The healing power of the pool was shared earlier in the post aquagenesis, and I decided to elaborate more with some protocols. Water will never replace the land, and the land will never replace the water, so what is an optimal balance of both? What I do know is the pool work that Flow Jo did didn't create a big enough problem to slow her down, regardless how she ran her times. The fear of altered [...]

Water is an excellent medium that provides unique qualities that athletes can exploit for various needs such as conditioning, specific strength, joint mobility/flexibility, and rehabilitation. What I like about the zealous enthusiast is that they explore all the possibilities that water can do, even if another option is superior. This is important for well rounded programs, as even if a tool or pr [...]

3 years ago today, I started coaching at West Point. My wife and I made the move from Baton Rouge to the Northeast because she wanted to move closer to her family and West Point seemed like the best option that fit that bill at the time. When I accepted the job, I had no idea what I was in for (good and bad). Having just recently resigned at West Point 3 months ago, I can now look back and reflec [...]

Mike Nelson brings a good point about therapy and pain. Obviously he is a Z-health proponent and brings a wealth of knowledge to his blog every week. My problem with his response is he doesn't give case examples with athletes. I have been exposed to some fantastic therapists and found that traditional massage and soft tissue release (similar to ART and was used earlier) to be a major advantage. [...]

Brain Juice. Java. Black Tea. Cup of Joe. Rocket Fuel. All of these are names for the ubiquitous beverage that is coffee. While there's a longstanding belief that coffee is bad for you (it dehydrates! makes your teeth black! disrupts sleep!) there's a growing amount of evidence to suggest that coffee may very well be one of the healthiest things you can put in your body. Here's a look at why y [...]

Don’t ignore the obvious; take care of the first 98% before looking for the last 2%, that is a huge problem today. Are you athletes getting enough sleep? What is their lifestyle away from training? What is their diet? Are they living on energy bars, supplements and recovery drinks or are they eating real food? You must accumulate a background of training and competition before any sophisticated [...]

Someone asked me to comment with my thoughts on recovery. In the training process it is during recovery when the training adaptation occurs. There is a unity of work and rest, essentially a yin and yang. It is impossible to talk about training without considering recovery both intra training session and inter session. Inadequate recovery will not allow the training adaptation to occur and this eve [...]

Systematic planned and programmed variation will avoid stagnation and continue to force adaptation. Therefore: Vary The Load,Vary the Mode,Vary the Rest! The human organism is highly adaptable so it must be continually challenged with new stresses and increasingly challenging movement problems to solve. [...]

In your training and in your rehab are you creating an environment that prepares the athlete to withstand the forces that are imposed during the competitive efforts or are you creating an artificial environment that “protect’ the athlete in training and does not prepare them for the competition? If you dong the later then you are doing the athlete a disservice. The body adapts to stres [...]

Hopefully when you read the title you yelled, “Carson you are just repeating things that have been written about for a long time!”  Well, you’re right.  This is nothing new, everyone knows that they should be taking fish oil, but I’m still amazed at how many of these people in the know fail to take adequate fish oil.  Here are a few reasons to make sure you a [...]