Mission:
To provide comprehensive performance programs that minimize potential for injury, enhance sports performance, and maximize long term development.
Philosophy - Vision:
Creating an environment that is process oriented through a team of like-minded individuals who share the same vision:
A High Performance Team that is the leading provider in Student-Athlete Development. This team is built upon clear communication, meaningful relationships, and constant desire to grow personally and professionally. These characteristics are centered around the student-athlete to maximize sports performance and be successful in all aspects of life.
Pilot Performance Principles:
Progressive Overload
In order to maximize the potential of an athlete through the sports performance program, progressive overload must be applied to steadily increase the body's ability to cope with stress. Progressive overload is based on the concept of habitual adaptations to greater physiological challenges. Varying muscle contractions through a step-type approach of loading and deloading phases allows for optimal adaptation, regeneration, and long term development.
Variety
A systematic progression of exercises is needed to ensure the continued development of athletes. Accounting for adaptation, applying variety develops specific qualities needed for injury prevention and optimal sports performance. Varying not only exercises, but also the loading system, type of muscle contraction, and speed of contraction is essential to increase the effectiveness of a sports performance program.
Individuality
Every athlete has different physical characteristics, training experience, and capacity for training. Athletes have been found to adapt differently when presented with identical training regimes, so recognizing individual differences and specifying training is paramount to the success of the individual. Each athlete needs to be treated according to individual ability, genetic potential, rate of recovery, and training background to optimize long term athletic development.
Specificity
The specificity principle matches the metabolic and biomechanical characteristics of the sports performance program to the demands of the sport. Selecting methods that consider the dominant energy systems for sport-specific strength, endurance, and neural adaptations will enhance sport performance. However, overemphasizing specificity of training may result in a narrow development of the athlete. Once a foundation has been established, the athlete can move into a more specialized training phase.
Frequency
Frequency of training accounts for the amount of training sessions performed per week. Too few training sessions will not adequately stress the body, while too many will lead to overtraining. Optimal training frequency is based on the training age of the athlete, sport, and time of year to optimize sport performance and long term development.
Components of a Comprehensive Performance Program:
Pre-Activity Preparation
Pre-activity preparation is an essential component of training and should prepare the body for the specific demands of the session. Warming up not only increases core body temperature, but it prepares muscle tissue, ligaments, and tendons, while also increasing neuromuscular coordination, motor reactions, and contraction speed.
Speed, Agility, & Power Development
Power is the ability to apply maximum force in the shortest amount of time. This is critical in sports that require high levels of strength, power, and rapid change of direction. The main factors that contribute to power development are high levels of strength and rate of force development. The biggest factor in improving speed and agility is consistently and efficiently repeating movement patterns in order to improve CNS signaling, synchronization, and proprioception. It is necessary to improve an athlete's force application and reduction in the shortest amount of time to optimize sport performance.
Ground-Based Movements
To improve the efficiency of complex sport specific movements, it is vital to select ground-based and multi-joint exercises that emphasize muscular balance, decrease injury potential, and improve sport performance. Ground-based movements are essential to sport performance since virtually all sports skills are executed with an athlete's feet in contact with the ground. Ground-based movements are also capable of greater rate of force development, leading to improvements in strength and power.
Multi-Joint Movements
Multi-joint movements are more effective for increasing strength and power due to the neuromuscular coordination and larger muscle mass involved. By emphasizing multi-joint movement patterns and exercises, improvements in the weight room will have higher transfer to sport, while promoting optimal hormonal profile.
Multi-Planar Movements
Sports are multi-planar by nature. Thus, emphasizing movements that target all planes of motion (sagittal, frontal, and transverse), as well as improving the ability to disassociate through each plane, is paramount to improving sport performance.
Energy System Development
The objective of ESD is to improve the energy capacity of an athlete during competition, as well as improving recovery between sessions. Understanding the integration of the three energy systems in the body; phosphagen, glycolytic, and aerobic; is essential to optimize sport performance. It is crucial to understand the energy system requirements of a given sport to improve the efficiency of the athlete.
Training Variables
The manipulation of training variables is paramount to the success of any sport performance program. If principles provide the structure, variables provide the insulation. Manipulating these variables can affect the training response and desired outcome.
- Volume
- Intensity
- Rest Intervals
- Tempo
Periodization
Periodization is the long-term planned variation of training stimuli with the use of rest periods and planned deloads across a training cycle. This is intricately associated with an athlete's competitive calendar in order to reach peak performance at the appropriate time. Variation in load, volume, rest periods, and exercises done in a methodical manner is vital to achieving optimal performance. Determining the appropriate periodization model is dependent on the training experience of the athlete, the goal of training, and the specific sport involved.
Comprehensive Wellness Model
The goal is to empower athletes to improve their performance through optimal sleep, nutrition, hydration, and stress/time management strategies. All of these can positively or negatively influence performance, but all of these are in the athlete's control. Creating awareness through education can lead to improved sport performance and long term-health.
Education
Education is the foundation of a successful sports performance program. Creatingunderstanding and awareness through education leads to actionable change. It is vital to create an environment that challenges athletes' capacity to learn and apply principles for sustained physical and mental growth.
Pilot Performance Training System:
Comprehensive Needs Analysis
- Athlete Assessment & Screening
- Functional Performance Testing
- Anthropometric Measurements
- Specific Demands of Sport & Position
Individualized Program Prescription
- Pre-Activity Prep
- Prevention/Corrective
- Physical Development
- Regeneration/Recovery
Athlete Monitoring and Data Analytics
- Polar Heart Rate System
- Wellness Questionnaires
- Rate of Perceived Exertion
Education
- Training
- Sleep
- Nutrition
- Hydration
- Stress/Time Management
