Lateral Cone Hops Improve Hip Strength and Power

Lateral cone hops will strengthen and power up your hips and gluteus medius. This will make you a more dynamic athletic in the field or on the court.



Use lateral cone hops to improve your power in the frontal plane of motion (side to side motions).

The frontal plane is an imaginary bisector that divides the body into equal front and back halves. The motions primarily involve abduction and adduction (side-to-side motions).

Abduction takes your limb away from the midline of your body and adduction takes your limb closer to the midline of your body. Examples include exercises performed on hip abductor and hip adductor machines. Other frontal plane motions would be lateral lunges, dumbbell lateral shoulder raises and lateral spinal flexion.

Quickness and agility movements made by athletes require adequate frontal plane stability, strength, power, flexibility and balance.

Lateral cone hops are done as fast as possible. Also, your feet should remain on the ground as little as possible as you do the hops. Focus on hopping (not jumping) from side to side (on the balls of your feet) with very little vertical height. You are working to improve lateral power with this exercise and not vertical power. Do 8-10 repetitions per set.

As you progress, you can begin to do single leg lateral cone hops. Train hard and safe!

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Rotator Cuff Stretch

If you are in a sport that requires a throwing or swinging motion like baseball, softball, lacrosse or tennis then you need to regularly stretch and condition your rotator cuff....



1. Stand with your arm out and your forearm pointing 90 degrees.

2. Put a stick in your hand and behind your elbow. With your other hand, pull the bottom of the broom stick forward.

This may sound simple but it is a very important stretch for your rotator cuff. You also need to strengthen and stabilize the rotator cuff with strength exercises. Resistance band exercises and light dumbbell exercises work well for the rotator cuff.

Avoiding or lessening the risk of injury is a major part of sports fitness training!

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Powerize Your Body With Medicine Ball Workouts, 2

Using medicine balls for plyometric exercises is ideal....upper body medicine ball plyometric exercises help to improve power because you can safely train at full speed to retrain the central nervous system to move the body faster....



It doesn't help you to keep getting stronger if your power (how fast your muscles can produce force) doesn't improve...racket sports (like tennis and lacrosse) and throwing sports (like baseball) require you to have superior arm speed.

The soccer throw (pictured above) and the two-handed chest pass are two great medicine ball exercises that improve power if you do the exercises at full speed. When these types of exercises are combined with your strength training program, you will be a powerful athlete!

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Lateral Bounding Drills Improve Speed And Athleticism

Lateral bounding (with proper footwork) during a game and explosively continuing with the play will separate you from the competition.

How many times have you seen a linebacker, running back, shortstop, soccer defender or basketball player bound laterally and accelerate past the opponent? High level athletes have excellent lateral speed.



Lateral bounding is a progression from lateral lunges that requires you 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.

When's the last time you worked to improve your lateral speed and explosion?

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Shoulder Impingement Syndrome and Treatment

Shoulder Impingement Syndrome is caused by the excessive squeezing or rubbing of the rotator cuff and shoulder blade.

The pain is a result of an inflamed bursa sac over the rotator cuff, and/or inflammation of the rotator cuff tendons, and/or calcium deposits in tendons due to wear and tear. Shoulder impingement syndrome can lead to a torn rotator cuff.



Shoulder Impingement Syndrome needs to be treated---usually with anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen or naproxen.

You must consistently take the medication for about eight weeks for it to be effective. Taking anti-inflammatory medications for a short period of time will treat the pain, but it will not treat the problem and symptoms will come back. You may have to try different medications to see which one will work for you.

Daily stretching in warm water will also help. You should try to reach your thumb up and behind your back. Rest is critical---so no baseball throwing/pitching, playing tennis or lacrosse. Also, don't do any activity where your elbow moves above shoulder level.

For most athletes, medication, stretching exercises and rest will do the trick.

If the symptoms do not go away after using anti-inflammatory medicines, your doctor might give you a cortisone-type injection. Cortisone is a very potent anti-inflammatory medication which can weaken muscles and tendons.

So, it should be used only in serious situations. Many times, professional athletes will take cortisone injections to "play through the pain" during the season (to temporarily put off needed surgery).

Your doctor might also perform an MRI or arthrogram to check for a rotator cuff tear. If the rotator cuff is torn, surgery will probably be needed to repair it.

Train hard and smart!

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Core Strength Improves Your Speed Endurance

I was watching a client's middle school team play football last night....I noticed many of the player's postures in the third and fourth quarters....they had trouble running upright and that told me at least two things they were lacking: 1) adequate core strength and 2) speed endurance.



Core strength is important to help you remain strong and upright when you are running, especially in the late stages of a game....adequate core strength helps your speed endurance, which is the ability to maintain maximum velocity or a percentage of maximum velocity for a prolonged period of time or in a fatigued state. The best players and teams have excellent overall body strength, core strength and speed endurance (and they win the most games).

Several sports require speed endurance including football, lacrosse, basketball, soccer, field hockey and tennis. These sports require repeated sprints followed by short periods of rest (walking or jogging). Read my posts on speed endurance and metabolic training.

The fastest players don't get the prize----the players who can run faster for a longer period of time usually win games or individual competitions!

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Defensive Players Need Great Backwards Acceleration

I played defensive back in college so I'm definitely an authority on the need for accelerating backwards......We practiced "running backwards at game speed" every day until it became a natural movement.



If you play a defensive position in your sport or transition to defense (as in basketball, lacrosse or soccer) then you need to train your body for backwards acceleration. Many times, you may be running forward and need to adjust quickly into a back pedal to defend your opponent. Or, you could be in a stand-still position and need to quickly accelerate backwards in a defensive position.

There are exercises that you can practice to improve your backwards acceleration. As with all speed exercises, backwards acceleration practice should be done with "game-time effort." You also must keep your shoulders leaned forward in order to maintain dynamic balance and to be able to stop and go forward "on a dime."

Some common exercises are: back pedal, hip turn and run, hip turn and shuffle, hip turn and crossover and continuous hip turns. Good hip ladder drills are: hip twists, hip in outs, leg swings and hip flexions/extensions.

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Strengthening And Conditioning The Rotator Cuff

The rotator cuff needs to be carefully trained to avoid injuries. The rotator cuff is the main stabilizer of the shoulder joint during movement of the shoulder.



Rotator cuff injury can be a muscle strain or tear due to heavy lifting or excessive force being placed on the shoulder (such as wear and tear from throwing a ball).

If you lift weights, play a racquet sport, throwing sport or swim, you need to do balanced strengthening of these muscles (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis and teres minor). For example, if you over-strengthen your internal rotators relative to the external rotators, you will set yourself up for shoulder injury.

The larger the tear, the harder it is to lift or extend the arm. As with tendonitis, pain, weakness and inflammation accompany rotator cuff injuries.

This condition does not affect the joint capsule but does affect the muscles and tendons of the shoulder joint. Rotator cuff injuries can sometimes take months to heal because of the lack of blood supply to this area. Massage will increase blood flow and oxygen to this area.

Some good rotator cuff exercises are: internal rotations, external rotations, 90 degree rotations and lateral raises. Don't use heavy weights. Five or 10 pound dumbbells are sufficient. General shoulder and back strength exercises should also be a part of your program.

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Rotational Power Is Needed For Many Sports

Some sports such as baseball, tennis, lacrosse and hockey require explosive levels of rotational core power. The medicine ball rotational throw should be done full speed to train your central nervous system and body to move faster and more explosive.

The medicine ball rotational throw is an advanced exercise and should not be done by those athletes with inadequate body strength and core strength.



1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Place your left foot approximately one foot in front of your right foot.

2. Hold medicine ball with both hands and your arms slightly bent.

3. Swing ball over to the right hip and explosively underhand toss the ball forward to a partner or wall. Keep the stomach drawn in to maximize proper usage of muscle.

4. Catch ball on the bounce from your partner or wall and repeat immediately for the desired repetitions.

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Level Sight Lines Are Needed For Many Sports

For an athlete to reach optimal strength, flexibility, balance and power, postural imbalances and dysfunctions must be corrected as much as possible.

One common postural dysfunction is called the Upper-Extremity Postural Distortion. This distortion is seen in a person with rounded shoulders (chest caves in) or a forward head posture as shown below.



Flexibility deficiencies with this postural distortion include tightness in the upper trapezius, neck muscles, latissimus dorsi and chest muscles (pectoralis major/minor).

Common injuries include headaches, biceps tendonitis and shoulder injuries. Important core stabilization exercises for this distortion include prone cobras and cervical retraction.

Athletes who depend on level sight lines to be successful should correct this postural distortion as soon as possible. Because the head is not in proper alignment, this affects players in sports such as baseball/softball, basketball, football, lacrosse, tennis, etc. Hand/eye coordination will be affected if the athlete's sight lines are not level.

We hear about the glamourous attributes that athletes need like speed, power, explosion, etc. all the time. I would argue that posture also needs to be discussed in the same sentence as the other athletic attributes. It is impossible to have optimal speed and power if you have postural dysfunctions.

Every athlete needs a postural assessment performed by a fitness professional. Then, steps can be taken to correct them.

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