FLASH week # 2

The third session has been the hardest on the kids so far. They had to do run #2 and this is one of the hardest runs. There are two 30 second runs, four 20 second runs, four 15 second runs, and four 10 second runs. Each of these runs have different speeds and elevations as well. The 15's and 10's are the hardest for them because the speed is faster and elevation is higher, not to mention these are towards the end of the run when the athletes are tired.

The kids almost didn't make it through this run. I had one kid almost faint and puke on me. A lot of these kids looked like they were in shape and could handle this run but obviously I was wrong. I ran 4 kids in one group and then ran the other 3 kids when they were finished with their weights. One kid had to do run #1 since he missed one the week before.

The fourth session was a plyometric. The kids were pretty happy to find out they were doing a plyo instead of running again. I don't think they like to run at all.
It was straight forward and to the point. The kids whipped through the plyo and then did their weights. There are only 3 machines the kids can use, which leaves some kids standing around. Instead of standing around, they would work on different core drills. They would lean back, feet in the air, and pass a medicine ball back and forth with another teammate. These tend to get to after a while.

The kids have a tournament this Friday, so they won't be working out with us. But they will be back on Monday for another hard run.

FLASH week # 1

Recently, there has been a baseball team coming to Tekulve at 8:30am to train with us. The coach agreed to pay for the whole team, which is expensive if you have 11 kids going through the program.

The very fist session, all the kids had to go through a pre-test just like every other person that goes through the program. There were three workers, and each one had a seperate station. Nicki took the vertical jump station, I took the broad jump station, and Sean took the pro-agility station. Each kid would start at the one of the stations and rotate around until they were done with the beginning of the pre-test. After that, the kids were split into groups of 3, 3, and 3 to finish the plyometric part of the pre-test. There was one kid that wasn't there and had to do his pre-test a different day.

The second session, all the kids had to do run #1, which is the easiest one of the 12 they have to complete throughout the whole session. This run went well for most of the kids. Some of the kids felt sick to their stomach, but didn't puke as far as I know. There can only be at most 5 runners on the treadmill at one time, so the other kids were doing their weights. I had to show all the kids how to the machines, as well as write down all their numbers (weight, platform, lever arm). One kid missed this session and had to do run #1 at a different time.

Hectic Week

This week is going to be a long week. There is a baseball team that wants to train all together. The only way for the team to be together is to come in an hour earlier than our normal hours 9:45 to 6. Nicki, Chris and I have to be there at 8:15 in order to get the everything ready for these guys. They came in last week and went through the pretests. The pretests didn't take as long as I expected. We divided the guys up into groups of 3 and 4. We each had a seperate station. I took the broad jump, Sean took the pro-agility drill and Nicki took the vertical jump. Each guy would go through the tests and then rotate around. When they were finished we went through the plyometric part of the test. After everyone was finished with that, they had to do 30 crunches and 30 pushups. Then I had to show my group how to get on the treadmill. This took all of 3 minutes. We had to show them how to get on the treadmill so they are ready to go to run this week.

This team will be going through the program for the remainder of my internship.