountable is to let others what we are doing. They will support us and give us a pat on the back. And at the same time they will let us know when something is out of character given what out stated goals are.So with that in mind I'm going to video portions of my workout? I'm going show what I'm eating, how much and how often. You'll get to see what I do to relax during my down time. This will serve two purposes which are to help me get in the best shape of my life and secondly to help you steal some ideas that may help you as well.Stay tuned because some of the first footage you'll see from this Hallowe'en weekend will be unique but hopefully serve as a great launching pad for the rest of the project. Now on to the tip.Did you ever watch the Price is Right? I remember watching this a kid when we would visit our grandparents in Edmonton....

Hi there: Hope you have a great weekend. I was at the Okanagan Sport Leadership Conference at UBC on Saturday. Okanagan Peak Performance had a booth at the trade show and was there to provide information and hand out t-shirts. It was great to meet a lot of athletes, coaches and sport practitioners at one time. You can definitely see the impact the Olympics has had on the sports being practiced locally. This was the first time there was such a large contingent of freestyle skiers, ski and boardercross, figure skaters and other winter sport athletes.After the conference the rest of the weekend was spent landscaping and watching the UFC over at some friends. While I don't follow the sport that closely I do appreciate the training that goes into preparing for a UFC event. You have to be versatile in a number of martial arts and develop your energy systems for both quick explosive efforts and to be able to go five-five minute rounds. And so this part I find fascinating.And after years of study, research and training both myself and other athletes I have found that we all have certain abilities and strengths. For example some people respond better to higher volume training and others are better suited to a lower volume of training. Some athletes are very effective with short burst efforts and others really shine when the challenge is longer in duration. So what accounts for these differences?Part of it has to do with your body type. An ectomorph is going to find it easier to move themselves then to move an external load. And the opposite is true for an endomorph who can pile the plates on a leg press but may have difficulty performing overhead bodyweight squats.So what do we do to improve? The answer is...

Hey there: This past spring I was contacted regarding training a few Special Olympics athletes. Richard, Glen and Andrew compete in track in field and were looking for some help in getting ready for the Nationals in July. So I agreed to do my best to help these guys out. What a great experience it was.At the very first meeting we sat down and discussed their goals, training history, previous injuries, rest habits and anything else relevant to realizing success in track and field. And I was really impressed how much focus these guys had. They were dedicated to their training. They avoided empty calories and made sure to get at least hours of sleep a night. If I remember correctly Andrew told me he really likes having stir-frys for dinner. Unless there's pizza!And so we got started. I didn't realize their level of dedication until one day Richard was quoting one of my more recent emails that you all receive. It didn't make sense how accurate he was it being able to recall the content until I realized he was printing them all off and collecting them in a binder. He would bring the binder to our training sessions and then share them with others.Lastly I'll remember Glen for going for runs into between our training sessions. Even if his training partners were busy he'd still be out there putting in his mileage then come inside the gym for a workout. Although I seem to recall him teasing me about how poorly Italy did in the World Cup.Recently one of these guys received a very admirable acknowledgement. Richard was named Special Olympics Canada's male athlete of the year. While Richard will be receiving the award all there of these guys are deserving. And knowing Andrew and Glen they are proudly...