Rentable Practice Space: You Want It, We Got It
Beginning Monday, August 13th...
Rentable Practice Space Available:
- Features:
- 35' x 35' open area for sport specific skill development.
- Get creative! We think it's perfect for baseball & softball, basketball, soccer, dryland training, golf, lacrosse, and more!
- Group and Team reservations WELCOME!
- "Freelance" skill instructors WELCOME!*
- 3-Batting Cages
- 15' x 40'
- Ideal for soft-toss and tee work
- Group and Team reservations WELCOME!
- "Freelance" skill instructors are WELCOME!*
- Maximum 3 athletes and one coach per cage (or 4 athletes).
- Or, Take the Cake, with a TOTAL FACILITY RESERVATION!
- 40' x 80' open space
- Benefits:
- Make reservations online & from your SMART PHONE. Easy peezy.
- Monitored by SAPT staff to ensure a safe, clean, and welcoming environment is maintained at all times.
- A low total facility capacity is enforced to encourage a safe & spacious training environment!
- Pricing:
- 35' x 35' skill space - $30.00 per hour
- 15' x 40' batting cage - $40.00 per hour
- 40' x 80' total facility - $150.00 per hour
- Location:
- 3831 Pickett Road, Fairfax, VA 22031
Ready to roll?!?! Contact Ryan at ryan@studentathletept.com or 800-511-9685 ext. 7 to get setup!
Limited reservations available beginning Monday, August 13th. Book today before the rest of NOVA gets wind of our little gem on Pickett!
*Skill instruction is subject to SAPT's review and acceptance. No, personal trainers or strength and conditioning coaches, please.
Directed Attention - Part 1
Part 1: What’s in a word?Focus! Your teacher, coach, or parents have all snapped that word at you at some point, or a lot of points. The word focus has become the standard to garner attention. However, the word itself has become dull, unoriginal, and lost meaning. Focus also has many different meanings, which makes it even less potent.
The word itself has become a bugaboo for athletes in particular. Many athletes think they have to completely “lock in” to perform, which often leads to tension and self-doubt in ability. Focusing solely on raising intensity and energy is often the wrong place for athletes to focus. Additionally, the idea to just “focus” is so vague that athlete’s don’t believe they have control over their ability to do it.
The definition of focus, which is often used as a verb in athletics, is defined as one’s ability to direct attention. When working with athletes, I often talk about directing attention rather than simply focusing. When the athlete understands they can direct attention to a needed action they become more in control of what they need to do and have a better grasp of how to take ownership of their attention.
Many athletes become so focused on the result that they lose the ability to direct their attention to their needed process. The ability for an athlete to direct their attention to things in their control, rather than things that are out of their control, often determines an athlete’s ability to perform in the moment. By simply “focusing” and not directing attention, the athlete loses control over their own focus. Giving them something to direct their attention to will allow them to get back to the moment when they drift awry.
Directing attention to controllables such as effort, attitude, and self-talk often give the athlete the best opportunity to succeed.
Next week in Part 2, find out how to direct and control your focus!
Friday Musings: Mental Mondays, Zelda Symphony, Walking into Mordor, and Harry Potter
1. As Sarah mentioned earlier this week, starting on Mondays, we're going to have a pseudo-permanent guest blogger, Brian Levenson, do a "Mental Monday" piece each Monday. Check HERE for a bit more information. Brian's extremely skilled at what he does, and he and I are actually working together on an upcoming project which, to say the least, I'm quite excited about.
I know this means you won't be hearing from me on Mondays for a while, but hey, at least you'll be spared the continual nerd references I can't seem to stop myself from making, right?
2. Speaking of nerdy things. Any of you who have been reading my material on here for an extended period of time know that I have a borderline dangerous love of all things Zelda.
Well, last night, the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) was playing at Wolf Trap, which is America's National Park for the Performing Arts and also just happens to be 30 minutes from my house. And guess what the event was? The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess. In which the NSO was performing a symphony based on the themes from the game, along with highlighting memorable moments from all the Zelda games on the big screen above the orchestra.
So of course I had to go. And it was amazing. The only thing that could have made it more enjoyable was consuming a Chipotle burrito during the show. Which I did, thank you very much, so it was as good as it gets.
The place was PACKED, with nerds and non-nerds alike, and heck, even if you have no interest in the Zelda series, you'd still enjoy the show as the symphonic movements the the orchestra played were spectacular.
Before the show started, I met the guy in the picture below, who, come to find out, owns the most valuable Link outfit currently on the internet. It's valued at over $2,100 and he fashioned it all by hand himself. He even has chainmail under the cloak....crazy!
3. Guess what fun fact I found out recently?
If you go into GoogleMaps, click on Walking directions, and type in "The Shire" as your origin, and "Mordor" as your destination, a little box pops up saying:
"Caution - One does not simply walk into Mordor"
Hahahaha. Enter #255 why Google is the coolest company ever. I'm sure the programmers over there have a boatload of fun messing around with stuff like that.
4. I recently began reading the Harry Potter series for some fun reading to do in my spare time, and I must say: I'm hooked, and I finally see what all the fuss is about. It makes for a fantastic "cooldown" session when I get home from work around 9pm, and am able to read it for two hours thirty minutes or so before plopping into bed.
I realize I'm - oh I don't know, maybe a decade or two behind on this one - but I can't recommend them highly enough for those of you who haven't read them. J.K. Rowling is obviously a brilliant writer, and I'm continually blown away by her sequencing of events, character development, and the themes she weaves throughout the series.
I honestly can never seem to extricate myself from the book once I get started, and it has become my latest Sunday afternoon pastime. I just began the fifth book (Order of the Phoenix) and I think the only thing I'm regretting about beginning these books is that they have to end at some point.
.....Well, that wraps it up for today. I do apologize for completely inundating today's post with all things dorky. I'll do my best to make it up next week by discussing manly things like chopping wood, blowing up stuff, sports, and lifting heavy things.
Squat Grip Revisited
I still feel people aren’t grasping the importance of a proper squat set up in regards to the upper body. The whole movement starts from the upper body so to have that first line of defense be lackluster will undoubtedly make the entire lift suffer. The goal of the upper body during the squat is to be as tight as possible; engaging every muscle from the scapular retractors all the way to the spinal erectors and everything in between. I will inform you now that using a grip with a “bent” or “lazy” wrist position will prevent your squat from being all that it could be. Failing to straighten the wrist during a squat will cause a failure to engage all necessary musculature equaling out to “force leaks” both in the eccentric and concentric portions of the lift. I have posted the video below before but I figured I would post it again to show people how to use a different type of squat grip in order to overcome mobility problems to achieve a straight writs position. Check it out again!
Some More Female Awesomeness: Achieving Her First Bodyweight Chinup
All of us coaches at SAPT always get fired up about females making awesome progress in the gym (see A Witness to Female Strength and Some Female Pushup Goodness for a couple examples). There's something ridiculously cool about them realizing just how much they can achieve in the weight room, and how empowering it is for them to continue to make progress in that sphere. A few months ago, we started working with a young woman, Meredith, who signed up for our Distance Coaching program. Upon asking her what a few of her specific goals were, she replied with:
"I feel like I could use some help in designing a program and also most importantly to make sure I'm doing everything correctly. I realize that now is the time to do this because its only going to get more difficult as we get older.
One goal of mine is to master a pull-up. As a former dancer, my upper body strength my whole life has been pretty weak. I have tried using the assisted pull-up machine and have progressed to assistance of 20lbs but then when I try to use just the pull-up bar, I am nowhere near where I need to be. I think Ryan would be impressed if someday I could master a pull-up :) "
(Note: Ryan is her husband, an awesome dude whom I actually had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago.)
Given that one of Meredith's primary goals was to perform a complete, non-assisted chinup (she had never done it before), we embarked upon a program with a "chinup specialization" component in order to help her reach this goal.
Well, merely two months into the program, I received the video below of her performing not just one, but two bodyweight chinups, along with an email from Meredith:
"Steve -
Thank you so much for your help in achieving my first ever pull-up! Honestly when I signed up for the 3-month distance coaching program, I thought I would get stronger, but I never imagined being able to do not just one but two pullups within my first 2 months of training. I have really enjoyed the distance coaching and the programs you have created for me. I feel a sense of accountability to make sure I get all my workouts in each week and for once, I actually look forward to my workouts and seeing what I can accomplish each day. Thank you so much for all your help and I can't wait to see what the next 3 months holds for me!
- Meredith"
In a word: Awesome!!!
The point I want to derive from this is that Meredith's success is NOT primarily attributed to some magical program I wrote for her (while popular opinion may hold that SAPT performs magic, I, personally speaking at least, was never instructed by Dumbledore over at Hogwarts), but rather, her success stemmed from the fact that she attacked each and every training day with focus, determination, and confidence. Also, once a month, she showed up at SAPT to go over the proceeding month's programming, to ensure that her technique was sound that she was executing everything correctly.
And, not to mention, while she knocked her chinup goal out of the park, she's also well on the road of "Picking Up Heavy Things" by hitting a pretty impressive Trap Bar Deadlift PR, nailing 140lbs for six reps:
In exchanging a couple emails with her husband, Ryan, he told me, "Since she started with you guys she hasn't missed a single training day and has been completely dialed in when she gets to the gym. She's working extremely hard and is focused and believes in your program. As you can see, she's getting awesome results. Hopefully you can use her story to help others experience what she has achieved."
I hope this serves as some encouragement to you reading what can be accomplished when you set your sights on a goal (be it a heavy deadlift or squat attempt, fat loss goal, or simply being able to lift pain-free), and refuse to waver in your quest for that particular accomplishment.
Mental Mondays
Over the last year I've had my eyes opened to a new aspect of athletic performance preparation: the Mental Coach. I think all of us recognize that the "mental game" is pretty darn important to athletic success. After all, when it comes down to it, it's either your mind or body (or a combo of the two) that sinks or swims your efforts on the court, the field, on the mat, in the pool, on the track, out of the golf course, etc.
But, what I didn't realize is that there are professional Mental Coaches who specialize in finely tuning all things "mental" for athletes.
Recently, I've had the pleasure of getting to know Brian Levenson. His long list of overwhelming successes with the athletes he has assisted can not be denied! He's a rockstar on the rise!
Beginning next Monday*, Brian will become a regular fixture on this blog providing "Mental Monday" posts. Much like the information all of us at SAPT strive to provide, Brian will be providing totally FREE, extremely high-quality content that will include a variety of tips and strategies for picking up your mental game.
Please welcome Brian next week by offering up some comments on his first post!
*What about Stevo's Monday posts? Well, the poor man needs a break. He's been throwing up amazing posts 3x per week for almost 2-years straight. Now, he'll be down to two, but I totally expect the quality will somehow continue to rise. Hard to imagine, I know, but most of you don't see how this man works!
