FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:The NFL Combine and the NFL Pro Days Class of 2012 is Right Around the Corner. Are You Ready for the Biggest Opportunity of Your Life? Birmingham, AL – 27/11/2011 – ICON Performance, the Leader in Sports Performance Training in Alabama for Professional and Amateur Athletes, is now accepting applications for Football Combine [...]
Spain Park wrestlers finish third in consolation round FROM STAFF REPORTS – ShelbyCountyReporter.com The Spain Park High School wrestling team finished third in its consolation round following the Deep South Bayou Duals tournament Dec. 29-30 in Brusly, La. The Jaguars defeated Arlington (Tenn.) 68-11 in the third-place match. Twelve Spain Park wrestlers won individual matches [...]
After thorough warm-up: Circuit #1 -100 Jump Ropes x 100 -Barbell Complex (BB Rows, BB Hang Cleans, BB Front Squats, BB Overhead Press) x 5 reps each movement -Med Ball Slams x 30 4 Bouts – 30 seconds rest between each bout Circuit #2 -30 Groiners -Lower Body Complex (Step Ups, [...]
Volleyball: Mountain Brook 3, Pelham 2 Dennis Victory, Birmingham News, August 25, 2011 9:32 p.m. Mountain Brook’s Greer Cunningham hits an attack past the block of Pelham’s Porsha Tolbert, left, and Alison El-Feraly. (For The Birmingham News/Dennis Victory) Mountain Brook scored the final five points of the match to earn a 3-2 victory over Pelham [...]
THS splits scrimmage with Sylacauga Published 10:35pm Friday, May 20, 2011 By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor The new Thompson High School football coach said he was pleased with the progress his team has made in a short amount of time following the team’s spring scrimmage against Sylacauga. The Warriors split the two-part scrimmage with [...]
Volleyball Signing Class Ranked No. 18 Published: May 25, 2011, 10:39 AM (CT) by Matt Dunaway, Associate SID BATON ROUGE — LSU volleyball’s incoming freshmen class for 2011 received a No. 18 national ranking Wednesday as PrepVolleyball.com released its top recruiting classes. The Tigers inked Helen Boyle [5-11, OH, Eureka, Mo.], Marissa Maas [6-2, MB, [...]
Prep football profile: Hoover Jeff Sentell, Birmingham News, May 25, 2011 9:05 a.m. View full size Hoover wide receiver Caleb Sims is a three-year starter. Other starters back are offensive lineman Daniel Aust, who has committed to South Alabama but sat out spring drills while recovering from injury, and safety Devon Earl, who shined as [...]
Championship Finals 103 pounds: Morgan Paugh, Vestavia Hills (44-8) d. Solomon Archibald, Tuscaloosa County (42-8) 7-2. Spain Park’s Tommy Bostany gets second and BEST MATCH! Congrats Tommy! Championship Finals 119: Reed Jacks, Thompson (47-5) d. Tommy Bostany, Spain Park, (20-3), 4-2. Best Match: 119: Reid Jacks d. Tommy Bostany.
We at ICON Performance couldn’t prouder of Emmanuel Cooper. He is a very focused individual with a great work ethic. He is every bit a team leader, both on and off the field, and VMI just got one HECKUVA football player and even better young man. We will be watching with great interest to see [...]
For Immediate Release: Alvin Gerome, long time athlete with ICON Performance, has been signed by the World Football League’s The Pride of Texas, one of the 2011 new expansion teams, to play on the defensive line. We are all so proud of him and all the hard work he has put in over the years. [...]
I was asked recently to explain exactly how and why the foot is the basis for a lot of low back, knee and ankle joint pain as well as possibly responsible for a myriad of soft tissue injuries. I fully admit that I always look to the therapists that are in the trenches, practice what [...]
The Combine Tests Part 1 The Fewest Steps Wins I often hear athletes ask about training quickness and assume that the best measure of quickness is how quickly they move their feet. This is a absolute myth. At least as far as the combine test are concerned. Quick feet means more ground- foot touches in [...]
AFMFootballRecruits.com – the new recruiting service that can help give high school players a better opportunity to play at the collegiate level. We create connections between your athletes and the collegiate opportunities that best match their skills and academic achievements by giving recruits access to a database of every college football program in America. Great [...]
I can’t say enough good things about Coach Staylor. I have sent several athletes over to the Vestavia Wrestling Club and had rave reviews from parents and he produces very confident, skilled, tough, smart, and skilled wrestlers. His years teaching at THE Gramby School of Wrestling definitely shows. The program has a great developmental teaching [...]
Just what the coach / doctor ordered…a swift kick in the pants!
Outstanding Player: OL Ryan McElrath, Jr., 6-2, 195
The Summer is already here and if you were still looking for a program to get your athlete to the next level…look no further. the ICON Performance Summer Performance Session is just now underway, but it’s not too late to enroll your athlete this week. We are starting all our pre-testing, video analysis and movement [...]
I have been getting a few emails about what resources that I might recommend for up and coming trainers and coaches without spending a lot of money. My favorite FREE resource is podcasts. There are tons of them and the majority are free for every one with iTunes. I have an 80 Gig iPod that [...]
Every competitor, no matter how successful, NEEDS to hear this once in a while… You’ve got to pay the price. Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is [...]
This is such a great article, I had to re-post. Enjoy and I would love your comments. Replacing the BCS
This training protocol is great for building an incredible amount of isometric (static) strength, explosive concentric (accelerative) strength, and decelerating (breaking) strength ALL AT THE SAME TIME. This training method also is great for increasing one’s ability for “turning off the breaks” and allowing one to turn on one set of muscles maximally and turning [...]
The fullback is a very unique position on the football field. It requires a skill set of patience, power and position that you don’t see anywhere else on the field. Because of this it is imperative to know which drills can best improve your performance. I am going in to my senior year as a collegiate level fullback, and there are definitely a few drills that stick out as having helped me the most at my position.
The Volleyball Drill
This drill requires at least two standard size volleyballs. The coach or whoever is running the drill should be on one knee 5-7 yards away from the player. the player should have his heels on a line (any line will do, we typically use the goal line). The coach will begin rolling the volley balls at different angles and different speeds and it is the players job to retrieve them. The player must remain in a good athletic position with his feet hot, and he cannot back up behind the line. He is also not allowed to reach for the ball in any direction, he must get completely in front of the ball and wait for it to come to him. As the ball is retrieved the player shoots his hands as if blocking to flick the ball back to the coach. This is a very difficult drill for the back, but it teaches so many good habits:
-Patience: When pass blocking against a rushing linebacker, you have to let him come to you. At the collegiate level if you lunge at a rusher he WILL beat you. When everyone has talent, those who are the most disciplined will be the ones to succeed.
-Position: You don’t give ground, it is your job to hold position and give your QB time to throw, if you give ground you will give the rusher lanes to run through.
-Good Hands: Again you cannot lunge at the rusher, stay in position and shoot your hands when he gets close. Shoot and retract, if you leave your arms extended you give him an opportunity to grab and get by you. After you shoot your hands you can then shuffle to stay in front of him.
Bag/Rope/Ladder Drills
One foot every hole, two feet every hole, the icky shuffle, bunny hops, etc. These are universally known and used for a reason. These drills teach athletes how to control their body, sink their hips, stay in a good athletic position, and improve their footwork. Position is often the most critical factor when blocking as a fullback. You want to get where you need to be quickly, but if you are not under control more often than not you will end up being a waste of space.
The Blaster
What we call the blaster is a two man, moveable sled. The object of the drill is to fire into the sled, throwing your hips, shooting your hands and pushing the sled until a whistle is blown. You have to take short, choppy steps to move the sled with any efficiency. One of the biggest problems many fullbacks and run blockers have in general is that they let their feet stop on contact. It is critical to ALWAYS keep your feet moving on contact. You have already busted it to get into better position so that you can block the defender, don’t let him off easy by killing your feet and letting him shuck you off.
There are many drills that can improve the performance of the fullback position but in my experience these have by far been the most helpful. I hope that this information proves useful to anyone who uses it, thank you for your time.
by David Strider, Senior at Samford University, Starting Fullback and ICON Performance Intern
I’m a big believer in push and pull strength when it comes to speed work. I love sled and prowlers for what they offer. But remember, those tools are best for acceleration work and not the best for starting speed. One does not hit full speed until 60 or so meters. For starting speed and [...]
Define “speed” for a offensive or defensive lineman. The position requirements are pretty similar. The D-lineman has to be a bit more reactive and athletic where the O-lineman is more of a “wall” one just has a hard time getting around much less through. The play might last 7-10 seconds and cover rarely more than [...]
One the best movements that I have come across in the last several years in strengthening the musculature in an integrative manner to help get one out of the blocks or off the line in a hurry. The single leg application of the posterior chain is a unique movement than the single leg reverse hyper [...]
Run with one end of a jump rope in each hand. The rope swings beneath the body during the floating phase, turning a cycle each step. Because the arms cannot cycle either, and in order to avoid the dangers of tripping, the push-off phase must short and reactive. Forward velocity will be increased while skipping. [...]
To properly engage the posterior chain (which is designed mainly for horizontal displacement) use exercises that will engage those muscles directly against gravity – AKA reverse hypers & glute bridges. These are great exercise for firing the glute -hamstring complex with more direct stimulation that say.. the Olympic Lifts. IMHO, please don’t misunderstand what I’m [...]
Just Taking Your Squats (Back, Front, Overhead) to the Rock Bottom Position (Butt-to-Ankles) Can Increase One’s Hamstring Strength by as Much as 20%!
Two coaches that I respect greatly, Mike Boyle & Nick Tumminello, wrote this great article on 40 yard dash speed times. Enjoy! The Truth About Speed, NFL Combines and the 40 Yard Dash! By: Mike Boyle & Nick Tumminello at nicktumminello.com Speed is the stuff of urban legend. Deion Sanders supposedly showed up at the [...]
“Speed Kills and Strength Punishes” – The ICON Athletic Corner – January 2008 As a speed, strength and conditioning coach, I am open to all successful training strategies and theories. One that I do follow, I got from Coach Mike Boyle in the way he coaches explosiveness off the line. Whether it be a lineman [...]
I wanted to introduce an exercise we use as part of our speed development program called Bullet Hypers. It is a movement that we use to teach powerful “on & off” switching of the antagonistic muscles of mainly the quads and the hams. The ability to turn the muscles on and off instantaneously and maximally [...]
Hard hitting truths about athletic speed and strength once only available to elite level athletes. Secret #1: Speed is best developed by putting force into the ground, not by moving feet faster in most athletes. Running speed is a combination of stride length and stride frequency. Many athletes spend way too much time on ladder [...]
In International Journal of Sports Medicine, a study called “Soccer Fatigue, Sprinting and Hamstring Injury Risk”, they have come upon a relatively eyebrow raising discovery. In short (because scientific journal article are generally very long winded) the article states that the reason for most hamstring pulls, strains and tears is not a lack of flexibility [...]
I was doing some video analysis of one of our athletes in some sprint work and we start with our stance. I started to correct one of the linebackers (he’s 11) stance set up and the Dad commented on how he’s always run that way and it would just mess him up. I understane that [...]
It amazes me what athletes will put on their feet these days. It seems the last thing athletes think about is footwear. I refer to it like racing a car. If you drive a formula one race car and put on tires that are designed for a dump truck or tires that are bald as [...]
In training for the 40 yard dash, one can make the argument that it can be broken down into first step quickness (first 10 yards), acceleration (10-30 yards) and max velocity (theoretically 40-60 yards). Speed Endurance has been referred to as 60-100 yards – but that’s not the point of this article. Of all the [...]
The 40 yard Dash. The grandadddy of all the athletic tests. When someone finds out you play football and your aiming for the next level, what’s the first question that they ask? What’s your 40? Right? So, if your happy with your answer or your answer under your breath, what are you gonna do about [...]
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