Athletic Short Bursts and Strength Workouts

Short bursts of power and strength are critical for athletes in speed sports. Its not always how fast you are but how fast you can get to a spot. You will rarely reach maximum speed during a game.

Use my Free 10-Minute Strength and Power Workouts to improve your explosive power. Short, effective workouts are better than long, tiring workouts. Its important to do these exercises at full speed when you are fresh.

If you have weak structures supporting your ankles, knees, low back, hips, elbows and shoulders, your power potential will suffer. And, you are headed for avoidable injuries.

Here are some general steps to take to improve your explosive power:

1. Bodyweight and dumbbell exercises are great for stabilizing your joint structures and core. For example, if your right leg is significantly stronger than your left leg, you cannot compensate for the weaker leg.

It will be forced to "catch up in strength" to the right leg. These exercises will also prepare your body for heavier weights and intense plyometric and speed exercises.

2. Plyometrics and sport specific exercises are important but only if you have enough strength and joint stability to make these more risky exercises work effectively for you (to improve explosive power).

3. The core muscles are very important in preventing low back pain and stabilizing the shoulder girdle and hip structures. A strong and stable core will maximize your extremity strength (limbs) and explosive power. If your core is weak, you will not effectively transfer power from your legs to your upper body.

A core strengthening program involves using many muscles in a coordinated movement. Rather than isolating specific joints as in most weight lifting exercises, core stability exercises focus on working the deep muscles of the entire torso at once.

4. You can improve the ankle's joint proprioception (position sense) and dynamic joint stability with balance training. Doing one-legged balance exercises will accomplish this goal.

One-leg balancing on foam pads or disks for 4-5 minutes (each leg) is a great exercise. Other great exercises are lunges, single-leg squats, step ups and medicine ball rotations on one leg.

5. You will need to strengthen your knees and ligaments around them. Having strong, stable knee structures will influence how high you can jump. The deep knee bend exercise is good for this purpose.

Work hard and smart to succeed in your sport!

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Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Why Glutes and Hamstrings Conditioning is Critical

There are few injuries as bothersome and harder to recover from than glutes and hamstring injuries. Prevention of these injuries is the best solution.

Weak glutes and hamstrings can lead to other serious injuries. For example, female athletes tend to have weaker hamstrings because they use their quadriceps muscles more while walking and running.

This means females use their strong quadriceps muscles and do not adequately activate their weak hamstrings. The hamstring muscle group acts to protect the anterior cruciate knee ligament (ACL) and the opposing quadricep muscle group places stress on the ACL. Therefore, quadricep dominant muscle work demonstrated by any athlete places excessive stress (and many times serious injury) on the ACL.

Every athlete runs a higher risk of serious knee injury when the quadriceps are significantly stronger than the hamstrings. The best prevention for hamstring injuries and hamstring-related injuries are adequate flexibility and strength.

You are also at risk of a hamstring injury when the gluteus maximus doesn't fire properly. When the hip flexors are tight, they cause weakness in the gluteus maximus.

This often leads to the hamstrings doing the work that the gluteus maximus should be doing. And, since the hamstrings are not equipped to handle this type of workload, injury to the hamstrings is the result. Therefore, it is critical to have flexible hip flexors. Below is a good hip flexor stretch:



Try these flexibility and strength exercises for your hamstrings:

Hamstring Flexibility - walking lunges, resistance band eccentric stretch and static stretch (static stretch should be done after workout or game).

Hamstring Strength - lying or standing hamstring machine curl, deadlift, good morning exercise (with or without weights) and glute/ham raises.

Great athletes dominate dynamic movements with the hips, glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings. Lateral speed is particularly created and maintained by the strength of the glutes and hips.

There are a host of injuries that arise when your hips are tight causing your glutes to not fire properly.

When your glutes (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus) don't fire properly, you can count on hamstring injuries. The hamstrings are left to do the work that your glutes (mainly gluteus maximus) should be doing.

The glutes don't fire properly when the hip flexors (psoas, iliacus, tensor fascia latae, etc.) are overactive or tight. This can happen due to poor flexibility or prolonged sitting. When the hip flexors don't work properly, its antagonist (mainly the gluteus maximus) becomes weak.

This is known as reciprocal inhibition (when muscles on one side of a joint become tight or overactive, it shuts down the muscles on the other side of the joint). When a prime mover (such as the gluteus maximus) becomes weak, other muscles (synergists) take over the function that the prime mover should be doing.

In this case, the synergists would be the hamstrings. Some other injuries that occur because of inactive glutes are piriformis syndrome, knee ACL tears and low back injuries.

Flexibility in all areas is crucial for your athletic success. The glutes/hips area cannot be left out of the flexibility puzzle. Jogging for 5 minutes is not enough. Specific flexibility and strength exercises for the glutes/hips area are needed.

The stretches are listed as follows (use self myofascial release with foam roller before doing these stretches):

1. Hip Flexor Stretch
2. Quadriceps Stretch
3. Bodyweight Lateral Lunges (for adductors)

Then, you need to activate (fire up) your glutes with these exercises:

1. Glute Bridge
2. Opposite Leg Opposite Arm Raise (Birddog)
3. Glute Kickbacks

Lastly, exercise the fired up glutes/hips with these exercises:

1. Bodyweight squats
2. Lateral tube walks
3. Dumbbell walking lunges and dumbbell lateral lunges
4. Step Ups on Knee High Platform

Don't undertrain or inadequately train your glutes and hamstrings!

Get your copy of "Sports Fitness Hut's Hips and Glutes Training Guide for Athletes"

Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Lateral Speed Improves Playing Speed

To improve your playing speed, you should focus on straight-ahead speed, lateral speed and agility (deceleration, stabilization, acceleration and change of direction with proper posture, strength and balance) and quickness (reaction time without hesitation).

Other important components of playing speed are speed strength, speed endurance and proper mechanics. Speed strength is a combination of starting speed, explosive speed (maximum velocity in the shortest time) and reactive speed.

Speed endurance is the ability to maintain maximum velocity or a percentage of maximum velocity for a prolonged period of time or in a fatigued state. Proper mechanics allows you to run with efficiency and is a product of posture, arm action and leg action.

Some sports, such as football require more power, explosion, reaction and lateral speed. A sport like soccer requires more endurance speed with the ability to mix in sprints during game action. You should emphasize your training for the types of speed needed in your sport.

Some important exercises to incorporate in your exercise programs are lateral lunges (with or without dumbbells), lateral bounding, lateral step ups (with or without dumbbells) and lateral shuffles (with or without resistance).

Straight-line speed is important but so is lateral speed and agility in sports. The athlete has to move quickly and efficiently from linear to lateral positions (and back again) many times during a practice or game.

The lateral lunge forces the athlete to decelerate movement through one hip at a time, placing greater emphasis on the gluteals and hamstrings. It trains the athlete to move correctly in the lateral direction.

Many knee ACL injuries occur when athletes place too much stress on their knees and not enough stress on their hips during deceleration. In other words, the hips are often under-used during sports activities.

Lateral bounding is a progression from lateral lunges that requires the athlete to practice lateral movement at game-time speed.

Do not progress to full-speed lateral bounding until the proper mechanics are achieved with lateral lunges. One common mechanical breakdown is when the knees protrude far in front of the feet when decelerating, landing or squatting. This puts undue stress on the knees and often causes injury.

Lateral shuffles (with or without resistance) also work well to train correct lateral movement. Lateral shuffles without resistance can be practiced at game-time speed.




Lateral step ups emphasize development of the athlete's hips, quadriceps (especially outer) and glutes.

Any serious athletic exercise program would be incomplete without these exercises. They can be performed as strength or power (high speed) moves.

Get your copy of "Sports Fitness Hut's Hips and Glutes Training Guide for Athletes"

Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

8 Types of Strength for Sports Performance

What type of strength do you as an athlete need to perform at a high level? No, you don't need to win a strong man contest, but you do need a certain amount of strength to enhance your power and speed....so, here it is......

Here are 8 Types of Strength you may need for performance at a high level of competition:

1. Optimum Strength – The ideal level of strength needed to perform in your sport. Continually getting stronger will not continually increase your power. Every athlete needs this level of strength.

2. Relative Strength – It is the maximum force that you can generate per unit of bodyweight regardless of the rate-of-force production. Wrestlers, football players (especially linemen) and rugby players need high levels of relative strength.

3. Maximal Strength – The maximum force that your muscles can produce in a single voluntary effort regardless of the rate-of-force production. Maximal strength is rarely needed during sports competition.

4. Limit Strength – The maximum force that your muscles can produce in a single contraction. A few elite athletes have this type of strength.

5. Endurance Strength – The ability to produce and maintain force over an extended period of time. This type of strength is critical for athletic success.

6. Stabilization Strength – The ability of your body’s stabilizing muscles to provide dynamic joint stabilization and maintain postural control during athletic movements. Core strength would fall within this category. Many athletic injuries can be traced to inadequate core strength. No athlete will be successful without this type of strength.

7. Speed Strength – The ability of the neuromuscular system to produce the greatest possible force in the shortest period of time (power). Obviously, every athlete wants and needs this type of strength. While it is very important, other types of strength cannot be ignored.

8. Functional Strength – The athlete should train movements during strength training sessions. Producing dynamic, multi-planar eccentric, concentric and isometric contractions quickly and efficiently is the goal of training for functional strength.

Do your strength training in all 3 planes of motion.

Strength train your muscles with all contraction types (eccentric, isometric, concentric). All muscles function eccentrically (reduces force or deceleration), isometrically (stabilizes force) and concentrically (produces force). Eccentric contractions are able to produce the most tension development followed by isometric contractions and lastly, concentric contractions.

If eccentric contractions are able to produce the greatest tension development, then more time should be devoted during training for eccentric contractions to reduce the risk of injuries such as knee ACL tears. Also, strong eccentric contractions are critical for athletes to produce maximal power since all force production (concentric) must be preceded by force reduction (eccentric).

So, where do you stack up when it comes to types of strength? You can't just show up at the gym and do any kind of workout! Train for the types strength you will need to compete and win!

Train hard and smart!

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Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

High-Powered Baseball Offseason Training

You need to make the most improvements to your baseball strength, power and speed in the offseason. If you wait until 2-3 weeks before the season starts, it is too late.

Many young baseball players are too busy playing year-round and don't get in needed strength, speed and power training (that's a hint to dads and select coaches)!

If you don't have foundational strength and stability then that's where your training would start. You should not progress to more risky sport specific training exercises until you build your foundation.

During the offseason, you have adequate time to strength train and recover. Maximal strength is not the goal here. The baseball player's objective is to achieve adequate core strength and limb strength to aid in training for sport-specific power.

So, forget about lifting as much weight as you can (i.e., one-rep max) and concentrate on building full body strength and conditioning.

Exercises such as dumbbell bench press, squats, step-ups, rows, shoulder press, lunges, etc. are used. Also, every baseball player needs a strong shoulder/rotator cuff of the throwing arm. There are a series of exercises designed to strengthen and stabilize this area.

As for muscle growth, you will need a certain amount of muscle growth but not so much as to inhibit playing the game with fluidity. Power is more important to achieve.

Rate-of-force production or power (how fast your muscles can produce force) is one the best physical predictors of success in baseball and sports in general.

Power is achieved by performing resistance and plyometric exercises at maximum effort. This type of training has great potential for injuries. So, it is imperative that you have adequate core and body strength before starting power training.

The speed demands of baseball are: starting ability, acceleration, stopping, cutting, stride rate, stride length, sprinting form and speed endurance.

Most explosive movements occur after some other movement (swinging, sliding, etc.). Maximum velocity is rarely reached except in the case of hitting a triple, inside-the-park homerun or running down a long fly ball. Therefore, starting ability, acceleration and lateral speed should be emphasized during speed training.

Long distance running for position players should be limited. Too much long distance running decreases speed. You must train fast in order to get faster. A better alternative would be to do high intensity interval cardio training.

This type of cardio training would consist of rotating sprints and walking/jogging. A good example would be to sprint for 30 seconds and walk or jog for 1 minute. Do this rotation for 20 minutes. This type of cardio training has been proven to produce superior heart health and fat burning results.

Train hard and smart!

Sports Fitness Hut's All-Star Baseball Power Workout Manual will show you how to improve your strength, power and explosiveness!

Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

6 Speed Training Fundamentals for Athletes

You need more running speed to succeed? Master the basic speed training fundamentals before progressing to advanced speed training drills.

Here are 6 speed training fundamentals you need to work on:

1. Straight-ahead speed is important but there are other types of speed such as starting speed, acceleration speed, top-end speed, change-of-direction speed, stopping speed, closing speed and speed endurance.

You should train for all types of speed particular to your sport. Quickness, which is reacting explosively without hesitation should also be trained for and will enhance your overall speed.

2. Your body needs adequate strength (including core strength) and speed strength (power) for you to reach your running speed potential.

3. Master bodyweight speed drills before progressing to assisted or weight-bearing speed drills.

4. You need to master the basic running mechanics to become faster. Posture, arm action and leg action are keys to improving your speed.

5. Running alone will not give you the leg strength you will need to improve your running speed. You should strengthen your legs with exercises like squats, step ups and lunges because these exercises use the same pathways that it takes to run with speed.

Don't worry about leg extensions too much because the quadriceps will get plenty of work with other exercises. Instead, focus on strengthening the hamstrings with exercises like hamstring curls, straight-leg deadlifts and good mornings.

The quadriceps shouldn't be significantly stronger than the hamstrings. If so, you are headed for injuries such as knee ACL tears. And, don't forget about your calf muscles.

The calf muscles provide at least 30% of the strength and power it takes to run fast. Use calf raises (seated or standing) to strengthen the calves.

6. You have to train fast to get faster! Too much distance running will defeat your goal of improving your speed. When training for speed, distance running should be kept to a minimum because it reduces explosiveness.

You can condition for your sport by doing metabolic training, which is training that closely mimics your game-time competition.

Train hard, smart and expect success!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!