What Is SPARQ Training?

I'm sure you have seen the recent commercials touting the benefits of SPARQ Training. It is nothing new with regard to power training. See my article series on Power Training.

SPARQ stands for speed, power, agility, reaction and quickness. It tests and rates a person's pure athletic ability. For instance, one athlete had an incredible total score of 103.89 on his SPARQ test. A very good score would be 100!

WHAT IS SPARQ Training?

It is simply a scientific and comprehensive measure of athleticism. It is used by coaches and scouts to assess athletic ability for players in sports such as baseball, basketball, football and soccer. Any player can train to improve his or her athletic ability. Here is a breakdown of what is tested in a particular sport:

Baseball/Fastpitch Softball - vertical jump, 30 yard dash, rotational power ball throw and shuttle.

Basketball - one-step vertical jump, 20 meter dash, 30 second endurance jump, overhead power ball throw and agility cone drill.

Football - vertical jump, 40 yard dash, power ball throw and shuttle.

I can help you to start tailoring your training regimen to increase your sports power. More and more camps, coaches and scouts are adopting this impressive measurement tool. It is best to be ready for it.

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Improve Your Hip and Core Strength with Hip Circles

Core strength and hip flexibility/strength is critical for achieving athletic success.

Great athletes dominate movement with the core, hips, glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings.

Add Hip Circles to your exercise routine. It will be well worth your time. It is important to execute the exercise movements with quality.




1. Sit on the floor and place a balance disc underneath your hips.

2. Raise your legs off the floor and keeping them together rotate them around in a circular motion.

3. Repeat for the prescribed number of repetitions.

Have a great workout today!

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Build Explosive Arm Power With Lying Medicine Ball Throws

If you want to build power in your arms, try the Lying Medicine Ball Throw. Remember, rate-of-force production (how fast your muscles can produce force) is one of the top physical predictors of athletic success (the other is dynamic balance). It doesn't do any good to continually get stronger without an increase in power.

The Lying Medicine Ball Throw is a plyometric exercise that will force you to contract your arms forcefully in order to execute the movement.

Choose a medicine ball that you can only toss 2-3 feet above your outstretched arms. Also, perform this movement at full speed for the required repetitions to get optimum benefits.



This exercise can also be done on a flat bench.

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Baseball Players' Core Strength Needs

Every baseball player needs general core strength and sport-specific core strength. About half of the power in baseball swings, throws and speed are generated by your core. So, it is essential that you stabilize and strengthen your core to endure the rigors of high level competition.

Because baseball requires many transverse (twists, turns, rotations) and frontal (lateral movements) plane motions, sport-specific core strength and power is also critical.

Progressing too fast up the core strength ladder will lead to injuries. A strong core will help you stabilize your spine, transfer power while hitting and throwing and protect your trunk while diving, sliding and jumping.

You also need a strong core to maintain a strong upright running posture.

Guidelines For Core Training

Core stabilization training progressions should follow these paths:

1. Slow to Fast
2. Known to Unknown
3. Stable to Controlled to Dynamic
4. Low Force to High Force
5. Correct Execution to Increased Intensity

The athlete can start at the highest level of core stabilization training that she or he can control.

The dimensions of core stabilization training are:

Stabilization - The core exercises at this level involve very little joint motion and are designed to provide optimum neuromuscular control. An example would be the planks, bridges, cobras and supermans.



Strength - At this level of core training, isometric exercises are replaced with dynamic, multi-planar and multi-dimensional exercises with the full range of motion. Examples would be ball crunches, back extensions, reverse crunches, medicine ball trunk rotations and oblique crunches.



Power - At this level, sport-specific core exercises are used in all 3 planes of motion. Examples would be the medicine ball throw, medicine ball rotational throw and medicine ball chops.

Exercises in the power category at performed at full speed. Therefore, if you progress too fast or perform the exercises incorrectly, you are at high risk of injury.



Adequate core strength will maximize your extremity (limbs) strength and prevent injuries during intense competition.

Part 2, Strength and Power for Baseball

Part 1, Strength and Power for Baseball

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Baseball Players' Rotational and Lateral Power

Baseball requires a series of rotational and lateral movements. Therefore, the baseball player needs a strong core to generate rotational and lateral speed and power.

The physical 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 and acceleration should be emphasized during training.

Major League Baseball scouts use these drills/exercises/sprints (among others) to test a player's speed, agility, acceleration and power:

30 and 60 Yard Sprints - The bases are 90 feet apart (30 yards). Scouts routinely time a player's speed from home to first base during an at bat or from home to second base on a double.

Running from home to first base in under 4.0 seconds is exceptional (especially for a right-handed batter). Times of 4.1 - 4.4 are more common.

A major league average time for the 60 yard dash is 7.0 seconds, 6.5 - 6.8 seconds is good and 6.2 - 6.4 are great times.

Vertical Jump - The height of your vertical jump shows the amount of power in your lower body. A high vertical jump is also an indicator of great speed. A vertical jump of 35 is good and any jump 40 or above is exceptional.

Medicine Ball Rotational Throw - This exercise is a good indicator of core strength---especially the critical rotational power needed for baseball (swinging, throwing, etc.).

20 Yard Shuttle - This drill tests agility, explosion, postural control and quickness at high speed. The best players cover the 20 yard shuttle in about 4 seconds or less.

In the following parts of this article series, I will show you how to improve your performance in these drills and exercises. If you do this, it will improve your game on the field.

General Core Strength, Part 3

General Strength and Conditioning, Part 4

Infielders and outfielders, Part 5

Read Part 1 Of The Baseball Article Series

Download your FREE All-Star Baseball Power Workout Manual and improve your strength, power and explosiveness on the field!

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!

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Trying To Build Muscle? Pre- and Post-Workout Meals Are Critical

Pre- and post-workout meals are just as critical to your muscle growth (hypertrophy) as the training. These two processes work together to make your training program successful. The rigors of training breaks down your body and you need proper nutrition and rest to rebuild your body bigger and better.

PRE-WORKOUT NUTRITION

Pre-workout nutrition should mainly include carbohydrates and proteins. During intense physical activity, your body depends on fuel from glycogen made from the carbohydrates that you eat. The body can't use fat for fuel during high intensity exercise because there is not enough oxygen available.

Consuming fruits, vegetables and smoothies 1-2 hours before a workout will build up your glycogen stores. Glycogen is stored in your liver and muscles and it is broken down into glucose. Glucose is then used by your body to make energy. As a result, when your glycogen stores are low, your performance will suffer.

Research has shown the effectiveness of pre-workout protein drinks (such as whey and casein). These drinks will make enough amino acids available to take advantage of the increased blood flow to your working muscles. Also, your muscles get 2 times as much benefit from a pre-workout protein drink compared to having just a post-workout protein drink.

Endurance athletes can also benefit from consuming moderate amounts of fat (such as flax oil and omega 3s) because of the availability of oxygen during exercise or competition.

POST-WORKOUT NUTRITION

Post-workout nutrition is important to help the body recover from intense exercise. It is not necessary to eat immediately after your workout.

But there is a 45 minute to 1 hour window where replenishing your body's fuel (carbs, protein, fats) will optimize your tissue's repair and growth. Carbohydrates are important for glycogen stores recovery. The type of carbohydrates consumed are not as important as the amount consumed (replenishment is the key issue).

So, how many daily carbs should you consume to replenish glycogen stores? It depends on your size and your sport.

Your body needs a minimum of 200 grams of carbs per day if you are a light exerciser. You will feel tired and listless without this amount of carbs.

Athletes in sports that require plyometrics, speed and weight training need about 2.5 grams of daily carbs per pound of body weight. A 180 pound athlete would need at least 450 grams of carbs each day to function properly.

Endurance athletes such as marathoners, swimmers, triathletes need high amounts of daily carbs. About 3.5 to 4.5 grams per pound of body weight is needed. So, a 180 pound athlete would need 630 to 810 grams of carbs per day. These athletes sometimes use carbohydrate loading before events.

Protein is another critical post-exercise nutrient. Protein provides amino acids which are used to repair and rebuild damaged tissues as a result of intense exercise. Again, protein shakes will work well here.

Daily protein needs for athletes should be calculated according to body weight (not by percent of calories). Daily protein targets (grams per pound of body weight) are:

--Recreational exerciser, adult 0.5-0.8
--Competitive athlete, adult 0.8-1.0
--Growing teenage athlete 0.7-0.9
--Adult building muscle mass 0.8-1.0

Your body will excrete excess protein intake.

For example, if you weigh 190 pounds and want a high protein intake (1.0 gms/lb), you'll need 190 grams of protein per day.

Protein should be eaten at least every 3-4 hours (with every meal) to insure adequate supply during the day. Your night meal should be comprised of slowly digesting protein (such as lean meats) that will give a constant release of amino acids into your system overnight.

Of course, hydration is also very important. Drink daily about a half an ounce of water for every pound of body weight (180 pound person would drink 90 ounces). If you exercise, drink a cup of water for every 15 minutes exercised. For exercise or games longer than 1 hour, a carb/protein drink is needed during the activity.

The post-exercise meal should consist of carbohydrates, protein and a small amount of essential fats. A drink, such as a smoothie, is good because it is quickly digestible. A ratio of 2g carbs/1g protein is desirable.

The carbs should be high glycemic, the proteins should be easily digestible (such as whey) and the fats should be from sources such as fish or flax oil.

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Try This Core Exercise: Russian Twist With Medicine Ball

The Russian Twist with Medicine Ball is a challenging core exercise for athletes. It can be performed at a slow pace or at high speeds. Your core strength will determine what weight medicine ball to use. See the illustration below:



1. Lie on your back with your feet extended in the air and your hips bent at 90 degrees. Hold a medicine ball between your feet while they are extended in the air.

2. Keeping your legs straight, rotate them to the side until they almost touch the floor.

3. Bring your legs back up and rotate them to the other side keeping your feet together and holding the medicine ball.

4. Return to the starting position and repeat the desired repetitions.

Athletes should be able to perform higher level core exercises (i.e., with movement) to avoid injuries and to prepare for the demands of competition.

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You Need Carbs For Peak Sports Performance

Carbohydrates are your body's preferred source of energy. Fats "burn in a carb flame." And, carbs spare proteins to rebuild your body's tissues. If you are on a "carb restriction" diet, your athletic performance will suffer.

During intense physical or sports activity, your body depends on glycogen made from the carbohydrates that you eat. Glycogen is stored in your liver and muscles and it is broken down into glucose. Glucose is then used by your body to make energy. As a result, when your glycogen levels are low, your performance will suffer.

Fruits, veggies and whole grains are great carbohydrates to consume before games (and every day for that matter). After a game, practice or workout, you should consume a healthy carbohydrate/protein drink or snack within 45 minutes to 1 hour of the activity.

This will help your body resynthesize glycogen quickly, rebuild tissues (especially after a weight workout) and get your glycogen stores ready for your next game, workout or practice. The ratio of the drink should be 2:1 (2g carbs/1g protein). Carbohydrates should comprise 60%-70% of your daily calories.

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Good Hamstring Stretch--Single Leg Good Mornings

The Single Leg Good Morning stretch is a good hamstring stretch that you may not be doing. The hamstrings are often a nagging problem area for athletes. Prevention of hamstring injuries is best.



1. Start by placing a bar or stick handle across your shoulders.

2. Standing on one leg, bend forward keeping your back flat and your leg on the ground straight. This should be a controlled, smooth movement (no bouncing).

3. Maintaining your balance, return to the starting position and repeat for the desired repetitions.

4. Repeat with the other leg.

You can also strengthen your hamstrings with this exercise by increasing the weight on the bar.

Try this stretch/strength exercise the next time you workout!

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Do You Want A More Powerful Throwing Arm?

Baseball players are always looking to add miles per hour (MPH) to their throws. Just lifting weights and increasing arm strength won't do the trick for you. What you need is more power and explosion, or speed strength. Increase your arm speed.

What's the best way to increase arm speed? You need strength and power in your legs, core and arm (particularly a strong shoulder). Power needs to be transferred from your legs through your core to your throwing arm. This will increase your arm speed and MPH. Many athletes have strong, powerful legs but weak cores.

Along with your weightlifting program, you need to include power exercises like squat jumps, vertical leaps, sport-specific plyometric exercises and sport-specific medicine ball exercises. These power exercises should be performed at FULL SPEED.

Improve your throwing arm's MPH by "powerizing" your entire body.

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Carbohydrate Loading May Help Performance In Endurance Events

Endurance events, such as marathons and triathlons, have become very popular in the United States. These type of events are obviously very taxing on your body and you need to prepare for them carefully to avoid injuries and illnesses.

Nutrition is a critical part of any training program. Carbohydrates, stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen, are your body's preferred source of fuel. As such, carbohydrate loading is a technique that may help you during an intense running or cycling event.

Each gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories. Your muscles normally store enough glycogen to support you during short-term exercise (usually about 1 hour). Exercise activities lasting 90 minutes or more usually puts you at risk of running out of glycogen. As a result, your performance will suffer.

Carbohydrate loading can remedy the problem of running out of glycogen during endurance events. You should start loading carbohydrates the week before the endurance event.

To make room for carbohydrate loading, you need to first deplete your carbohydrate stores. You do this by increasing daily protein and fat intake to make up for the decrease in carbohydrate intake (decrease carbs to 40%-50% of total calories). You will continue to do your normal training routine.

About 4 days before the event, you should increase carbohydrate intake to 60%-70% of total daily calories. This will be about 4.5 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight. Avoid foods high in fat and taper off on your training to avoid depleting your glycogen stores. You should not train a day or two before the event.

Plan on incorporating a carbohydrate-rich diet during your training period to fully benefit from carbohydrate loading. Men tend to benefit more from carbohydrate loading because of endocrine differences between the sexes.

This causes men to use carbohydrates more during the endurance event. Also plan to replenish your carbohydrates during an event lasting more than 1 hour. A snack, piece of fruit or sports drinks will work to accomplish this.

Some things to consider about carbohydrate loading:

1) You might gain weight (2 to 4 pounds) during the loading week. If this hurts your performance, then loading might not be best for you.

2) High fiber carbohydrates might cause digestive problems such as cramps and bloating. You might want to limit these types of carbohydrates.

3) If you are diabetic, carbohydrate loading could effect your blood sugar levels.

Get your doctor's clearance and see a registered dietician before beginning a carbohydrate loading program.

You might want to try carbohydrate loading to see how your performance improves. It may be that you don't need to load up on carbohydrates to improve your performance.

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The Athlete's Power Center: The Hips and Glutes

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 hamstrings are not equipped to do the work of the gluteus maximus. See this post about hamstring injuries

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
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

Don't undertrain or inadequately train an important part of your power center---your hips and glutes!

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Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
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Sports Fitness Tips for Girls and Women

Female Athletes Should Train The Same Way As Males

Speed and explosive strength training are the same for both genders. While males do have more physical strength than females, the same biomechanical motions are used by both sexes.

Therefore, females need to train the same way as males while allowing for differences in gender make-up (see discussion below). And women shouldn't worry about getting too bulky. Proper training will allow women to remain flexible (and not muscle-bound) while gaining strength.

Female Muscle Make-Up---Weight Training Guidelines

The source of this information is from the National Strength & Conditioning Association, the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Although males and females should basically train the same way biomechanically, there are some differences in gender bodily make-up that should be considered for female athlete weight training:

#1 Females demonstrate a lower Hamstring to Quadricep ratio. This means females typically have weaker hamstrings compared to males.

#2 Females demonstrate different muscle activation patterns compared to males. Females are typically Quadricep dominant athletes. This means females use their strong Quadriceps muscles and do not use their weak hamstrings enough. How does this affect Anterior Cruciate Knee injuries?

The hamstring muscle group acts to protect the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) and the Quadricep muscle group places STRESS on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Therefore, Quadricep dominant muscle work demonstrated by females places excessive stress on the ACL.

#3 Females demonstrate strength weakness comparing one leg to the other. Studies show that 20-30% of female athletes have one leg significantly weaker than the other leg. If a female has a muscle weakness of 15% or greater from one leg to the other, they are 2.6 times more likely to suffer a leg injury.

#4 Females demonstrate a slower speed of muscle contraction. The typical female takes 3 tenths of a second longer to generate MAXIMUM contraction of the hamstrings. This may seem insignificant, however realize that a sprinter spends less than a tenth of a second balancing on one foot before pushing off and landing on the other foot. If the hamstrings do not contract fast enough the Anterior Cruciate Ligament may be in jeopardy.

As a personal trainer, I take these facts into consideration when training female athletes and females in general.

Young Girls

Girls, of primary concern to you is to begin developing peak bone mass. After graduating from high school, girls have all the bone mass they will ever have--Unless they strength train to increase it.

According to a recent issue in Pediatric Physical Therapy (2006; 18 [1], 19-22), soccer is a great activity for adolescent girls. It combines weight-bearing exercise with repetitive impact from running and jumping. This significantly increases bone density which reduces the risk of osteoporosis.

Nutritional Note to Girls

I do not recommend extreme diets that omit one or more of the macronutrients. The macronutrients are fat, protein and carbohydrates. No doubt, bad fad diets have contributed to diseases such as anorexia and bulimia. Female athletes are at risk when diets are inadequate because of concerns about weight gain.

Ladies, get your game on!

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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!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
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