Jon Reid – Programming Considerations for Amateur Hockey
Jon Reid is a former Junior and University Hockey player who went on to complete a Bachelor of Physical Education, along with a Master’s in the Science of Kinesiology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. As a former athlete, Jon has always been interested in strength and conditioning and overall athlete development. As Jon’s hockey career came to an end, it was rewarding to find a career path to help enhance the development of athletes. This brought Jon to his current position at APSolute Performance and Wellness, where he oversees the Strength and Conditioning department and delivers programming to both amateur [...]
A High School Model for Strength Training Certification
Safe-LIFT-Certified-curriulum-package-1-30-22Download Performance training in Canadian high schools is very limited in scope and varies tremendously between, and within, school districts in both public and private settings. Access to decently equipped weight rooms is often a major barrier and there is no standard for delivery of strength training education in these settings. Resources to hire individuals who specialize in the training of athletes are rare, thus the onus falls upon the high school teacher to deliver this type of service, often with minimal background in this area. In order to increase access to effective performance training services, some schools are looking [...]
Should Children Lift Weights?
Weight-training programs may be designed to improve muscular strength and endurance through the application of progressive overload. (Malina, 2006). Progressive overload is the training principle that states that the body needs progressively greater demands placed on it for training adaptations to take place, like strength and fitness increases (Baechle, 2000). For the purpose of this article, strength training (or resistance training) will refer to a special method of conditioning used to increase ability to exert force or resist force (Faigenbaum, 2000). This should be distinguished from weightlifting and powerlifting which is reserved to describe high intensity techniques used to lift [...]
Pitfalls of Conditioning at Youth Sport Practice: A Guide for Sport Coaches
The reemergence of youth sport around the country after a long pause due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront the topic of reintroducing athletes appropriately and safely back into sport after a significant hiatus from play. Despite the increased understanding of sport and exercise science today, there may be a disconnect between the information and guidance provided by the strength and conditioning community and the real-world practices of many youth sport organizations and coaches. This article focuses on four key areas that draw from my experience working as a strength and conditioning coach [...]
Does This School Have the Strongest Students in Canada? An interview with George Kinch
Westisle Composite High School may be the strongest school in Canada, and George Kinch is the man responsible. The Prince Edward Island School Athletic Association (PEISAA) Powerlifting Program has had twenty-five Championships, and Westisle has won twenty of these twenty-five. I’ve witnessed his athletes perform at a number of these events. It is absolutely incredible to see the level of strength displayed. A number of these athletes have since competed on the national and international stage competing and setting records in events hosted by the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) and the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF). Some of these athletes have [...]
Bringing the Program to Life
The session-to-session physical content of a good youth program is just words and numbers on a paper. A program must be brought to life by good environments involving intentional strategies that consider elements such as psycho-social factors, training age, growth and maturation, injury and medical history, and athlete goals and preferences. Bringing the program to life also needs good people with relevant experience, education, desire, intentions and good energy. Good people building good environments can help ensure that athletes can achieve fun, safety and success with programs that are developmentally appropriate, participant centred, progressive, challenging and well-structured. Bringing the program [...]
Coaching Multi-sport Youth Athletes: Considerations for Sport Coaches and Teachers from an S&C Coach Perspective. Owen MacWilliams
https://youtu.be/zKeKTXlV8sI Owen MacWilliams is a native of Summerside, PE and is currently the assistant sport performance coach at St. Francis Xavier University working primarily with football, rugby and soccer. He has extensive experience working with youth to professional athletes. Resources Mentioned in the interview Jeremy Fritsch Twitter: Instagram: Website: Mike Boyle Twitter: Instagram: Website: Elisabeth Oehler Twitter: Instagram: Website:
Undertraining: A Likely Cause for the Rise in Youth Sport Injuries
Injuries are on the rise in youth sports. A study published in the American College of Sports Medicine (Faigenbaum, 2009) has shown that in the United States, between 15-28% of youth baseball, basketball, soccer and football players are injured each year, resulting in games missed. The same study found that, in New York State alone, the number of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructions performed on children aged 3-20 has increased by 100% from 1990 to 2009, and since the year 2000, there has been a five-fold increase in upper body injuries in youth baseball and softball players. Overuse injuries – [...]
What Are The Limitations of Youth Resistance Training?
Despite numerous position papers, a growing body of research evidence, and the prevalence of school-based strength and conditioning programs, there continues to be significant concern regarding the use of strength training for youth athletic development. These concerns are fed by anecdotal beliefs that there is increased injury risk in this population, concerns about growth delay, and an overall denial of the adaptability of young athletes. Unfortunately, these beliefs do not match the research currently available, or the outcomes being measured in the sports such as weightlifting and powerlifting. The adaptations we are now observing in youth resistance trained athletes are [...]
CSCA Candid Conversations: Creating a High School S&C Program with Marcello Campanaro
Marcello "Campy" Campanaro completed his undergraduate degree in Physical Education at McMaster University and a Bachelor of Education degree at Queen’s University. Now retired, he was the Head of Physical Education at M. M. Robinson High School in Burlington, Ontario where he spent 24 years as a coach and teacher. He served as the QB Coach and the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at McMaster University from 1996-2003. In 2004 he moved into the positions of Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator for the McMaster Marauders. In 2016-2017 he was the Quarterbacks Coach at the University of Guelph. His coaching career has [...]
Strength Training in the High School Setting: How to Make Strength and Conditioning a Priority in Your School.
Background I have been teaching and coaching for more than 20 years at the high school (HS) level and for 10 years at the USport level. I have also been in the Strength and Conditioning (S&C) field for 15 years or so, both at the HS and as an assistant at the USport level. I played University Football from 1992-1996 and trained without much guidance for a long time. As a student, my University strength program was inadequate and poorly supervised. Those with proper foundations and knowledge were not very common or accessible. We did a lot of lifting until it hurt and then [...]
My Three Cs Approach to High School Strength and Conditioning
Strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches with a specialty in training youth athletes is a component within S&C that is on the rise in Canada. This includes the private sector as well as team or school-based S&C programs. Additionally, as outlined in the CSCA’s spring 2019 newsletter, high schools across our country are looking to offer S&C programs. Physical education classes where students can train but also learn about the training process and how it can positively affect their performance in the short and long-term are also on the rise in Canada. While these classes are taught for credit and come [...]
Scott Vass’ Work at Vancouver College in British Columbia
Over the last decade, there has been a shift towards greater integration of academics and sports in high schools. This integration has resulted in greater incidences of certified strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches working with high school aged athletes either during regular time table blocks or outside of traditional school hours. The introduction of Fitness and Conditioning 11 & 12 into the BC Curriculum further opened opportunities to integrate S&C into a student’s schedule either through a structured class taught by a teacher with S&C credentials or by providing credit for the training athletes were already completed as part of [...]
Olympian Bill Crothers’ Connection with Chris Chapman and Derek Virgo
“Healthy active kids become healthy active adults.” This quotation is from former school trustee and Olympic medalist Bill Crothers, who was instrumental in creating a public school in Markham Ontario that supports student-athletes like no other. Supporting the students includes having a full-time S&C coach as part of the faculty. I met with Mr. Crothers over hot chocolate to discuss the genesis of the high school named in his honour, Bill Crothers Secondary School (BCSS). I also met with the school’s first S&C coach Chris Chapman, and the current S&C coach Derek Virgo, who shared their answers to 4 questions [...]
Nova Scotia’s Shauna Forsyth
This is an interview on behalf of the CSCA with someone I have not met yet but had heard about. S&C is not big in the Atlantic region at the high school level. Most athletes or teams would go to private centers or contract someone for a few hours or search out a volunteer to run sessions. Shauna works at a private school in Nova Scotia and uniquely carved out a position for herself and is making it work as many of us have in our field. CSCA: Were you hired as a designated S&C Coach without additional teaching [...]
Saskatchewan’s Warren Gilroy
Warren is a lifelong sport and fitness enthusiast. While growing up in Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Warren was a lifeguard and competed in a variety of sports including volleyball, basketball, track and field, curling and badminton. Warren’s passion for volleyball turned into a 2-year debut with the University of Regina Cougar Men’s Volleyball Team. Following his intervarsity stint, Warren committed his time to coaching. Warren has coached many volleyball teams over the past few years, both as a head coach as well as an assistant coach. Warren believes that every individual is capable of living an active healthy lifestyle no matter what [...]
