Day 5: Hard Work Gets Rewarded

Today started out just like every other day during the week, with the students coming to the dinning hall to eat a good breakfast and have a smoothie to fuel up for the day. Then after allowing their food to digest we met in the gym for the final workout and run.

Today started off with some warm-up exercises to get the blood flowing and then transitioned into ab exercises.

After the students worked out their midsection, they moved onto the full body part of their workout. Below students are doing an alternating inverted row (on the left) and a tempo push up (on the right).

In the video below, students are doing some box jumps to work on their explosiveness.

In this video, Kristers is showing a 3-way stability ball hamstring curl.

After a nice hard workout out all the students went outside to get some conditioning in before they ended their workouts for the week. Today's conditioning was the toughest of the whole week, involving some short sprints (as shown below) and then shuttle sprints, which really tested the students endurance.

The students were given some time to get lunch and then were treated to ice cream in Plymouth to reward them for all their hard work.

When we returned to campus, students went back to the gym to work more on their individual sport specific skills. Chad played some wall ball to work on his lacrosse stick skills.

Then to finish the week off all the students put together the following video to represent how their week training as an athlete went. Unfortunately the file is a little too big to put up on the blog.

After being asked to sum up his experience during the week, Michael Donnelly said, "I had a great time learning about different components of how to be the best athlete I can be."

Day 4: Back At It

After a nice day off from working out and running, the students were back in the gym today. They started out with some quick feet coordination drills on the speed ladder to warm-up.

From there they moved into the weight room to continue the warm-up with ab exercises.

When the students finished their warm-up they moved onto the weight training part of the program. Students are shown working on two of the exercises involved in todays workout, the BB Complex and a Barbell Step-up to Reverse Lunge in the videos below.

After working hard in the weight room, students went back to the gym to work on their explosiveness by doing some short 10 yard sprints. The video below, really shows the students driving hard as they try to quickly achieve full speed while covering as much ground as possible.

To continue working on explosiveness and a little bit of conditioning, we transitioned to running hill sprints outside.

The students worked extremely hard this morning and earned some time off to eat lunch and relax before we met up to finish working on their posters for the symposium on Saturday. All three groups did a fantastic job and were able to finish their posters today.

Walker, Kristers and Will did a poster on the exercise: Squat

Mo, Davis, Mike and Max (not pictured) did a poster
on Nutrition

Johannes, Josh, Chad and Max (not pictured) did a poster
on the exercise: Hang Clean

The students were then given time to work on their individual sports. Josh Pope-Ferguson is shown below working on a stickhandling drill to help him improve his hands and puck control for hockey.

Tomorrow we will start the day back in they gym for our last workout of the week.

Day 3: Dartmouth and Yoga!

Today all the students were up extra early to eat breakfast. I think the excitement of heading to Dartmouth to visit with a Division I Strength and Conditioning Coach had a little to do with it. After having a nice breakfast, we loaded up a bus and made the short trip down to Hanover, NH. Coach Bob Miller was nice enough to spend the morning with us talking about how athletes at Dartmouth workout and showing the students about proper form and technique.

Coach Miller speaking with our project group.

Max is shown below demonstrating overhead squats with a stick, an exercise student-athletes at Dartmouth use as part of their warm-up prior to lifting weights.

Coach Miller spent some time speaking about squat form and flexibility. Walker was gracious enough to be his demo person for this exercise.

Johannes was part of the demonstration dealing with shoulder and torso flexibility, exercises to help us improve in that area.

Kristers was lucky enough to be volunteered to help demonstrate my favorite exercise; single leg squat.

Coach Miller also spent time working with all the students on the proper form used to set up a hang clean. Will, Johannes, Mike, Chad, Davis, Moe, Kristers and Walker are shown in the video below working on their form.

Spending the morning with Coach Miller was an awesome learning experience for our students. He made the experience that much more memorial when he took us on a tour of all the athletic facilities Dartmouth College has to offer. It was a nice opportunity for our students to see what being an athlete at the next level involves. After the tour, the students were famished, so we all went to Boloco to enjoy a nice healthy meal.

When we returned to New Hampton, the students were able to have some down time before our yoga session. Mrs. Tyson was nice enough to spend an hour with our group to put them through an intense yoga session. Students were able to see how hard yoga can be but at the same time how beneficial it is to your body.

Tomorrow we look forward to getting back into the gym to use some of the exercises Coach Miller showed us on our visit.

Day 2: Soreness Does Not Stop Us

The students woke up a little sore this morning, but everyone still managed to wake up early and make it to breakfast to enjoy some tasty smoothies to fuel up for day 2 of workouts.

To get warmed up for the second workout day, the students went through some quick feet drills and ab exercises.

After the warm-up, students went to the weight room to work on both lower and upper body exercises in the form of bench press, stability ball shoulder press and manual leg curl to name a few.

After finishing a nice hard workout in the gym, the nice weather this morning allowed for all the students to go outside to work on improving their change of direction quickness and conditioning. Shown below in the two videos.

In the afternoon, students continued to learn more about the body and how what you put into your body can help or hinder your performance. Students also looked more into the science behind the exercises we are doing and how these particular exercises will help them become more powerful athletes.

After spending some time in the classroom, students were eager to get back to doing some physical activity. All the students spent some time working on skills for their individual sports. Coach Whitmore came to help out with the basketball players in the video shown below.

The students have worked hard these past two days and will enjoy a day off from the gym as we travel to Dartmouth to meet with Strength and Conditioning Coach Bob Miller. 

First Day of Training

The "Training as an Athlete" group started today off bright an early by having a nice breakfast and making smoothies to give them energy as they prepared for their first workouts of the day. The day started off with a nice warm-up, in addition to a core work.

From there all the athlete went to the weight room to start on their full body workouts, involving exercises such as squats and pull-ups.

After the students finished the strength part of their workout, they met back on the basketball court to continue with their conditioning. During the conditioning part, the students went through a dynamic warmup, did some plyometrics, and went through a variety of different sprints to help work on their quickness.

After getting a good stretch, all the students were given some time to re-fuel and rest before heading to the classroom to research different exercises and nutrition used to help athletes optimize their performance.

Training As An Athlete Essential Question

How do athletes optimize strength, speed, agility, flexibility, nutrition and psychology to perform at a top level?

Day 4 from Training as an Athlete

Today was a very exciting day filled with many new events. We started our day with smoothies, of course, and a sports psych lesson followed by a piYo workout with Kendra. piYo stands for Pilates Yoga Infusion by beach body. In this workout we focused on strength and flexibility incorporating yoga poses at a high pace with low impact. This was great for our bodies after a stressful first 3 days.

In the afternoon, we traveled to PSU to do a pool workout. We focused on stretching and movement to help our sore bodies. We also had some fun and split into groups, each group creating a synchronized swimming routine! This was great for our project group because we were able to express ourselves through exercise while having fun!

In the evening, we traveled to Newfound Fitness and had an awesome lesson on Aerial Yoga with Kendra. Our group used Aerial silks and explored different poses on and off the floor. We had a great time and it was fun for our group to try a different type of exercise!

Below are videos of each synchronized swimming routine. Which one do you vote for? 

Training As An Athlete - Wednesday Recap

Wednesday morning called for a 6 am wake up followed by a 6:30 Insanity workout with Kendra. After Insanity we headed to breakfast for the third day of morning smoothies.

At 8:45 we departed for Hanover, New Hampshire to visit Dartmouth College. Here, we met with the head strength coach, Bob Miller. We were shown demonstrations of warm-ups, core exercises, correct squat form, and were even taken on a private tour around all athletic facilities! It was a great time. 

After the visit we went to Boloco for a healthy and quick lunch before we traveled home. At school, we were given the afternoon to ourselves to practice our individual sports. All in all it was a great day, and looking forward to what tomorrow brings!

Training As An Athlete - Tuesday Recap!

In our morning session, we had a good lift with Mr. P and a pod circuit with Ms. McCabe and Buehler, including work with TRX Bands.

In the afternoon we did a speed and core workout with Joel. We started by correcting our form and arm swing when we run. After we got that down, we started to do different sets of high knees over hurdles keeping our legs parallel to the floor. We learned how to keep our rhythm and to keep our knees up. The final workout we did was a series of core workouts, including throwing all sit ups and twists. Overall it was a great workout with tons of new information.

After our workout with Joel, we had a surprise coming our way. At first we were not excited as our muscles hurt and we are tired and sore. We were driven up to Burleigh Mt. Yes, the way up was a workout, but the sled down was AWESOME.

Psyched for another great day Training As An Athlete!

Day 1 Recap!

Day 1 was a great success. Lots of hard work and fun. We did a morning lift with Coach P, Tabata with McCabe and Beuhler, an afternoon of footwork fun, and yoga with Mrs. Churchill at night! Our favorite part of the day was healthy smoothies for breakfast, which included some purple kale to increase our veggie intake!

Because nutrition is half the battle, we are taking on the challenge of omitting desserts, white processed foods (bread, pasta, and rice), and fried foods. We are doing this because we learned that when eating those things, we are just putting our body through more stress!

Yoga was an awesome way to end the day with lots of moved in order to deepen our stretches! Mrs. Churchill is amazing!

Looking forward to the rest of the week, especially a speed workout with Joel Bergeron on Tuesday and Zumba with Trish on Friday!

Day 5: Effort

Today's theme was effort. Effort is something we can always give to our team or to the task at hand. Our group did just that today. We had a great last morning session starting with smoothies and our 3 stations. Groups worked through their program with Radar, worked through foam rollers and functional plank poses with McCabe, and body mechanics and weight room terms with Precious. There was a sense of joy when all groups finished their mornings!

With morning workouts over, it was time for our last afternoon session, ZUMBA! Some of us had tried Zumba before, but many had never tried it or seen what it actually was. We traveled to the Laconia Athletic Club again to meet Trish, the best Zumba teacher ever! Trish told us over and over that we were the best group she has ever taught. Each person stayed moving the entire time, even when we weren't very confident with the dance move being performed. ZUMBA is amazing and each person would like a class added to their workout program.

After Zumba we traveled to Concord to experience Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt. Our diets this week excluded refined sugars and desserts, so this was a treat! It was a great way to end our Friday!

Tomorrow morning we are meeting as a group to hear about our day 6 theme, and then we will head to the caf to make one more smoothie before break! I am very thankful to have been able to spend this week with such awesome, hard working people.

Day 4: Training As An Athlete

Day 4 Theme: Teamwork!

Another great day to be a Husky! Today we made it through smoothie making in 30 minutes! We even made the caf run out of veggies for the morning! Don't worry, they are getting another shipment in!

Our morning sessions consisted of getting our own workout plan from Radar, running techniques with McCabe, and learning how to tape an ankle with Precious. The afternoon went along with the theme, and we stuck with our morning groups and played dodgeball!

Team 2

Team 1

Team 3

Team 2 and 1 played in the championship game and team 1 took the 'ship! Awesome teamwork and intensity by all!

Tonight we were blessed to have Mrs. Churchill come and do a yoga class with us. She took into consideration that we are very sore and got us into some deep stretches. Thank you thank you thank you!

Tomorrow is our last full day together. This week has really been awesome working hard with a really special group of students. Goodnight!

Day 3! Training As An Athlete

Day 3 Theme: Attitude

Our smoothies are getting better! Today's theme was attitude. We started out the day with our camp talk by Radar on attitude. The entire group has been awesome and has worked so hard over the first two days, and today was nothing different. Our sessions this morning included lots of cable machine lifts with Radar in the lower weight room, an interval bodyweight workout with McCabe, and finding the right shoe support with Precious.

The afternoon brought a new adventure; POOL WORKOUT! We traveled to the Laconia Athletic Club to use their pool and engage in a bit of a pool workout. The first half of our time was spent constructively going through our workout in order to utilize the resistance of water as well as help our muscles (they are sore!). The second half of our time was spent in a competition! SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING!

Here is what happened….

Day 3 included a night off to get some rest! Another awesome day training as an athlete!

Day 2: Training As An Athlete!

Another awesome day! Today's theme was attitude. Our morning started out again with smoothie making and egg white omelets. We were much better at creating our smoothies the way we wanted them! So much fun to be able to get so many fruits and vegetables at once right away in the morning. Radar made awesome egg white omelets with turkey and cheese as well.

After breakfast, we started with Radar talking to us about the theme, attitude. Attitude was chosen to be one of our themes because of it's extreme importance in our success in sports and in life.

Our morning sessions went really well again. We went through a core focused Tabata workout, learned new lifts and pushed ourselves in the weight room, and continued learning in the classroom about nutrition and eating disorders.

This afternoon, we were very lucky to have Joel Bergeron come to work with us on our speed. Everyone worked extremely hard and got better in a short amount of time!

We ended the day with P90X Stretch to help sort out the soreness everyone is experiencing! Mrs. Kesselring made an awesome snack for everyone as well, which was greatly appreciated!

Psyched for Day 3! Goodnight!

DAY 1: Approach

Training As An Athlete: Day 1

Today's Theme: Approach

The day started at breakfast with our smoothie making concoctions. The consensus was that the protein powder makes the smoothie taste chalky. The taste was great when adding bananas, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, avocado, and celery. We will experiment again tomorrow!

Our morning consisted of 3 stations: leg lifts with Radar, flexibility/posture/technique with McCabe, and nutrition with Precious. Our students were awesome during the morning and worked hard to get better.

The afternoon consisted of a group workout. Again, every person in our Project Week group was committed to getting better. We worked incredibly hard through a few footwork drills and strength exercises.

Tonight's work was a Jillian Michaels yoga video!

Our group should sleep well tonight! Back at it with smoothies and egg white omelets in the morning!

Getting Ready To Get Better...

Training As An Athlete!

Meeting with the group yesterday made everyone more excited for Project Week to begin! We have 30 students that are psyched to learn and get better next week. Our week will start with a meeting on Sunday night to go over detailed logistics!