Swissball exercise: lower limbs

These are some exercise for the lower limbs to which combine the use of elastic band and dumbbells.


Swissball exercise: lower limbs

Greetings

Monday motivation: Haka

Monday motivation: "Rocky III"

Something about goalkeeper!

Until now I never talked about  the training of goalkeeper in this blog, so when I found this movie on the web, I decided to share it. This movie contains many exercise for these role that, as we all know, needs a very specific training both in tecnical and physical context. Some exercise are very common but there are some ideas on which think!

What do you think?

Greetings

Monday motivation: "Braveheart"

Monday motivation: "Rocky 4 hearts on fire"

Swissball exercise: "rotations"

This is a new movie on the exercise with swissball. Today I'll show you some exercise to train our body for the rotations, an important action in our and many other sports. Obviously these are simple exercise from which starting to increase the load of training with the use of dumbbells, weight on ankle and wirst, elastic band, etc...

Rotations

Greetings

Monday motivation: "miracle"

Swissball exercise: "core"

Like I promised in the post on proprioceptive exercise, this is the first of some movie on the exercise to do with this amazing tool: the swissball. Obviously is very difficult classified the exercise on the basis of which muscle district is activated; the peculiarity of the exercise made with the swissball is the fact that activate more then only one muscle district at the same time. For organization reasons, I tried to make a subdivision!
Today I show you some exercise for the strenghtening of the muscles of "core", though with almost all exercise with swissball, these muscles are activated.
These are only some examples of exercise but on each of these is possible to create many variations, if we know which parameters and characteristcs need to modified...is the good part of be athletic trainer!!

Greetings

Monday motivation: "never break down"

Proprioceptive exercise: serve really? and which exercise?

Today is becoming a common practice in the handball fields, but also in other team sports, see athlete make exercise on proprioceptive tablets, mats, bearings or anything that can give an instability at the level of ankles. Seems that in recent time it is impossible play sport without exercise with instability. Personally I think that this thing must be analyzes before “sanctify” or “demonize” a training method.

First of all it is important to underlined that the instability to insert on an exercise it isn’t only one, low and applied to feet, but exist also a medium and a high one (respectively at the level of pelvis and shoulders). Surely should be used all this three type of instability…but which is the best? A question that I made is: these tablets, mats, ecc…lead to a specific training? The answer is NO! I don’t think that during an handball match the floor suddenly could inclined or become instable, e this reasoning is supported by the scientific studies on this topic, in particular those of the research group of Bhem D.G. that has emphasized that reflexes stimulated on a proprioceptive tablet are different respect those that are used during an action on a stable surface: in the case of an instable surface the reflex activated is called “tilting reflex” that is different from that used by the body when is on a stable surface that is called “righting reflex”.

Thus, we train a reflex that during handball match is not stimulated. Furthermore was demonstrated that make an exercise on instable surface, like a squat in the picture for example, reduced the output of the power and thus doesn’t permit the better training for the athlete…and I think that increase the risk of injury during training…isn’t it?

 

With all this I don’t want to say that is inadvisable do proprioceptive exercise, rather I believe that are exercise very important in our sport where ankles and knees are stressed in a maximal way, but I think that these drills should be view like a training for the prevention of injury and not like training for example of the power and strength also with the use of overloads.

In my opinion these drills should take less space in the process of training respect the custom of nowadays, leaving more time for drills that include a different instability, more specific like at the level of pelvis or shoulders. If we think about the specific actions of handball, often player have to deal with sudden lost of stability during fly action due to a contact with an opponent, at level of pelvis or upper limbs, and player have to restore immediately his balance. Tools useful to train these abilities are waterbag, sandbag, elastic band, swissball o simply the help of a team mate.

Talking about the swissball, I think that is a fantastic tools and that could be used for many functional exercises for team sports; for this reason in the next week I’ll spend some post on the use of this tools.

I hope to give you useful information about this topic sometimes little known.

Greetings

Monday motivation: "any given sunday"

A new weekly appointment!

From the next week, inspired by a fantastic american blog, every monday will be edited a post called "monday motivation": a post dedicated to pieces of movie about the motivation in sport. Obviously will be personal tastes about movie to see before the match to charge ourselves maximally...thus, suggestions for future post will be welcome.


Greetings

An interest movie on which we can discuss!

Searching interesting movie on you tube in my leisure time I founded this movie about physical training of the Croatia Zagreb. I decided to share it on the blog because I think it could give interesting ideas and because I am agree with the most part of the exercise and training tools.

First of all I am very happy to see the use of equipment that aren’t exercise machine of gym, very expensive and not so profitable for the improvement of the performance; furthermore I believe that the use of free body exercise or dumbbells, barbells and elastic band is the better and cheaper way to develop the strength in the open-skills sports like handball.

Then I’d like to analyze some exercise in particular:

-          I judge fantastic the surface at the minute 0:30 where players sliding for the development of the strength of lower limb for the stops and restart in the change of direction; I’d like very much try them and understand with which materials they are made

-          Optimal the sprint with the anterior load to push…very functional  but I prefer that the bar to push is more higher to reproduce in the better way the real situation of play…I think itsn’t so difficult assemble a bar at the chest level

-          Very interesting the work-out made with sprint with elastic band and overall with parachute that allows the immediately detachment of the load for a successive normal sprint

-          Simple but very useful the exercise in couple using the body weight of the team mate for load at the minute 8:58…I think that are exercise really effective (increasing of the performance, economy and facility of the training tools)

-          Very useful the exercise for the muscles of the “core” made with the platform with wheels (minute 2:38), however are exercise that need the attention on the posture of the players

-          I believe that the use of TRX (minute 3:16) is very important in a shoulder injury prevention point of view

-          I am a supporters of the exercises made with the barbell like at the minutes 6:15 and 7:18…allow free of movements with a adjustable load

-          Very important the exercises for the hamstrings muscle in an eccentric contraction like the Nordic hamstring made at minute 7:02

These are my opinions…I hope to have others from you…in this way you grow professionally

Greetings

Pre-match warm up: another real example!

Thanks to the kind collaboration of the colleague Simone Lugli, we can discuss about a complete and real example of pre-match warm-up made by the top-level team: in this post I propose the warm-up of the Chambery Savoie.
My reflections on this are always the same...in general I am not agree with this warm-up, althought more "organized" of the Barcellona's ones analyzed in the previous post...however I am wating for your opinions.

Greetings

Pre-match warm-up: discuss about a real example!

Talking about warm-up before the official match, we need to be warning about what we said, for the importance of this moment for research the optimal conditions both phisical and psichological to meet the match. In my opinion the warm-up could be guide by the atletic trainer or, in absence of him , by the coach, and could be subdivided in this way:

-       A first free part where players can make everything they want, with or without ball, for a duration of 2-3’ (serves to the mental preparation for the game)

-       A second part guided by the atletic trainer with joint mobility exercise, increasing gradually the intensity, for a duration of 5-6’

-       Another free parte with the players that make passes in pairs for 3-4’

-       A part that I defined “cognitive”, because needs also an attentive effort by the players, like a mini-game in the nine-meters area with the players divided into two teams (5-6’)

-       A phase composed by exercise of high intensity but with a very short duration like gaits of quickness for feet or brief sprints (2-3’)

-       Shoots for the warm-up of the goalkeeper and shoots from the individual positions (7-8’)

The total duration of the warm-up could be about of 25’ and this could be composed by already knonw exercise and place without interruptions.

This is my opinion, but now I propose to you a concrete example of the warm-up of two teams of the world elite like Barcellona and Chambery Savoie; this two movie were give to me by my friend Simone Lugli that had personally make the shooting…and for this I thank him very much!

After have seen these two warm-up I thought and I have made some reflections. First of all, thuogh they represent the best of our sport I have to criticize some parts of these two warm-up:

-       Both teams make a initial warm-up totally free and I think that, despite of the experience of these professional athlet, thay need an expert of “human motion” guide.

-       Both teams makes some stretching before the phase with the ball, and I think that this is a waste of time usable in a different way, also for the fact that don’t exist scientific evidences to support the stretching in th warm-up both for an optimization of performance and prevention of injury; it is important train the flexibility and muscle elasticity during the week and the season, but the warm-up before the game is not the right time

-       Missing totally a phase that stimulate the attention of the players that, in my pinion, is fundamental in the pre-match; even for few minutes, it is very important stimulate players with exercise that aren’t monotone but that includes unexpected and the needs of take decisions in a brief period (like in the match)

After this analysis I have to underlined however that is very difficult modify the habits of experienced players and overall in an importan moment like the pre-match, but I think that is our duty inform players about the right methods of warm-up with the aim of optimize the performance during the match.

I am wating for your opinions

Greetengs

An Example of integrated drill with elastic band

The movie that I propose in this post is an example of integrated team drill with the use of ball and elastic band. Players make 8 ripetition of the exercise, recovering 1'30'' between the repetitions. Goal-keeper make low save (3x4 repetitions) both right and left and then high save (3x4 repetitions) both right and left. Obviously, every repetitions, players change the place with the aim of alterning jumped run with sprint and pass in elevation.

I hope that this post was interesting for you.

Greetings

A common goal: improve the ball velocity in handball throw

Surely one of the most important goal that athletic trainer and coach have is the improve of ball velocity of  throws of their players, maintaining or improve the precisions of these. Surely the scientific article that I propose in this post is very interesting for the training of handball throw, analyzing the differences of improvments of this important parameters with two different type of training: variable training and differential training.
Despite of the limit of this study, due to the small sample, the indication given can help coach and athletic trainer emphysizing the importance of a differential training of handball throw with difference variations applicable to this technical gesture; in the complete text of this article is also reported an interesting table with the possible variations to teach the players for the differential training.
Results of this study underlined the possible improvments that can be obtained in the parameters of handball throw with a long period of differential training.
I invite you to read the complete text here, becuase deserves our interest.
There are also others articles on this topic and in the next days I'll present them to you.

Greetings

Browsing the web...an interesting tool!

Browsing on youtube, I found a very interesting movie that advertises a very useful tool; I already used many of these exercises simply using the barbell framed in an angle of the wall (in particular for goalkeeper...I hope to post a movie of these as soon as possible), but this tools seems to be more pratic and safe...very good!

Sure this equipment satisfies the concepts of multiplanar and versatility that I really "support" for the strenght exercises, combining the work out of lower limb with work out of core, trunk and upper limb. 

Greetengs

Training with elastic band

Regarding the possibility of spend some money for equipment like gps for the assess of internal load, discussed in the previous post, I prefer use the CR100, TQR and VAS scale and spend money for buy fantastic equipment like the elastic band that I suggest to you in this movie.
Are very useful and above all versatile, being able to use in an infinite number of drills stimulating muscles of lower limbs during specific movements of handball like change of direction, brief sprint and jumps. For the continuous traction, these elastic bands permits to work also on hamstring muscles in an eccentric contraction, important thing in a injury prevention program.
Furthermore with these equipment the athletic trainer can express their fantasy!

Obviously the part with ball can be expanded with the partecipation of all the handball team during training.

Internal load

As all we know, the work that athletes make during training or match can be defined in terms of Internal and external load. I don’t dwell on the explanation of these concepts but I would like to spend some words on the evaluation of what really interests us:  the internal load, what we change in the athlete’s organism, his/her individual response to train. The assess of this parameter has been always subjected to several debates, in particular on the use or not of some methodologies: some people use the heart rate analysis, others the blood lactate, the GPS, or others new and expensive technologies like video camera match analysis. First of all I would like to underline the fact that by now the “famous” heart rate frequencies as a perfect index to evaluate the internal load are losing their value in favour of other technologies like GPS, capable of calculating the acceleration of athletes; following the last scientific researches,  the investigation of acceleration seems to give a more exactly parameter to assess the energy consumption (Di Prampero et al.).

After that I would like to bring your attention on the fact that we do not always have expensive technologies like gps (which also not always receive the satellite signal in our sports hall) or telemtry heart rate monitors, thus I think that the best way to assess internal load, validated, cheap and quick is the investigation of perceived exertion.

The Borg’s scale is the most famous scale about the perceived exertion and it has been demonstrated its close relationship with real internal load. I believe that the detection of RPE with the CR10 or CR100 scale is convenient to modulate and monitor training sessions and matches, to have always an index about what our players are doing, to calculate in this way the training load.

Personally with the CR100 scale I also use the TQR scale for the assess of the recovery and the VAS scale for muscle soreness evaluation, administering these to my athletes in a fast, cheap and simple way. Obviously, to have true data, the administration parameters of the scales validated in the scientific studies on this topic must respect and overall use the paper format and character of write used in this studies, otherwise the method loses its efficacy.

In conclusion, in my opinion, it is better to return to the old pen and paper rather than having millions of data given by an expensive technology that probably isn’t so precise respect its cost.

I invite you to express opinions on this subject

Greetings

What is it?

Hi everybody, I'm Matteo Corvino, team sports athletic trainer specialized in handball and soccer. You're probably asking about the reason of a specific blog on athletic training in handball, or perhaps not, or maybe you're thinking: "interesting "!!...or maybe not! However is it clear that the aim of this blog is spread useful information for coaches and athletic trainer of this fantastic sport.
This blog has not been done to teach other, in a presumption way, but just want to be a way to share knowledge learned on the handball fields and especially in university envoironment, and maybe get advices and opinions from other experts of this sector...to create a kind of exchange within this small comunity of "handball sick"!
Why especially university envoironment? because after having completed my 5 years of studies in Rome, I decided to undertake a PhD in Slovenia, at the faculty of Sport of University of Ljubljana. Here there is a specific scinetific laboratory on handball.
After this brief introduction of myself and my purpose, I leave you and I invite you to the first post of this new, and I hope interesting, portal of comparison for who want to discuss about handball.


Greetings


Matteo Corvino