I remember back in high school playing basketball. And we had a coach that tended to go with the older players as starters and bring in the underclassmen as subs. Looking back our coach probably had his reasons for his line-up. Older players would graduate soon and this would be their last year to play high school ball. Or maybe the older players had more experience and a longer relationship with the coach. And it's possible that the older players were simply bigger and stronger and got more playing time as a result. Seeing as how a year later, when I graduated high school, tipping the scales at a buck fifty, I wasn't going to be intimidating anyone on the court with my physical presence. But this didn't help my competitive nature and desire to be a starter and on the floor getting more playing time. Maybe if I were a little more on top of the literature back then I could have advocated for myself by hitting the weight room a little more frequently. Actually, who's kidding who? I never hit the weight room at all as a high school athlete. But I probably should have. Because the truth is that stronger athletes: play at a higher levelget more playing time But this isn't just an opinion but findings from a research study by Fry & Kramer (citation below) that looked at a number of performance tests of American college football players playing NCAA Division I, II and III. In total 19 NCAA programs participated in the study involving almost a thousand players (n=981). The authors of the study looked at five performance tests and compared this to level of play (i.e. Division I, II or III) and playing time (starter v. non-starter). The performance tests they looked at included:...

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...

It seems like competition has gotten a bad rap these days. We've gone away from keeping score. We've introduced mercy rules. High schools don't give out awards for the top male and female athletes of the year. We don't hand out finishers medals but instead everyone gets a participation medal. Sorry but this got a laugh out of me. But the truth is we now give out awards simply for showing up. And sometimes you don't even need to show up but pay the registration fee. Are we going in the right direction? Is this helping us as a society? I'd argue that it's not. And here's why. I guess we eliminate acknowledging the best athletes at the end of the year because there can only be one winner. And therefore to protect the feelings of those who don't win we just do away with the award altogether. I'd suggest that this fails on two levels. First, the best athlete is robbed of the award they worked hard to achieve. Secondly, the athletes that don't win don't feel they are equal to the one that should have won. Instead I'd suggest the ones that don't win feel worse because now we're also hoping they'll buy into the idea that all the athletes are equal. So not only do they not have the same athletic ability but we're also hoping they're dumb enough to believe it. Life is not fair. And because two athletes aren't equal has nothing to do with value. When we play this game we set young athletes up for a rude awakening. They will be surprised when they aren't selected for an interview. They will be incredulous they weren't hired for the job. And they won't understand why they were passed up for the promotion. Business tycoon Jimmy...

[caption id="attachment_3199" align="alignleft" width="183"] Proper landing mechanics are an essential part of injury prevention.Are you following the NCAA basketball? Or March Madness as it is more commonly known? I think this is one of the best sports tournaments going because it has such as great format with the 'one-and-done' arrangement. To be honest I don't spend a lot of time watching college basketball during the year. But when March rolls around I try and check out a few games. This year is even more special as I got to go to some games. While I was down to California for a conference I managed to find some tickets on Craigslist for the games in San Jose. What a blast! What made it even more fun was the fact that I was able to keep it a secret from Megan right up until tip off at the arena. But although the experience was once in a lifetime and a fun thing to do on the side at the conference I actually want to talk about a game we didn't see. The one where Kevin Ware, from Louisville, broke his leg. Now if you have a weak stomach don't go check it out on youtube. And sorry Jordy, but blurring your eyes when you watch doesn't prevent nightmares. Anyways after seeing this horrifying accident I thought to myself 'I wonder if he had been doing x-y-z prior to the accident?' And I also thought this might interesting and useful for you as well. So here are 8 Things to Prevent a Bone Fracture. 1. Eccentric Training One of the first things that comes to mind is eccentric training which is the portion of a muscular contraction when the muscle is being lengthened. This is when most injuries happen so it makes sense to...