SPORTS PERFORMANCE
An ideal program for all athletes and for all sports to experience camaraderie and team building in a safe, supportive, and high-energy environment. Our sessions focus on developing Speed, agility, strength, competency in body-weight movements, and resistance work.
Student-athletes can work with Fit Factory Inc. coaches to improve their sports performance and learn safe techniques to protect their bodies.
Our athletes are trained in a high-intensity strength-and-conditioning program that includes:
Ground based movements – Jumping, throwing, and running require using force against a surface, typically the ground. A personal fitness trainer can teach you conditioning drills and lifting exercises, including hang snatches, push jerks, and squat and hang clean. Improving force through sports performance training in Draper, UT, leads individuals to run faster and develop more effective sports skills. Your fitness training will help you avoid exercises that don’t help.
Train movements, not individual muscles – Through our strength and conditioning training, you will use drills and exercises focusing on multiple join actions to increase your performance. Athletic skills such as running, jumping, and throwing combine several joint actions. We only use free weights, because free weights implement three-dimensional movement, transfering strength and power seamlessly to develop your sports skills. These weights require stabilizing the load during lifting, ensuring you focus on specific muscle groups to achieve stabilization. Weight lifting machines have a set path, eliminating the need to stabilize the load, producing insufficient results.
Training explosively – The body uses fast twitch and slow twitch to determine the amount of force required for each activity. These two factors vary in how much force they generate. Basketball and football players must focus on fast twitch muscles while long-distance runners rely on slow twitch muscles. Fast twitch muscles have more fibers that are larger than slow twitch muscles, allowing them to generate more force, up to four times more. Successful basketball and football players are generally born with more fast twitch muscles, allowing them to achieve maximum power and efficiency with correct training.
Principle of Variety – Strength training programs and speed and agility training require various amounts of weight to be lifted. How those loads are applied impacts performance and reduces the risk of injuries. The body can experience overload when experiencing more significant training loads than usual. This overload leads muscles to break down or enter a catabolic state. Proper nutrition and resting will help the body adapt to these changes to generate more endurance and strength. Personal trainers slowly increase intensity and volume to increase the overload. Heavier loads result in higher intensity, and more repetitions increases volume. Each one results in specific changes. For instance, increasing weight while maintaining low repetitions is perfect for developing power and strength. However, more repetitions with a lighter weight improves muscle size and work capacity.
Principle of Periodization – Phases encompass distinct combinations of volume and intensity, leading to diverse physiological responses. Typically, a cycle commences with a foundational phase, advances to a strength phase, and culminates in a peak phase. The size of each block in the pyramid signifies the volume of the workload. The foundational phase corresponds to the largest block, indicating the highest volume capacity. Conversely, the peak phase, positioned at the pyramid’s apex, reflects the lowest volume executed. The pyramid’s height signifies the intensity level. An effective program should transition from high volume and low intensity to low volume and high intensity.
Principle of Specificity – When preparing for competition in Draper, UT, it’s crucial to engage in lifts or drills that imitate the movements performed in the playing field. This tactic entails training appropriate energy system and targeting relevant muscle fibers. Basketball and football players, for instance, should focus on drills and exercises that challenge their ATP-PC energy system and fast twitch muscle fibers. Conversely, a long-distance runner would benefit from training their aerobic energy system and slow twitch muscle fibers. By incorporating drills and exercises that mimic competition, athletes can enhance their power and speed during games or races. Interval training aligns with the concept of specificity in training. It suggests a conditioning program should replicate the work-to-rest ratio experienced during competition. For instance, in football, players exert physical effort for five to eight seconds, followed by a sixty-second rest between plays. Conditioning programs for these athletes should mirror these work-to-rest ratios.
Split Routine – The most optimal regimen for athletes is a split routine. This regimen involves alternating exercise types on different days. For instance, strength lifts are done on Monday and Thursday, while explosive lifts are assigned to Tuesday and Friday. Alternating exercises allows each body area time to recover while working on other areas.
Injury Prevention – To avoid getting hurt, it’s crucial to grasp the circumstances and timing of injuries. A substantial part of conditioning should be dedicated to preventing injuries. Shoulder instability, ankle straings, and groin strains commonly happen during the force-reduction movement phase. Hence, it is essential to allocate ample time to force reduction, halting and altering direction. Fitness classes implement injury prevention exercises into the daily warm-up routine and tailor them to individual sessions as required.
Functional Mobility and Postural Control – Mobility encompasses more than being able to touch your toes. Athletes must move their joints through the required range of motion for their sport. Mobility comprises factors such as coordinated movement of body segments into proper positions and patterns, muscle flexibility, and joint range of motion. This movement includes the interplay between body segments like the torso, arms, shoulders, pelvis, and legs during activities. Athletes exhibit variable mobility capabilities, and stretching is not the sole solution. In some cases, poor posture can generate internal joint resistance. This misalignment leads to an asymmetrical resting position, potentially subjecting it to unnecessary strains.
Diet and Recovery – Proper nutrition and adequate rest are essential for meeting the energy requirements of fitness training. The body relies on six nutrient types for optimal functioning: water, minerals, vitamins, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. It’s crucial to maintain a balanced diet that includes various food types to ensure an adequate supply of these nutrients. An imbalance in nutrient intake can lead to adverse effects such as increased illnesses, injuries, or body fat. Athletes engaging in rigorous training experience significant stress daily. Nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables provide natural sources of vitamins, including Vitamins A, C, and E, antioxidants required to counteract metabolic stress by-products. Carbohydrates are the primary source of fuel for the body and brain, but not all carbohydrates are the same. Athletes should primarily consume complex carbohydrates from sources like rice, whole grain breads and cereals, vegetables, and other high-starch foods. Proteins serve as the building blocks for the body, aiding in its maintenance and repair.
*Nutrition consultation and Meal prep is available*