Rockland County’s # 1 Sports Performance Enhancement Training Expert Warns Sports

Training Programs Are Dangerous

Youth Fitness & Sports Training is a growing trend in the fitness industry today for good reason. It has been reported that;

1. 30% of U.S. youth population is overweight… 30%. Even more alarming – 15.2% are considered obese. These numbers are on the rise and as parents, teachers and coaches we have a huge responsibility to change the tide of this sad epidemic.

2. The injury rate of our youth athletes that are involved in sports is unacceptable and becoming far too common.

• over 3.5 million children under the age of 15 are treated for sports related injuries every year
• children ages 5-14 account for 40% of all reported sport related injuries
• more than half of these injuries occur at practice
These numbers are rising each year but they don’t have to.

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Is Lifting Weights For Youth Athletes Dangerous?

When it comes to lifting weights and the youth athlete, a huge red flag usually goes up. It is believed to big a BIG NO! It is said that lifting weights is potentially dangerous to the growth plates for these youngsters.

Well I hate to break it to you, but as long as the appropriate considerations are taken into account, the above statement is completely inaccurate. A matter of fact, following and executing a proper resistance training program will lead to improved sports performance, increased bone strength, increased muscular strength, increased muscular endurance, increased coordination, and most importantly a decreased injury rate for the youth athlete. Believe it or not, the demands of some of the most common sports children participate in today, place a lot more strain, wear and tear on kids than a properly executed resistance training program.

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Speed, Agility, & Quickness: OPTIMAL STYLE

Speed, Agility, & Quickness: OPTIMAL STYLE

It is obvious that most sports are not performed in a straight ahead manner. An athlete’s ability to change directions and move laterally with out losing a step is the difference from being average and exceptional! During our program we put an extra emphasis on developing lateral speed and quick changes of direction, as well as ensuring you will never be caught from behind.

here are some cool clips of our speed & agility training in action…

“Why You Should Train at Optimal Performance”

“Why You Should Train at Optimal Performance”

Here Are 4 reasons YOU should train with us at Optimal Performance.

Get Stronger, Get Faster, Get That advantage Only Training Here can give you!
When you join Optimal Performance, YOU WILL get stronger and faster Guaranteed. In fact, we are so confidant about your sports and fitness success that if you are not completely satisfied, we will give you 100% of your money back within the first month of joining. A matter of fact we also offer a “try before You Buy” week membership, so you can see for your self!

Fluff Free – Hard Core Training – Backed by Proven & Scientific Programming – That Get you the Result you want – The RESULTS that prepare you war (YOUR SPORT)

High Performance & Corrective Exercise Specialists – The areas best Strength Coaches -
Our coaches are the most qualified in the field of sports science, speed and strength development. We are certified by the most stringent and prestigious organizations in the Strength & Conditioning field including NSCA/ CSCS, NASM and, The CHEK Institute. We also pride ourselves on our ability to motivate and demand only the best efforts from our athletes.

College Scholarships & Professional Contracts
Everyone knows that in order to get a scholarships (especially today), you have to be‘Cream of The Crop’. In your sport. At Optimal Performance it is our mission to give every athlete the tools they need in order to achieve all of their sports and life goals and purpose. “We Motivate – Inspire – & – Educate” You to be the best you possibly can be!

So if you’re an athlete (or you have a child that’s an athlete) and think;

You’re Strong enough

You’re Fast enough

You don’t think you need a competitive edge

You can do it yourself without EXPERT Coaching

Improving your sports performance won’t help you get that athletic Scholarship

OR if YOUR Gym has an atmosphere like this;

THEN OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE IS NOT FOR YOU!!!

And to top it all off we are the only gym that will let you try before you buy! Just so you can see how beneficial training at Optimal Performance can be…

Healthy Fat Loss Meals

Healthy Fat Loss Meals

In this day and age it has become far too easy to let our body’s go…

What I mean is with fast food being way to accessible and with peoples busy life styles it no wonder why we have an obesity epidemic on our hands. However, did you know that is really isn’t that hard to maintain a healthy diet in conjunction with a fun exercise program? Well I bet its easier than you think!

It’s all about preparation, especially with your diet or as I like to call it – supportive eating. Click the link below to check out a special treat I have for you. It’s a special report dedicated to showing you how easy it is to hook yourself up with fast, easy to make healthy meals.

And OH yeah – these healthy meal taste great too

all you have to do is visit the link below or click the “healthy meals” graphic below and you Will be redirected to a page where all i ask is that you fill out your info, then you get this great healthy eating report absolutely free!

enjoy

JZ

PS – I almost forgot if you head over there (www.fastfatlossmeals.com) and get this report, you will also have the opportunity to get 5 more health and fitness reports just like it – and they’re free too

WWW.FASTFATLOSSMEALS.COM

Exercise Machines Suck

FYI – if you know me at all and from the title in the article – I bet you already know what I think of them, but read the article to find out why

Exercise Machines Suck

In today’s day and age we live in a technology dependant society. Almost everything we do revolves around some kind of mechanical or electrical device. This includes what just about everyone looks for in a gym. If you’re like most, when you walk into a fitness center, you usually look for the amount of equipment or how many resistance training machines there are on the exercise floor. “Is there a machine for my chest, back legs, arms etc…” This has been the biggest indicator when clarifying a gym’s effectiveness. Well, being that our population’s obesity epidemic is spreading world wide, and fitness levels have dramatically declined in the past twenty five years or so, I think it’s time to re-evaluate and determine what went wrong.

It has been during the past twenty five to thirty years when our obesity problem really started to take off. And due to the fact that our society has always been in search for the ’quick fix’, exercise really started to take off as well. Since exercise was “in”, and we desire the “magic solution, resistance training machine companies are heavily marketing their equipment. I hate to break it to you, but when it comes to getting healthy and more physically fit, nothing will yield better results than hard work, dedication, and motivation; not gimmicks or machines. Machines actually are an inferior method of exercise.

It’s time to go back to our roots and look like we did hundreds of years ago. When you think about it, humans have always done some form of activity, and we have always been obsessed with strength and physique. So my question to you is did we have machines hundreds of years ago? My next question is as a whole, who looked better as a population, us now or mankind hundreds of years ago?

Now I’m not saying exercise machines are useless, everything has its place, but I can come up with a couple of dozen reasons why exercise machines are not optimally efficient. Instead of boring you anymore than I already have I’ll provide you with my top five.

Here we go:

1.) Exercise machines are NOT an optimal form of exercise for most. Exercise machines are great for isolating specific muscles (i.e. – the standard leg extension machine for the quads), but because exercise machines are anchored to the ground, your stabilizer muscles (muscle that surround your joints and protect them from injury), do NOT get developed. Exercise machines do not allow you to stabilize the weight you are lifting in three dimensions, and since daily activities such as work and athletics do require you to use these important muscles (the stabilizers), exercise machines are an inferior method of exercise.

2.) Exercise machines are NOT ideal to improve posture. Over the years in the fitness industry, I have seen an incredible amount of people that have poor posture. This includes forward head, rounded shoulders, flat lower backs, and other misalignment in spinal curvature. This is due to the lack of strength in postural muscles, making it hard to fight gravity, and since gravity is almost impossible to escape, those who can’t fight gravity efficiently will almost always have poor posture. By performing exercise on machines your body does not have to fight gravity, and on most traditional gym equipment your body doesn’t have to stabilize itself. However, by performing exercise in a prone, upright, or supine position, you can engage and load postural muscles to help with fight gravity, resulting in better posture.

3.) Exercise machines are just flat out BORING! I can remember a couple of years ago when I worked at a large health club filled with fancy ground based machines, I would sit and watch people go through their work outs. One day I saw a gentleman working on the chest press machine. It was hilarious. He actually appeared to be falling asleep. I mean yawn after yawn during repetitions. I think if the guy was on a lying leg press he may have actually dozed off. Now let’s analyze that situation. If he were on a flat bench performing dumbbell chest presses, do you think he would have been in that state of mind? Only if he wanted a nose job by dropping the dumbbells on his face. I have in the past and still do observe exercisers on the free weight floor. What I see is always a look of determination, motivation, and enthusiasm. My point here is that by participating in a free weight, non-machine based program, it not only forces you to concentrate and work harder, but it’s more fun, and the feeling of accomplishment is far superior than just going through the motions on exercise machines.

4.) Exercise machines CANNOT improve balance or stability. As I stated earlier, ground based exercise machines DO NOT require the use of your stabilizer muscles. These muscles not only protect your joints, but they also are responsible for your ability to stabilize and balance. Instead, try to incorporate some non-traditional methods of exercise like the use of a stability ball, or balancing on one leg, or doing some low level plyometrics. These types of exercises are extremely beneficial to increasing balance, stability, and agility. No machine can give you any of these qualities by itself.

5.) You can mimic any exercise machine exercise without the machine and get the same benefits plus a lot more. Every exercise machine that is on the market today has been developed based on movements that the human body does naturally. With that being said, you can perform any exercise machine exercise without the use of an actual exercise machine. The chest press machine is essentially a bench press, the leg press machine is a squatting motion, the rowing machine (you know the one for your back muscles) can be done with free weights, and the list goes on and on. But the catch is that when you do these movements with body weight or free weights you get all the same benefits plus the development of balance, stability, and definitely more calories burned. Let’s not forget that when you perform body weight or free weight based movements, you will always engage you core muscles.

I don’t know about you, but if I have my choice I’m sure you can guess what it is. That’s right good old fashioned body weight, free weight, or other non – machine based movements. Now, it’s important to realize that I’m not saying that exercise machines are useless, but would you rather work out for hours at a time with boring exercise equipment, or would you like to get more bang for your buck by getting more out of one exercise like a squat, some form of a press, a rowing motion, a lunging motion, or even a twisting, or bending motion? Instead of using one to two dozen boring exercise machines all you have to do is have fun while incorporating the six movements I just mentioned and you’ll be well on your way to achieving your fitness goals more efficiently and faster than ever before.

JZ

What Our Youth looks like today

Here are some scary facts regarding our young champions;

” 30% of U.S. youth population is overweight ”
Even more alarming – 15.2% are considered obese.

These numbers are on the rise and as parents, teachers and coaches we have a huge responsibility to change the tide of this sad epidemic.

The injury rate of our youth athletes that are involved in sports is unacceptable and becoming far too common.

over 3.5 million children under the age of 15 are treated for sports related injuries every year children ages 5-14 account for 40% of all reported sport related injuries ”

more than half of these injuries occur at practice. These numbers are rising each year but they don’t have to.

Pretty scary huh Do you see the common pattern here?

Our young champions are overweight, physical education is almost non-existent, and our children are getting injured more and more every year both in structured sports as well as recreational sports. It doesn’t have to be this way. We need to be more proactive and make changes. That’s why I opened Optimal Performance, to provide a safe and effective place for our youth (athletes & students alike) to change the deadly trends among us.

At Optimal Performance we offer a very econmical gym unlimited memberships in 1, 3 or 12 month options. This means you have unlimited access to the areas top coaches and on a consistent basis all for a cost effective monthly rate.

Don’t wait for a change to happen to you – make the change happen to yourself!!!

JZ

PS – I almost forgot you can try us out completely free – no questions asked, just come in and start making the change

2/24 OFX WOD

” Thunder Thighs” aka have fun walking tomorrow haha

-Front SQ/walking lunge(25 yds)

-Single Leg SQ/SQ Jumps

-Box step up/KB swing

-Sumo DL/spilt jumps

-Lat. lunge/SHELC

* each pr. is done 3×10 ea.

Have fun try it for yourself everyone was loving this workout.For those that try it tell us what you think…