Weekly Letter Part One of a Four Part Series The CAP Athleticism Development Program (Levels Program) Defined The developmental curriculum used to advance our athletes in the CAP program seems to be a misunderstood aspect of our training. Athletes ask every day, “What level am I in, and how do I move up?” This 4 part series of weekly articles will walk you through the levels process by introducing you to the standards and expectations that we have for the athletes within each level. Hopefully this will clarify some of our procedures and expose the steps we are taking to redefine modern athletics! Below is a chart that identifies the “Standards” (in a generalized format) that we expect you to achieve before moving up to the next level. As we see it…If you are deficient in any of the lower level areas, regardless of age, it is pointless and futile to start working “Sport Specific Applications”. In the past, athletes that rush through the process tend to have more injuries, higher rates of burnout, and are ultimately “intimidated” by the elevated level of expectation and intensity of the programs. I would compare this to a recreation level club player moving up an age division, and playing with the premier level #1 team. The speed of the game will be something that they are not ready for. This is not to say that they can't adapt to the new expectations, but it can be an intimidating process.
Level 1 – Defined In the first level of the CAP – Athletic Development Program, the athletes can expect a slower more educational format. The athlete must first understand “WHY” before they progress to the “HOW.” We have found that the more educated the athlete is, the more they put into the workouts. If you understand why certain movements or exercises are beneficial, you tend to be more interested in how to become better at them. The goal of Level 1 is simple…Move more efficiently (for more movement efficiency click on the following link: http://www.capprogram.com/articles/goal4_pt1.html ) We want to identify any flaws in the cutting, landing, and accelerating type movements and fine tune the rhythm, coordination and body control. Due to inefficient movement patterns some athletes end up expending a great amount of energy pulling themselves out of poor positions, while their efficient counterparts seem to effortlessly glide up and down the field. The level one class allows them to slow the movements down and understand the mechanics behind agility and quickness. We will also work from a “functional” strength (controlling your own body weight) protocol that will stabilize and strengthen the movements we are working so hard to control. This protocol is set up around positioning your body to become more explosive. So instead of asking the body to be quicker than it can control, we ask the body to efficiently control the speed to be more effective on the field. The athlete will notice speed and agility improvements throughout the level 1 process even though we are not focusing on speed. One of the areas of concern is core stability and the ability to use the core to control momentum. We need the Level 1 athletes to be able to control pelvic tilting type maneuvers and to “feel” the lower abs kick in during core exercises. We need them to understand the adjustments that will be made as we move from one core exercises to another. There is a lot of positioning and adjusting that goes into each one. We also need the core to be locked in when we are doing other exercises (squatting, lunging, pulling, landing, and cutting). This takes maturity on the part of the athlete to understand the importance and necessity of this type of control mechanism. Another area of concern is the warm up and cool down process (for more information click on the following link: http://www.capprogram.com/articles/goal2.html ). This is where we implement most of the injury prevention and recovery processes. If the athlete becomes knowledgeable in these areas this will carry over into on field and on court applications thus allowing them to continue to practice good habits even when they are out of our program. The warm up consists of different types of movements that we will commonly refer to as “activation” exercises. An example would be when they are sitting in class for long periods of time, and then stand up and feel the tightness in the lower back. In very simple terms, those muscles are in the “off” or “shut down” mode. So the athlete will twist, or bend over to stretch it out. All it takes is that 2-3 second hold and they feel much better (looser). Our Activation warm up is much the same, except we have identified specific areas that we need to “turn on” or “activate” to loosen them up. We also need to start building the foundation upon which we will build our strength and power program. We use some modified complexes that have proven to be great foundationally as well as educationally. The first is a squat-lunge based complex called “Super Legs” consisting of 20 squats, 20 lunges, 20 split squats and 10 jump squats. This not only gives us the repetition that it takes to form the muscle memory, but it also starts to build the confidence that the athlete will need to move in and out of the jumping, landing, and cutting positions. The second complex we use is one we got from Steve Javorek (that we refer to as “Super Shoulders”) which includes various pulling and pressing movements of the upper body and finishes with push ups. Some of this may seem very basic, but I need to go back to the first paragraph of this article when I stated that the WHY precedes the HOW. It is the combination of all of these tools that lay the foundation. Any of these aspects worked independently of the other will neglect specific areas that will show up later in the program. The level 1 program is the foundation, upon which we will be able to build your athleticism. Over the next few weeks we will further discuss our Levels Program in the rest of this 4 part series. For more information on CAP Athletic Development please click on the following link http://www.capprogram.com/cap/curiculum.html . Scott Moody |
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