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Sports Power - David Sandler
Sports Power
by David Sandler
NEW, 256 pages
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About Sports Power
Optimal power—the ideal combination of speed and strength—is the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete. Sports Power provides all the tools to build sport-specific power and allow you to attain the highest level of performance.
Every sport has unique power demands. Whether it’s explosive running and jumping, a quick burst out of the starting block, or contacting and moving an opponent, developing the right proportion of strength and speed is crucial to optimizing athletic power. With the revolutionary speed–strength–power continuum in Sports Power, you can determine the ideal mix of strength-based and speed-based power required for your sport.
Four to six week training programs designed for maximum results may be applied as presented or customized to individual needs using the seven-step program design process. Training exercises combine resistance training, plyometrics, speed drills, and cutting-edge power development techniques.
Train to excel in your sport. Every workout with Sports Power will put you another step ahead of the competition.
About David Sandler
David Sandler, MS, CSCS*D, CCS, HFD, is an exercise science and strength and conditioning professor at Florida International University, where he developed and currently directs the strength and conditioning curriculum. He is a doctoral candidate and former strength and conditioning coach for the University of Miami. He has presented more than 50 international, national, and regional lectures and published 15 scientific abstracts and more than 30 articles in power and strength training. Sandler has been a strength and conditioning consultant for more than 15 years and is currently a co-owner of StrengthPro, a South Florida-based strength and conditioning consulting company. He is the Chairman for The Arnold Strength Training Summit and enjoys faculty and developmental positions with several organizations. Sandler also serves on the advisory board for Muscle and Fitness magazine.
Reviews of this Book
"An innovative training tool, Sports Power will help athletes and coaches achieve their highest level of performance by allowing them to test and train specifically for the unique power demands of their sports."
Jon Torine
Strength and Conditioning Coach, Indianapolis Colts
About Strength Training
Strength training is the use of resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of skeletal muscles. There are many different methods of strength training, the most common being the use of gravity or elastic/hydraulic forces to oppose muscle contraction. See the resistance training article for information about elastic/hydraulic training, but note that the terms "strength training" and "resistance training" are often used interchangeably.
When properly performed, strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being, including increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, reduced potential for injury, increased bone density, a temporary increase in metabolism, improved cardiac function, and elevated HDL (good) cholesterol. Training commonly uses the technique of progressively increasing the force output of the muscle through incremental increases of weight, elastic tension or other resistance, and uses a variety of exercises and types of equipment to target specific muscle groups. Strength training is primarily an anaerobic activity, although some proponents have adapted it to provide the benefits of aerobic exercise through circuit training.
Strength training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting, and strongman, which are sports rather than forms of exercise, although training for them is inherently interconnected with strength training, as it is for shotput, discus, and Highland games. Many other sports use strength training as part of their training regimen, notably football, rugby, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, and track and field
The basic principles of strength training involve a manipulation of the number of repetitions (reps), sets, tempo, exercises and force to cause desired changes in strength, endurance, size or shape by overloading of a group of muscles. The specific combinations of reps, sets, exercises, resistance and force depend on the purpose of the individual performing the exercise: sets with fewer reps can be performed using more force, but have a reduced impact on endurance.
Strength training also requires the use of 'good form', performing the movements with the appropriate muscle group(s), and not transferring the weight to different body parts in order to move greater weight/resistance (called 'cheating'). Typically failure to use good form during a training set can result in injury or an inability to meet training goals - since the desired muscle group is not challenged sufficiently, the threshold of overload is never reached and the muscle does not gain in strength. There are cases when cheating is beneficial, as is the case where weaker groups become the weak link in the chain and the target muscles are never fully exercised as a result.
The benefits of strength training include increased muscle, tendon and ligament strength, bone density, flexibility, tone, metabolic rate and postural support.
Sports Power
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