NCYG Strikes Gold With StrengthTek
The National Capital Young Guns have struck gold with world renowned strength and fitness trainer Lorne Goldenberg. We are very proud to have Lorne and his company, Strength Tek, as a sponsor.
- Lorne is an Award-winning strength and conditioning coach and best-selling author
- Lorne is the owner of Strength Tek Fitness & Wellness Consultants, a corporate fitness company that has provided wellness and fitness to over 20,000 people across North America for over 30 years
- He has also owned Ottawa’s first athlete training facility for 18 years, The Athletic Conditioning Center (ACC)
- He holds an honours degree in Physical education from the University of Ottawa
- He is certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
- He also a Certified Exercise Physiologist (CEP) through the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology.
- Lorne is a published co-author of the book Strength Ball Training, published by Human Kinetics, selling over 100,000 copies in six languages worldwide
Throughout his career, Lorne has been sought out by professional and prospective players in Olympic Sports, NHL, OHL, NFL and CFL because he brings over 30 years of experience training athletes at a high-performance level. Lorne has recently worked with Ben Roethlisberger for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Recently, Coach Young had the opportunity to sit down with Lorne and ask a few questions.
Q. A three-part question here—how do you prepare as an athlete in sport to prevent injury? What types of stretching do you recommend prior to activity and after? Are there any negative impacts to stretching improperly such as static stretching prior to a practise?
A. It is difficult to prepare an athlete for injury prevention, although there are many programs out there that indicate it does. The best method of preparing an athlete is to utilize a progressive strength training program that covers off the fundamentals of strength such as the squat, lunge, twisting, pressing and pulling movements.
As it relates to stretching, this would be counterproductive before activity as research has demonstrated that static stretching blunts the ability of the body to express power and elasticity in the most efficient manner.
Using a dynamic style warmup prior to sport or strength training, can better prepare the body for the work you want it to do. Movements such as slow walking lunges with side bends, monster walks, lateral walking hip drops, and lateral walking crossovers are examples that can bring about mobility and flexibility to the body. Follow that up with skipping movements front and lateral, shuffles, carioca, short accelerations, and hops will result in an athlete who is prepared to compete or workout.
Q. How can young athletes—specifically female athletes—get ahead in training? What do you recommend?
A. There are no fundamental changes or secret sauces in training for a female athlete. To get ahead, they must do strength training 2–3 times per week, do energy system training 2–3 times per week and practice their sport as the schedule dictates.
Q. In a sport like flag football where you are making a lot of cuts and lateral movements, what can be done by athletes to strengthen their bodies?
A. As I said previously in my answer to the first question, its teaching the body to handle load through strength training—at that point, introducing low level plyometrics and agility work will help young women prepare for flag football. The issue seems to be that too many people get fooled into thinking that the program which looks great on social media is the one they should be doing. Coaches in my profession know and understand that “BORING Fundamentals” is what most young athletes require.
Lorne has generously offered to create a general program for the Young Gun players to implement post-season to help the athletes’ strength and conditioning in the tapering times within their year long training plan.
Thank you, Lorne, for your generous sponsorship of the National Capital Young Guns and your work to support our athletes with your general program during the off-season.
