In celebration of the Thanksgiving Holiday we will be special holiday hours on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Please note the following changes:
Wednesday: 6pm and 7pm classes are cancelled
Thursday: Special 9:30 am 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Day Workout (all members are welcome…and bring a friend or family member for free). We’ll have coffee and healthy snacks for after the workout
Friday: CrossFit @ 8am and 5:30pm; Scholastic Training @ Noon
By popular demand, Athletic Lab will be offering special skills clinics several times a month. The intent of these clinics will be to provide specific hands-on instruction on a difficult skill. The clinics will be open to the general public but members will receive a preferred rate for the class. In each class we will spend an entire hour focusing on the progressions and fundamentals necessary to master a difficult skill. If you have an idea for skills that you’d like to see addressed please let a staff member know.
Our first skills clinic will be focused on the power clean and will take place on Saturday November 26th. If you want to immediately improve your performance on this lift, learn why we favor certain body positions, understand the benefits of this great lift, or just bring yourself up to speed with your peers, then this is the class for you. Members can register for this clinic for an additional $10 fee. Non-members may enroll for $20. Improve your power clean today! Register HERE.
Athletic Lab is pleased to announce a special speed school in December focusing on the unique needs of Masters athletes (those aged 30+). The speed school will be specifically designed to enhance the straight-ahead speed of masters athletes competing in track and field. The class will develop correct acceleration and sprinting mechanics, and train the athlete to be stronger, faster and more powerful. The school begins on Monday December 5th and extends until December 19th with sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of those two weeks. The class structure and at least half of the classes will be lead by Dr. Mike Young who has coached athletes ranging from high school to elite to masters to the national or international level. At the masters level, Mike has coached 4 national champions in the sport of track and field and one masters World Champion. The cost of the school is $199.95. Athletes can register HERE.
Athletic Lab will be hosting our first annual Pre Thanksgiving Day Pot Luck Feast on Saturday, November 19th at 1:00pm. Friends and family members are welcome to attend. We will be posting a sign up sheet for those who are interested in attending and what you would like to bring. We will be providing Turkey and Ham so don’t worry about that. There will also be games and challenges for everyone! We look forward to chowing down with you there soon!
At the end of December, Athletic Lab will be giving away a 42” Flat Screen TV to the client who refers the most clients to us (and who sign up for a membership).
Here are the rules of the contest:
The member with the most “referral points” will be declared the winner of the contest.
In the event of a “referral point” tie, the tie will be broken based on the number of people referred; with the member having the most referred signups declared the winner.
The TV will be delivered no later than 2 weeks after the conclusion of the contest (pending manufacturer equipment availability).
The eligible window for referrals is from November, 1st 2011 to December, 16th 2011.
Remember there are no losers! Every referral for someone who signs up for a monthly membership gets you 50 dollars! Punch Card referrals are worth 25 dollars.
Clients may earn “referral points” as follows:
Referrals who sign up for a Monthly Unlimited membership (either Scholastic or CrossFit) will earn 2 points toward the contest;
Referrals who sign up for any other membership option will earn 1 point towards the contest.
Referral credit for a new person can only be given to one member. In the event of a dispute, the referred signup will be asked for the member who most influenced them
If you haven’t seen it already, pick up the latest issue of Cary Magazine. In it, you’ll find a great feature story on one of our athletes and some-time trainer, Chris Hoina. Chris is training hard to be a member of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams in the sport of skeleton. When Chris is not at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY hurtling himself down a mile-long track at 80mph, he’s one of the most regular faces in Athletic Lab. In fact, he’s the only athlete who’s participated in 4 of our training programs (Elite Olympic development, Olympic weightlifting, speed camp, and CrossFit) so many of you know him. If you’re interested in supporting Chris’s Olympic dreams you can donate here and follow his journey on his blog. In the meantime, check out this great snippet from the article:
Hoina found a speed camp at Cary’s Athletic Lab teaching the basics of sprinting mechanics. While it was exactly what he needed, he was a bit out of place.
“I was 26 or 27 and the mean age was about 11,” he said.
As if by fortune, the coach of the sprint camp was Mike Young, PhD, a nationally renowned athletic development expert who had himself trained on the skeleton development team.
“What are the chances that I find this guy who’s a doctor, who’s living five minutes away from my house, who did the same thing that I’m trying to do, and is one of the most qualified guys in the country, hands down?” Hoina asked.
After the camp, Young invited Hoina to join the Human Performance Consulting Elite team to train with other world-class athletes competing at professional levels. After months of grueling training, Hoina tried out for the Skeleton Olympic National Development Team, and made the cut.
One of the many things that differentiates Athletic Lab from other training centers is our holistic and comprehensive approach to human performance. We recognize that performance is the outcome of a myriad of factors including the physical (strength, speed, mobility, endurance, and coordination), psychological, and lifestyle (rest, nutrition, etc). One of the biggest limiters of performance for an athlete training on the edge is an unexpected injury. This is why we have aligned ourselves with several of the top medical and sports medicine professionals in the Triangle. It’s also why we have an in-house therapist, Julie Donnelly, who is an internationally renowned clinician, author, and instructor. Julie is great for treating (and teaching you how to treat) day to day aches and pains, fixing long standing problems, and even limiting the likelihood of bigger injuries. Julie has developed her own therapy technique known as Julstro for addressing Trigger points that limit performance and may eventually lead to an injury. You can learn more about Trigger Point Therapy in this informative blog from our friends at My Athletic Life. You can find more about Julie at her business website.
Tomorrow (November 7) is our 3rd monthly fitness challenge. The challenge will be held at the 6pm CrossFit / Performance Fitness session on the first Monday of every month. All members (Scholastic, CrossFit / Performance Fitness, and Elites) are welcome to attend.
What’s the Challenge? What’s at stake?
Members will complete a workout challenge against one of the members of our staff. If ANY member in the class should beat the staff member, the ENTIRE class will receive 10% off their next month’s membership and the winning member will receive 20% off. Class size will be limited to 12 with slots reserved for those that RSVP via our online membership manager.
Around 50 of the strongest athletes in the country converged on Athletic Lab to compete in the West Cary Barbell Fall Festival of Power. Five events were contested, including a car deadlift. Spectator attendance was outstanding to support these strong men and women. With Strongman, CrossFit, and Olympic Weightlifting sessions at Athletic Lab, we are the leader in strength sports in the Triangle. Check out the video of Adam Scherr winning the event.
Pictures of the event can be found on our Facebook page.
[This is a guest blog by our Athletic Intern, Salby Salang, an undergraduate sport science student from NCCU.]
Today, everyone is looking for a “magic pill” or supplement to boost their workouts and improve athletic development. While the fundamentals are overlooked, people are quick to spend money and waste time trying the latest supplement advertised on the internet or television. Without a solid foundation, all of the extra stuff is irrelevant.
The mind is one of the most overlooked aspects of exercise and athletic performance. The mind is filled with tremendous potential, unused energy in most individuals. The mental preparation is critical to maximize athletic performance. Whether its play visualizations, conscious muscle innervation, motor pattern training, or self-imaging, where one imagines how they want to look or feel during sport performance. Mental training can raise confidence levels which will in turn increase athletic performance. When you experience success, you have a dopamine response that will encourage new synaptic growth or enhancement. Before you know it, you will need to concentrate less and less on the correct form as your muscle memory becomes ingrained. However, you are now engaging either more or correct muscles with correct form, and so you have just enhanced your overall body awareness, efficiency, and the resultant power of the movement. Mental training is hugely positive. So replace the “magic pill” with mental conditioning supplemented with your physical practice. Most athletes don’t take mental training serious enough to gain the benefits. Don’t be that person, start putting your mind to your muscles and make them work for you.
Here are three tips for mental training:
Picture yourself in Action. Many studies have been done by psychologists proving that this can increase your skill performance. Consider taking at least 30 minutes of your time to train your mind when your body can no longer go and you will reap the results.
Picture yourself facing adversity and struggles. Everyone can picture themselves on the podium receiving the first place trophy but only imagining this is unrealistic. Most people won’t accept failure but you must fail in order to succeed. Once you accept this your success is limitless. Start by constantly reminding yourself what it takes and how it’s going to feel winning the daily battles through practices and workouts. Remind yourself why you are doing this and what’s at stake. During your workouts when you want to quit, train your mind to push past your body’s limit. Your body reacts to your mind’s thought process. So tune up your thoughts and build confidence and your body will follow.
Don’t over think. If you can physically conquer your goals, you should be equally prepared mentally as well. But a lot of times if you over analyze a situation it can backfire. Sharpening your focus allows you to get “in the zone”. Once you get “in the zone” movements become natural and you’re reacting more than thinking. So conquer your mind and conquer your skill! Make time to find a nice quiet spot and focus on nothing but yourself. Your breathing is a good place to start. Every time you find yourself getting distracted by a thought, take a moment to note what you were thinking about, and then go back to concentrating on yourself again. Do this not only before a competition but before practice as well. After practice think back on what you did wrong and picture yourself doing it right. The samurai in Japan learned the importance of this kind of exercise, making them some of the most fearsome warriors in history. Of course this doesn’t substitute for physical training but it is a much needed supplement to your training program. Doing this will give you the advantage and competitive edge you’ve been looking for. Use mind training not only for your performance but for your passion of your sport and you’ll look forward to success everyday you wake up.
At Athletic Lab, sport scientist Dr. Young and his staff provide individualized feedback, both positive and negative, which is imperative your athletic performance.
