Breathing Patterns Part 2: Assessments
In Part 1 of this series I briefly went over some of the negative things that can happen to the body when healthy breathing is not observed. In this installment, Strength Coach Carson Boddicker joins me as I describe a few breathing assessment techniques that you can use when evaluating your clients. Proper breathing, while often overlooked in the Strength and Conditioning world, is essential to quality movement.  Hopefully you find these assessments useful. Patrick p

A Breath of Fresh Air - Breathing 101
Stop reading and take in a breath of air. Go ahead.  I give you permission.  Get a nice big breath of air and see how that feels. We seem to take breathing for granted.  We don’t really think about it, we just sort of “do it”.  Certainly evaluating proper breathing patterns is nothing new; however, it has recently gained popularity in the strength and conditioning world.  I don’t think most strength coaches, trainers, therapists, etc, really thought about the importance of this task with regard to their client/athletes performance, pain or function.  I can tell you that as a strength coach/trainer I did

Bring Back The Afterschool Athlete
Today I have a guest blog from Joe Bonyai.  Joe is a great strength coach and the owner of Empower Athletic Development in Scarsdale, NY. Joe was nice enough to contribute an excellent article offering parents some practical information regarding their young athletes and ways to incorporate after school physical activity into their daily lives.  If you are in the Scarsdale area and have young athletes, I highly suggest checking out Joe’s program as he offers a top-notch service and brings a strong science based background to his training philosophy. Patrick patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com _____ Bring Back the After School Athlete

The Training Theme
Theme is defined as a unifying or dominating idea; a motif. While many remember this term from English/literature class in grade school, it actually plays an important role in the overall training process. There are two themes to consider when designing a program: The theme of the training cycle The theme of the training day Training Cycle Theme The theme of the training cycle is basically telling us what we are attempting to achieve in a given period of time - 4-weeks, 8-weeks, 12-weeks, etc - however long your mesocycle is.  Several mesocycles typically make up a full program,

An Interview With Sports Performance Coach Steven Bubel
Recently I had the please of interviewing my friend and colleague Steven Bubel.  Steven is a great sports performance coach in San Antonio and one of the guys I go to when I want to bounce around ideas on program design.  Enjoy! Patrick patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com Patrick: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview Steven. Can you please give a little bit of background on yourself and why you got into training? Steven: I came into training quite by accident. I was a three-sport athlete in high school (football, basketball, and baseball) and picked up lacrosse in college. At A&M I also picked