By DSP Performance Coach, Rekha Ayalur
Fall has officially arrived in DC and with that comes all of the fall sports that we all love! This past weekend, the DSP team had a chance to go out to the brand new Evergreen Sportsplex in Leesburg, VA. What an absolutely amazing facility! Imagine one of the most beautiful horse race tracks you’ve seen and then imagine the track being replaced with gorgeous turf fields as far as the eyes can see. Yup, that’s Evergreen. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited to get out there and check it out.
As many of you know, DSP coach and former DC United player, Grady Renfrow, has recently taken on the role of leading the women’s soccer program at Evergreen. With hundreds of athletes practicing and playing at this facility every day, Grady sure does have his work cut out for him. Being a DSP coach, Grady knew that he had to bring our triphasic, velocity-based program to Evergreen pretty early on to help build the strongest, fastest athletes at his facility.
So this Saturday, while most of you were staying dry indoors, Darius, Adam, and I made the hour long drive out to Evergreen to meet with Grady and the lacrosse and soccer coaches of Evergreen. The purpose of our meeting was to illustrate to them how our program has dramatically improved the performance of the athletes we coach and how they can implement it at their facility to help transform their athletes. We walked them through the Functional Movement Screen, highlighting what we typically look for in our athletes when we conduct the screen and how to identity dysfunctional movement patterns in athletes. We then took them through a quick velocity-based training, using the Push Band to help them understand how to effectively train athletes within a low rep range to allow them to produce the most force. Overall, I would say that it was a great meeting. All of the coaches seemed very excited to learn our program and begin to implement it immediately with their athletes.
Sunday brought sunshine and a beautiful 75-degree day. What a perfect day for soccer and lacrosse! I had the chance to meet Grady down at Evergreen yet again to work with three groups of lacrosse girls; U11, U14, and U16 (although we learned that lacrosse teams are labeled by grade and not age group…who knew). Anyway, I was excited to get out there and work with these girls. Most of you who know me know how excited I get when I get to help girls be stronger and more athletic! #Girlpower. Grady and I worked with about 10-15 girls in each group; running them through resistance band work, agility drills, and a quick triphasic workout – consisting of squats, vertical jumps, broad jumps, and sprints. We talked to the girls about the importance of strength training and more importantly, the importance of training in all three phases – eccentric, isometic, and concentric. Overall, I would say it was a great weekend. A lot of exciting things in store for DSP and the beginning of a great relationship with Evergreen!
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