Our Personal Training Studios Are Open For Business. click here to book your appointment

Athlete Training

Introduction: Strength Training for Athletes

Regardless of your age, level of conditioning, or skill resistance training has been shown for decades to prevent injuries, improve physical and mental performance and make sport more fun.

Our philosophy on training athletes is simple: athletes should perform strength training once or twice per week and focus the rest of their attention and energy on the specific skills for their sport and recovery.

There is no ‘magic bullet’ or pill when it comes to sport performance. It requires the right amount of exercise, not too much, not too little; dedication to the sport, and adopting the right mindset. Everything else is just details.

Our training methods are ideal for any athlete and are highly recommended for injury prevention for those who are competitive.

Safety

Training athletes using a slow pace of movement ensures that they aren’t exposed to excessively high forces when lifting weights.
The intensity of the exercise is higher moving slowly as well. Therefore, the athletes don’t have to do as much exercise to get similar, if not better results. Because it is harder we can use a lighter load, decreasing the wear and tear on the joints of the body.
All athlete sessions are fully supervised by an experienced and educated exercise instructor
Regular strength training performed safely is an excellent way to prevent injuries while preparing for sports. It is the best way to create physical resilience
Innovative equipment that is well designed, versatile, and biomechanically correct meaning that it will target the right muscles in the right way, every time
Focused 1 on 1 environment: no distracting music, TV’s, posters, and the workouts are performed in a quiet, distraction-free, semi-private exercise studio unlike any other on the East coast of Canada

*Concussions

One topic that deserves its own focus is concussion prevention. The medical community has had many advances in understanding the mechanisms and severity of athlete concussions. It is clear now beyond a doubt that if the neck and shoulder muscles are strengthened it will significantly decrease the amount and severity of concussions in athletes. Think of the neck muscles like ‘shock absorbers’. The thicker and stronger those muscles are, the more they are able to absorb the forces that the athlete is exposed to in their sport.

Core Training

One topic that gets a lot of lip service in the fitness circles is the concept of ‘core training’. Often, when people discuss the muscles of the core they are referring specifically to the abdominal muscles. In truth, the core refers to all of the muscles in the torso meaning, the back, chest, abdominals, obliques, etc.

As an athlete, it is important that when training the core we are not just addressing the ab’s but also the other muscles that help to develop a strong core. Strengthening the muscles in the torso serves the athlete by:

Preventing injuries
Improving balance and stability
Enhancing the spinal range of motion and strength

Overall, exercises that focus on the lower, middle, and upper back muscles respectively in addition to some abdominal work will serve the athlete much better than simply doing 5 variations of abdominal crunches.

At OneUp we ensure that all of our clients train all of the major muscle groups through an appropriate range of motion. In other words, we’ve got your core covered!

Conditioning

There are two general types of conditioning:

Skill / sport-specific
General / Global conditioning

Skill conditioning refers to practicing and perfecting the skills required to perform your sport or activity. Practice requires attention to details, meaning the closer your practice is to a competitive situation the better the transference to an actual competitive setting. In science terms, it is what is referred to as the law of specificity. The goal with sport-specific training should be to enhance the efficiency of the movements involved so that they become subconscious and require less physical effort.

General or Global conditioning refers to improving the strength, speed of movement, muscle quality, endurance, and general cardiovascular capacity of the athlete. The best way to do this is by performing 1 or 2 hard, full-body strength training sessions every week. This builds the physical capacity in the muscles that is required to perform a sport with strength, power, and endurance.

Focus & Mental Benefits of Strength Training

Regularly performing high-intensity resistance training, as we instruct here at OneUp can help athletes to overcome stressful situations. By experiencing the challenging muscular effort that is required to do these workouts the athlete learns to tolerate stress and discomfort, develop better focus when feeling stress and fatigue, and to develop better breathing techniques.

Individualized Training Programs

We understand that ‘one size does not fit all’. That is why each program is specifically designed for the individual athlete. Each athlete will start their program with a one-hour fitness consultation led by one of our expert trainers. During the consultation, we discuss any current or chronic injuries that the athlete may be working around and rule out any contraindications to exercise and we may even refer to a therapist if we feel that is necessary for maximum safety and benefit of the athlete.

We will also explore the athletes' primary goals, weaknesses, and strengths, and assess where they are currently with regards to strength and conditioning. All of this information helps us to determine which exercises should be performed in their routine and how often they should train. We will also help the athlete determine what they should be doing for recovery and to navigate how often and when they should be performing their sport-specific training.

Summary

If you or someone you know is an athlete, whether competitive or not, strength training will:

make their sport safer
deliver better performance results
allow the athlete to have more fun

Here at OneUp Fitness, we coach a wide variety of individuals from retirees who’ve decided to invest in their health and improve their quality of life as they age; the working weekend warrior; right up to teenage athletes who are looking to make their varsity team. Regardless of who you are and what your starting level is, strength training with an expert coach at OneUp Fitness will certainly ‘oneup’ your game.