Hi All,

Sorry for the long absence. I was struggling with some health issues for a while but now that those are cleared I’m happily back to Swing Big!

Today I thought it might be a nice way to start out by talking about some of the things that have changed in our training over the summer.

1. More leg conditioning – Three of the four events rely on legs, but I was always worried about too much pounding and overuse injuries. So this summer we created two circuits – one leg circuit that involved impact, landing, jumping etc and one that didn’t involve those. That way I could be sure that those muscles were getting stronger without worrying about how many times kids were hitting the floor. It helped more than I can say. So below are some ideas for both impact and non impact leg conditioning.

2. # of turns before chalking up – This group up until summer had been pretty good about not chalking up too often. But then there became a general trend of talking in the chalk bucket. We now have a rule you must COMPLETE 7 or more skills before getting chalk again. It helps girls stay a little more focused during their bars rotation.

3. Shaping circuits – We’ve done TONS of shaping in the past, but my feeling is it’s been shaping for the sake of shaping and not geared nearly enough towards specific levels or the skills they are doing. So I’ve built new shaping circuits (not conditioning circuits) – that are really level dependent and I’m very much liking the results.

3. Circuit conditioning – We did this all most all summer on arms and legs days. The group of both compulsories and optionals has grown so I had to figure out how I wanted to do things. We did one minute stations generally between 7 and 9 of them with 5-10 seconds rest in between. Generally between all of the stations, set-up, take down and putting kids in pairs it took a little under 30 minutes and they got a GREAT workout. We did supplemental shaping things on the side as well.

4. Letting them stretch on their own – This was generally only on Friday’s but the thing I liked about this is the girls know where they are sore. They know where they need to spend a little more time. So as long as I’m making sure they are getting all the stretches I want them to do done, then they have an extra 5-10 minutes to do some of the stretches we might not do every day, or to foam roll or use the lacrosse balls a bit more than usual.

TRAIN HARD!

If you’re interested in restructuring your own training I’d love to help you!