I’m the High Performance Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Alberta Sport Development Centre Northwest. This is the first entry in what will hopefully be an ongoing and descriptive account of what it takes to train like a high performance athlete. Now as you may or may not know, I have been involved in pretty close to all levels of sport in a wide variety of sports, everything from Swimming, to Volleyball, to Rugby, to Team Handball, and more. I’ve played in tournaments across the country and the world, and performed in front of crowds in the tens of thousands. I’ve experienced the joys of a great victory, the disappointment of a bad loss, the pain of a potential career ending injury, and the self accomplishment of a huge comeback. When I say I have experience training at high level sports, it may be an understatement. However even with all of this experience and work, I don’t consider myself done yet, not by a long shot. After all of my education that I’ve got on the subject, I thought, “if I had applied half of this to my own training, I could have been 10 times the athlete I was”. Which as stated I was already a pretty good athlete, but I think it’s never too late and would like to see how good I can still be.

So back to the purpose of this blog, I am going to take the next step with my training and formally begin an athlete training program for myself. I played Team Handball at the provincial level and had to quit a few years back due to a knee injury that I needed surgery for. The knee is better now, but I’m horribly out of practice, and my aerobic system isn’t anywhere near where it was when I had to stop. I would also like to increase my overall strength, power and fitness to make me a better player and athlete. As well I think that there is an interest in the community to play some Team Handball and maybe start a couple teams here and that can work to benefit my training. Although I’m going to try to centre my training on Team Handball, I’m sure there will be elements of training that I may talk about related more to other sports. I think however Handball is a sport that not many people know a lot about, but is actually a very relatable sport for most athletes. It incorporates the anaerobic burst of power like in Hockey, the jumping and overhead arm action of Volleyball, the team movement and dribbling of Basketball, court usage and tactics of Soccer, etc. It obviously lends more to team sports than individual ones, but some of the training will be the same.

 I want this to be fairly organic and want to write about what people are going to be interested in. I will hopefully start with some test data on myself, and some current stats, and then updates what I’m doing to train certain aspects of myself. I also hope to educate people who read this a little on proper training techniques, and various methods that will prove beneficial to those involved in athletic performance. I encourage any feedback and questions about this or how my training is going, so feel free to ask away. Also if anyone is interested in playing team handball, once I have enough interest I hope to get some gym space somewhere and have a practice and scrimmage. Just drop me a line.

Ryan Blais, who is a current member of the Canadian National Freestyle Ski Team, established the Come Fly With Me Foundation in October 2006.

The Foundation goal is to provide financial assistance and/or sport service subsidies to development level amateur athletes from the greater Grande Prairie area.  The vision is to support athletes that do not receive full elite level funding from federal and provincial government bodies.  The Foundation is able to do this by securing donations from various local companies, individuals, services clubs etc.  Funds are held and distributed through the Community Foundation of Greater Grande Prairie.

Jamen Langlois (picture above) and Wynand Nel were this year’s athlete recipients of the Come Fly With Me Foundation award.

Contact Miranda Sallis (780) 539-2072 for more details or submit a resume to: msallis@gprc.ab.ca

March 26th & 27th, 2010

NCCP - Part B

April 9th & 10th, 2010

Competition/Development Modules

Coaching & Leading Effectively

April 9th 6pm-9pm & 10th 9am-5pm

Psychology of Performance

 April 20^th & 21^st 6pm-9:30pm

Managing Conflict

May 9^th 10am-3pm

Leading Drug Free Sport

May 31^st 6pm-9:30pm

Developing Athletic Abilities

May 11^th, 18^th & 25^th 6pm-9pm

Prevention & Recovery

June 14^th 6pm-10 pm & June 15^th 6pm-9:30pm

Athletic First Aid Course

The Alberta Sport Development Centre NW will be hosting an Athletic First Aid course this winter:  Dates TBD

Tyson first started skating when he was 4 years old and started hockey at the age of 8.  As an Atom A he won the Larry Kutschinski award for top atom player.  He went on to play Peewee A, Peewee AA, Bantam AAA (2 years) and Midget AAA. 

In his first year of Bantam AAA he had the most goals scored on his team, his second year he was ranked top ten for the most goals in Alberta with 32.  He had 53 points in 33 games that season.  The sky was the limit for Tyson as he continued to excel in hockey, playing for the Northwest Sharks in the Alberta Cup, making the final 46 players for team Alberta U17 and being ranked top 22 for forwards in Alberta!  His list of accomplishments goes on to include being drafted by the Red Deer Rebels, Bantam AAA Storm – Rookie of the Year & MVP, and Midget AAA Storm – Rookie of the Year.

Present:

Tyson, as a well rounded athlete, loves playing all types of sports and has been successful with his provincial champion Baseball team.  Along with all the other Grande Peace Athletic Club (GPAC) athletes, Tyson is a member of ASDC NW.  He spent his off-season training hard with our staff in an intensive 4 month conditioning camp.  This season, at the young age of 16, Tyson is continuing on his impressive hockey career by being selected to play for the Grande Prairie Jr. A Storm. 

Tyson is an outstanding, hardworking and incredibly dedicated athlete and ASDC is excited to help him continue his pursuit of excellence.

Read more about Tyson’s upcoming season with the storm…

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1759878