Coaches know that today’s champion teams are composed of more than just technical players. A super team today has to be a strong, fast, flexible team with great nutrition and a solid mental attitude. The Parisi Speed School has trained hundreds of high school teams over the last 18 years. This section offers some of the school’s information on training that will give you an edge over your competition.
The Team Training Pyramid
For most athletes, they think that if they practice hard, learn technique and understand the game, maybe they will have a shot at the starting team. Unfortunately, this old way of thinking is not going to lead your team to the championship. Before your players worry about being knowledgeable technicians on the field, they must first make sure that their foundation as an athlete is strongly built. The foundation of a great player includes speed, strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, coordination, injury prevention, nutrition and mental toughness. Not only will your team be limited in the level that it can reach if you are missing just one of those components, but if you are not working on many of them currently, high level performance for the team is going to be impossible. To illustrate this, we offer the Team Training Pyramid. Notice that the size of the base of the pyramid determines the height that the pyramid can reach. The bigger the base the higher the structure. The same is true for your team . The bigger it’s athletic base, the higher level of performance it can attain.
With this in mind, coaches must recognize their team’s specific areas of weakness and address them. If at the end of each week your team has not worked on and improved their speed, strength, endurance, flexibility or nutrition, they are not doing what they need to aspire to high levels of team sport.
Tailor our program to help your team:
Get Stronger!
Get Faster!
Win!!
Training is an All Year Thing
Once you understand that there may be some current limitations in your team training, you must next recognize that training is not a “sometimes” thing, it is an “all year” thing. Not only do your athletes need to train for the entire off season, but they must train during the season as well. Just ask Brian Toal, past high school All-American at state champion Don Bosco. “Training during our State Championship season was critical to our success. As the season went on, we got stronger as everyone else got weaker. It was a big reason behind our undefeated state championship season”. Many athletes play numerous sports throughout the year and claim not to have time to train. If they are not training, they are not improving the team’s foundation. If your team’s foundation is not growing, neither is its potential. During the season, fit in a few lifting sessions or a speed session per week to maintain the gains from the off-season. Not only will in-season training with the Parisi Speed School enhance recovery and prevent injury, but it can lead to improvements as well.
Team Training Helps to Prevent ACL and other Injuries
Increased team sport participation has lead to an increase in athletic injuries. One injury that outpaced the number of athletes joining sport is that of the ACL. The ACL is a ligament in the center of the knee joint that is commonly injured during non-contact on the sports field. An injury to the ACL can cause an athlete to miss a year or more of sports activity.
Female athletes are more likely to have an ACL injury than male athletes. Studies have shown that a female athlete can be 6-10 times more likely to tear the ACL than a male athlete. Many athletes use incorrect mechanics when slowing down and landing from jumps. By keeping the center of gravity behind the knee when decelerating and landing with knees locked, there is a heavy load placed on the ACL. This, coupled with a strength imbalance is a recipe for an ACL injury. One proven way to prevent this is with a properly designed strength and speed program.
The good news is that scientific studies have shown that athletes who participate in a properly designed speed and strength training program are 88% less likely to injure the ACL. The Parisi Speed School introduced their ACL prevention camps last year and numbers of teams from all sports took advantage of the speed and strength training that not only prevented injury, but improved performance.
Every coach and team should take advantage of the program. Call the Parisi Speed School to find out how your team can get involved.
The Posterior Chain is made up of the low back, gluteal muscles, and hamstrings. This area goes from the back of the knees to the middle of the back. The core includes the low back muscles and the abdominal muscles in the front of the body. Think of these areas as your team’s engine. If the engine is super strong and fast, your team has the potential to be fast and powerful. If this area is weak and slow, the team is not only going to perform poorly, but also be at risk for injury. Great exercises to work this area are squats, deadlifts, lunge walks, step ups, and heavy sled pulls. We also do strongman training camps that build the strength and speed of your athletes. This will get your team excited about training more than just upper body and you will be moving ahead of your competition. A team can come and train at the Parisi Speed School, or we can bring all of this training to you.
Get your team Strong for their Weight!
As for the upper body, The Parisi Speed School loves the chin up, pull up, and dip as their top exercises of choice. This is because these exercises tell an athlete how strong they are for the bodyweight they are at. This is something the bench press cannot do effectively. These are also exercises that many entire teams have great difficulty performing. If your team cannot do many of these, you need them to get fascinated, not frustrated by them and work on them consistently. We believe that good athletes and coaches work on what they are good at. A great athlete and coach works on what they are not good at, and gets great at that as well. As you continue to improve in these exercises or can already perform a number of them with your bodyweight, add weight to yourself and up the challenge. Your team will quickly be on the way to a state title. Allow Parisi’s to share their tested strength training with your team.
The Proper Way to Warm your Team Up
Before every running and lifting session, you had better be performing the proper warmup. If you think warming up is just running a lap or two and then stretching out, you are light years behind the competition. Today’s top athletes working with the Parisi Speed School perform their renown Active Dynamic Warmup. This style of warmup involves ground based calisthenics and choreographed movements that increase blood flow and temperature, improve flexibility, speed and strength, decrease the chance of injury and help to perfect on the field running technique. Old School static stretching has been found to not only shut off the nervous system right before activity, but also microscopically tear the muscle fibers and stretch ligaments as well. If you are dead set on doing static work, save it for the end of practice and training.
Team Speed is a Skill
When most coaches think of a running workout, they often think about running 40’s, distance work or doing change of direction drills. Today’s top coaches know it is not that simple. Not only should the team perform those drills, but they know how to perform them perfectly with impeccable technique. Just like most sport movements involve a best technique, so does running, cutting, landing and stopping. Just like NFL quarterback Chris Simms admits, “Learning how to run correctly had a lot to do with me being in the NFL. Without really understanding my mechanics and the right way to do things, that would have been impossible”. If you do not know the perfect way to run and do not understand the theory behind the technique, you are leaving a lot on the table that could make your team much better. Another speed tip: Don’t confuse distance running with sport specific speed and conditioning work. Your team training should be a combination of repeated straight ahead and lateral short distance sprints to build a gr e at anaerobic conditioning base for the season. If your team repeats this training about 2-3 times per week all year long, the training is going to pay off.
Let the Parisi Speed School share their signature techniques that have produced many state champions with your team.
Remember that failing to plan is planning to fail. Put your plan together and go act it out. Good luck this upcoming season. Now get to work!
Baseball & Softball Coaches can learn more about our Speed, Strength and Injury Prevention Training specifically for Baseball & Softball:
Get your players the right information on how to enhance their base running speed.
Get them strong through the core for improved throwing velocity
Enhance their range with baseball specific agility and quickness drills
Track Coaches can learn more about our clinic series for the sprinters, jumpers and throwers. When is comes to improving a sprinters time, Parisi has the answers
Have your athletes prepare early for the outdoor season training their Acceleration and Top Speed with Parisi’s proven speed training methods
Have your jumpers learn the best strength training techniques for explosiveness at the takeoff
Have your throwers train their entire body to be able to explode through the throw for a Personal Record.
Lacrosse Coaches learn the secrets of how to:
Get your players quick with a stick in their hand and improve their endurance at the same time
Learn better reaction and foot speed specifically for Lacrosse
Improve your players upper body strength and flexibility for a more powerful swing
Football Coaches know the off season starts now. Football is about leverage and so is speed and quickness. Lateral Speed and change of direction is determined by an athletes ability to decelerate.
Learn the Parisi Method to Changing Direction and Quickness and our pioneering strategy of teaching deceleration training to your players.
Proper deceleration is the key to injury prevention
Better and more effective deceleration enhances an athletes ability to accelerate and have great agility
Learn Parisi’s signature Top Speed training techniques and understand how this will help every player, even your linemen’s ability to be quick and explosive off the ball and win the battle in the trenches
Strongman training is now part of the Parisi Speed Camps. Parisi trainers come to your school and provide all the necessary equipment, tires, sleds, kettle bells, necessary for Strong Man training. Parisi has been doing Strongman Training since 2001 and it is now part of our Team Offsite Camps. Your team will love the competition this training creates. The dual benefit of functional strength training with Parisi Speed Training is unbeatable.