Founder of Elite Performance Management, Offers Training Tips He Teaches His Professional Athlete Clients That Would Benefit the Regular Population
Elite Performance Management, founded by Tom Vachet, is based in Manhattan Beach, California, and offers consulting to elite and professional athletes interested in performance enhancement and injury reduction.
Manhattan Beach, CA, December 31, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Tom Vachet, founder of Elite Performance Management has worked with a variety of professional athletes in order to help prevent injuries or to rehabilitate existing injuries.
The New Year is right around the corner, many people do not stick to their routine or work out too hard in the beginning and injure themselves due to overexertion to achieve quick results.
Vachet is offering some of the top tips that he provides for his clients that translate into the regular public:
It all begins with proper nutrition.
First, incorporating a healthy diet is a far more successful strategy than dieting. Second, you cannot perform physically, or mentally, on an empty tank. Food is fuel. Eat a small balanced meal, with a higher percentage of carbohydrates, one hour before your workout. Immediately after, have another small meal, higher in protein, or a protein shake, because your body is in a high state of readiness to build muscle. In general eating small meals throughout the day keeps the furnace hot, or your metabolism high, which means you will burn more calories all day long. Skipping meals throws your body into conservation mode, storing fat. Better to eat sweets or deserts early in the day versus before bed, where a protein shake will both improve the quality of your sleep, as well as provide nutrition for repair and recovery. Also, don’t forget proper hydration is a critical component of proper nutrition.
Generally speaking, scale weight is not as important as body composition.
Most people that engage in successful fitness programs gain lean mass and lose fat. Muscle is denser, and pound for pound takes up far less space than fat. So, you may stay the exact same weight, but your clothes will become loose fitting. Stay off the scale, and let the fit of your clothes become the indicator for the success of your fitness program. If you want to be more scientific about it, have a properly trained technician provide you with a skin caliper measurement. There are other methods. However, this is one of the more accurate, and easiest to do. Remember, the first one is just a baseline. Follow-ups, provided each time by the same technician, will provide clear indication of the direction of your progress.
Train from the ground up, and from the inside out.
Every person who begins a program of fitness, professional athlete or not, should start first with flexibility. Achieving proper length-tension relationships in soft tissue is guaranteed to help prevent injuries, improve endurance, and increase strength. Next comes proper posture. Maintaining proper skeletal alignment not only helps improve your appearance, it will supports proper metabolic function, reduces back pain. Third, the skills of balance and stability are key to performance, whether it’s running a marathon, or sprinting across a busy street. They are also key to injury prevention, as falls are a major contributor to fatalities in the United States. Fourth, optimal core strength and endurance provides the foundation for an active lifestyle. The ancients knew that the core or “center” of the body was it’s source of power. Fifth, train like you play, standing on your feet. Seated, or stabilized exercise, is guaranteed to increase muscle size, but not functional strength. Finally, exercising in an unstable environment can burn as much as 30% more calories.
Avoid cumulative trauma.
Athletes for the most part spend their careers on their feet, running, jumping, kicking, etc., over hundreds and thousands of games over the course of a career. The conditioning environment is not the place to add to this. Find exercise modalities that provide an environment less prone to impact; swimming, bicycling, or even training on an elliptical machine versus a treadmill. If you must run, here in California we have a nice, lower impact alternative to the pavement called the beach. Also, unless you are a marathoner, most of what we do in life or play are a series of small sprints. For years, I’ve taught my athletes to do a simple twelve minute program. It consists of a 4-minute warm-up, followed by a series of 30-seconds on, and 30-seconds off intervals, then a cool down. It’s a great program for some big reasons reasons. First, 12 minutes of exercise is doable for nearly anyone, regardless of starting fitness level, time availability, or patience. Second, research has proven that interval work elevates calorie burn for hours following the exercise. Third, this is a program that helps to produce a sprinter’s physique; compact, lean, and muscular.
Rest is underrated.
Most of us, athletes and regular folks alike, tend to overwork. Nearly all the recent research supports the contention that rest is critical in sports, and essential in extending one’s athletic career. My athletes work three very tough consecutive days in the off-season, followed by four days of rest. That doesn’t mean they’re in bed for that time. They are encouraged to participate in light recreational activities, just not in anything hard or strenuous. Although everyone is skeptical at first, they all discover that this program allows them to not only recover properly, but it also provides rapid improvement.
Through the coordinated efforts of a team of highly skilled professionals, offering medical case management, functional training, physical therapy, nutrition, and sports performance psychology, Elite Performance Management are singularly focused on elevating and lengthening their client’s careers while increasing their value in the sports marketplace.
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The New Year is right around the corner, many people do not stick to their routine or work out too hard in the beginning and injure themselves due to overexertion to achieve quick results.
Vachet is offering some of the top tips that he provides for his clients that translate into the regular public:
It all begins with proper nutrition.
First, incorporating a healthy diet is a far more successful strategy than dieting. Second, you cannot perform physically, or mentally, on an empty tank. Food is fuel. Eat a small balanced meal, with a higher percentage of carbohydrates, one hour before your workout. Immediately after, have another small meal, higher in protein, or a protein shake, because your body is in a high state of readiness to build muscle. In general eating small meals throughout the day keeps the furnace hot, or your metabolism high, which means you will burn more calories all day long. Skipping meals throws your body into conservation mode, storing fat. Better to eat sweets or deserts early in the day versus before bed, where a protein shake will both improve the quality of your sleep, as well as provide nutrition for repair and recovery. Also, don’t forget proper hydration is a critical component of proper nutrition.
Generally speaking, scale weight is not as important as body composition.
Most people that engage in successful fitness programs gain lean mass and lose fat. Muscle is denser, and pound for pound takes up far less space than fat. So, you may stay the exact same weight, but your clothes will become loose fitting. Stay off the scale, and let the fit of your clothes become the indicator for the success of your fitness program. If you want to be more scientific about it, have a properly trained technician provide you with a skin caliper measurement. There are other methods. However, this is one of the more accurate, and easiest to do. Remember, the first one is just a baseline. Follow-ups, provided each time by the same technician, will provide clear indication of the direction of your progress.
Train from the ground up, and from the inside out.
Every person who begins a program of fitness, professional athlete or not, should start first with flexibility. Achieving proper length-tension relationships in soft tissue is guaranteed to help prevent injuries, improve endurance, and increase strength. Next comes proper posture. Maintaining proper skeletal alignment not only helps improve your appearance, it will supports proper metabolic function, reduces back pain. Third, the skills of balance and stability are key to performance, whether it’s running a marathon, or sprinting across a busy street. They are also key to injury prevention, as falls are a major contributor to fatalities in the United States. Fourth, optimal core strength and endurance provides the foundation for an active lifestyle. The ancients knew that the core or “center” of the body was it’s source of power. Fifth, train like you play, standing on your feet. Seated, or stabilized exercise, is guaranteed to increase muscle size, but not functional strength. Finally, exercising in an unstable environment can burn as much as 30% more calories.
Avoid cumulative trauma.
Athletes for the most part spend their careers on their feet, running, jumping, kicking, etc., over hundreds and thousands of games over the course of a career. The conditioning environment is not the place to add to this. Find exercise modalities that provide an environment less prone to impact; swimming, bicycling, or even training on an elliptical machine versus a treadmill. If you must run, here in California we have a nice, lower impact alternative to the pavement called the beach. Also, unless you are a marathoner, most of what we do in life or play are a series of small sprints. For years, I’ve taught my athletes to do a simple twelve minute program. It consists of a 4-minute warm-up, followed by a series of 30-seconds on, and 30-seconds off intervals, then a cool down. It’s a great program for some big reasons reasons. First, 12 minutes of exercise is doable for nearly anyone, regardless of starting fitness level, time availability, or patience. Second, research has proven that interval work elevates calorie burn for hours following the exercise. Third, this is a program that helps to produce a sprinter’s physique; compact, lean, and muscular.
Rest is underrated.
Most of us, athletes and regular folks alike, tend to overwork. Nearly all the recent research supports the contention that rest is critical in sports, and essential in extending one’s athletic career. My athletes work three very tough consecutive days in the off-season, followed by four days of rest. That doesn’t mean they’re in bed for that time. They are encouraged to participate in light recreational activities, just not in anything hard or strenuous. Although everyone is skeptical at first, they all discover that this program allows them to not only recover properly, but it also provides rapid improvement.
Through the coordinated efforts of a team of highly skilled professionals, offering medical case management, functional training, physical therapy, nutrition, and sports performance psychology, Elite Performance Management are singularly focused on elevating and lengthening their client’s careers while increasing their value in the sports marketplace.
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Contact
Elite Performance Management
Rachelle Brehm
310-704-1357
Rachelle Brehm
310-704-1357
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