If you are a coach then I guarantee you have watched kids succumb to sports anxiety, resulting in performances far below their abilities.  Interestingly, most athletes struggle with irrational fear, and not the real kind of fear where they are truly in harms way.  I talk about this problem in my latest…

http://tinyurl.com/TrainTheBrain8 ... During an athletes college career they are told repeatedly to get stronger, fitter and commonly BIGGER. What happens when they are done with their athletic commitments? Even normal students show significant weight gain in 2 and 4 year institutions. Find out more here: …

At every level of football, it is crucial to have a quarterback that understands his role in the team and offense.   Unfortunately, they don’t always get it without a little extra help and guidance.   It is for that reason that I developed a set Quarterback Development Curriculum that I would use to help my quarterbacks grasp the entirety of what were were asking them to do.

As part of that curriculum set, I have included details and downloadable PowerPoint presentations that we used…

http://tinyurl.com/CarloAlvarezInterview ... Carlo Alvarez is regarded as one of the top strength and conditioning coaches in the country. With a broad range of job responsibilities throughout his career at different levels, Coach Alvarez made this episode educational and informative. Certainly a good contact to have to talk about training from the high school to professional levels.

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This week we had the pleasure to add two new writers (Deuce and Sports Dietitian Tavis Piattoly) and we have set new records for readership for the 4th consecutive week. This week alone, over 600 readers have read an average of 4…

If you watched the NFL playoff games this past weekend then you saw firsthand how anxiety -- and more specifically, choking -- impacted the outcome of both games.  You can read the rest of my article on what happened with each game by…

New Article by Tavis Piattoly on playfullthrottle.com

In preparing for the upcoming sports season, athletes spend an invaluable amount of time on training specific to the sport in which they participate. This may consist of sports specific training (i.e. speed, agility, and strength), skill specific drills with…

The momentum has continued this week at FTO. Hopefully you like the changes we made to the site. They were done to make it more user friendly and simple yet informative. If there is something missing that you would like to see, please let us know.

Here is a rundown of the 10 Articles from…

Mentally Tough Student Athletes Can Open and Close their Mind at the Right Times

Increasingly more athletes who deal with injuries are being prescribed various pain pills, which often lead to addiction.  In some cases the athletes turn to street ways of finding more of the prescribed drug, while others turn to the cheaper opiate that's commonly available - heroin.…

Far too often in sports, athletes are trained to do things in the weight room or practice field that are far different from the actually way they are going to play on the field of competition. Over the years, I have created a strength and conditioning program that is meant to go against this trend with every part of the entire training cycle being based on the latest S&C research.…

The warm-up or stretching part of practice seems to change every few years. First static stretching (seen to the right) was great, then it was out. Next the bands were all the rage, now they appear to be being replaced by more dynamic concepts.

So which one is right?

The answer is all. They all can work depending on what you are trying to accomplish. A few years…

A successful high school basketball coach in Michigan resigned this week, citing parents as the reason why he quit.  Unfortunately, this story is not unique as thousands of coaches across the country -- most being paid very little money…

Several New York Jets players have called out quarterback Mark Sanchez this week, illustrating issues the team has with team leadership and team culture.  Head Coach Rex Ryan has always been a brash gunslinger-type coach, which may explain why several of his players are currently acting out in toxic ways to…

This week was a huge week here on FTO. We had our largest publishing week in blog history as well as some of the most popular posts in resent history.

Here is a rundown of the 10 Articles from the past week.

1. Using Hudl for Game / Position Prep by…

Chicago 1/7/2012

Hitting a baseball is said to be one of the hardest skills in sports to do. According to Mike "Hubie Magic" Huber he discoverd a secret that no other baseball person knows about that helps get hitters to hit the ball harder, farther, and more consistently.

 

Huber says that he accidentally stumbled upon the secret while he was intensely studying components of a slow pitch softball swing combined with upward rotational hitting. In 1996 this type of thinking was…

Dear Coaches

In the past 10 years, I have tried about every available option to use technology to save myself and my coaches time both in season and out of…

When coaches here the words "wide receiver" and "attitude," we automatically envision pictures of players who change their names to avoid NFL rules or were on ESPN doing sit-ups in their driveway.

As we watch professional, and even college football, it is easy to get frustrated by the attitudes that we see.  Players going out of their way to promote self…