Multi-Sport Athletes

Recently, I did a paper in my LA class about the benefits of being a multi-sport athlete. This is something that I am very passionate about, and I guarantee that if you were to argue me on this, I would win every time. There are very clear benefits to being a multi-sport athlete, for example, it makes you so much stronger. I play three sports, and I am 10 pounds away from breaking the hang clean record at my school. If you think about it, a multi-sport athlete is using different muscles in very different ways. For me, track makes my legs strong and fast for softball and volleyball, volleyball improves my vertical to help with long jump, and softball helps hand eye coordination for volleyball. It all works in a big circle.
Another reason to be a multi-sport athlete is to prevent yourself from getting a overuse injury. Way too many young people are becoming injured because they spend too much time participating in one sport. Torn rotator cuffs and torn ACLs are ruining young athletes. If you focus on just one sport, it puts the strain on one part of your body. For example, athletes who only play softball are more likely to tear their rotator cuff. A girl on my team has a lot of little tears cause all she does is softball. Playing multiple sports spreads out the strain.
Lastly, it prevents an athlete from burning out. There are many young kids who get tired of the sports they are participating in because it's all they do. Take a break from your favorite sport, and when you come back to it, you'll be more ready than ever and you can be excited for what's to come.

A lot of high level coaches agree with this philosophy. Gayle Blevins, my hitting coach and fourth most winning record in NCAA Softball history, would rather have multi-sport athletes. She agrees that it makes them even more strong and it makes them diverse. Another example is Urban Meyer, the football coach at Ohio State. Out of all of his football players, two of them were one sport athletes. Obviously he proved that multi-sport athletes are better because they won the championship. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what will.

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The importance of practice

Practicing is the most important thing to do when playing a sport. If you don't practice, how will you get better? "Practice makes perfect" right? Well, it's the truth. You don't necessarily have to be practicing with your team or a coach either, you can work on things on your own time. I just heard a lecture about how the best coach you have is yourself, and practicing by yourself has proven to make you better than if you practice with a team or coach. Practicing something over and over again, the right way, gives you a muscle memory and you don't have to think about what your doing, it just comes naturally. But, be careful because if you practice something the wrong way, it is very hard to fix it. It is said that fixing a bad habit takes at least 500 reps of doing it the correct way. Save yourself some time and make sure you do it the correct way!

An example I can give of practicing on your own time is simply hitting off of a tee for softball or baseball. There are so many different drills you can do, and you can simply work on pitch location like, inside tee, outside tee, and even just down the middle. For volleyball, you can pepper with your parents or a sibling, and even set to yourself off of a wall. I used to do that all the time when I was younger. Make your dad go outside with you and toss around a football. Work on your footwork in front of a mirror. There are so many things you can do on your own. There are even things you can do for your confidence. I have a hitting coach, Gayle Blevins (super awesome probably my favorite person in the universe) who had me write the word "winner" on post it notes and put them in obvious locations around my house so I could be reminded that I was a winner. You can write goals on a sheet of paper and put it somewhere that you always look, so you can be reminded of what you're striving for. You can put anything you need to learn about your sport on a piece of paper and put somewhere you always look so that you can learn it while doing everyday activities like brushing your teeth. Be creative and do something on your own.

Practicing on your own is very important, but practicing with a team and a coach is very imperative too. You need to work on your team chemistry (something that is HUGELY important, trust me), and just overall skills work. Your coaches help you with your technique and make you the best you can be. Your teammates also help you out with technique. Some sports, you can't go without a team practice. For example, if you didn't practice volleyball with your team, nothing would go right. You wouldn't know any play sets, your setter won't be used to how the hitters like their set, the passers will be uncomfortable with each other, and there is absolutely zero communication. Communication is key to almost every single team sport there is. Another benefit to practicing with your team, is you just get to know them better. It helps when a team is very tightly knit.

So, hopefully I got my point across. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! It really is the most beneficial thing you can do for yourself as an athlete.                

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Indoor Softball

Since I am from Iowa, we can't play softball year round. We are known for pretty nasty winters (which they are...), and it lasts from about November to a little bit into March. Someone was pretty inventive though, and thought of the brilliant idea of playing indoors! It is completely weird the first time you do it, but it's actually kind of fun! It's exactly like outdoor softball, but there's walls and ceilings. It depends on the tournament you are going to, but most indoor tournaments, you are aloud to slide on the turf. Also, some tournaments count it as a foul ball if the ball hits the ceiling.
One thing that is tough to get acquired to is the bouncy floor. On a softball field, unless the dirt is packed down real tight, the ball doesn't bounce that high. In an indoor place, you could bounce a softball off of the ground like a bouncy ball. It is spectacular if you are a slap hitter (which I am yay), but it is absolutely terrible if you are fielding it. Also, sometimes if you hit a line drive into the outfield, it can bounce over the makeshift fences. That turns it into an automatic double. This can be a bummer if you are fast and it could have possibly been a triple, but it is a life saver to the slower people who would have otherwise only gotten only a single.
Another thing to get used to is the ceilings. If you don't pay attention and the ball is hit up into the air, it could actually be potentially dangerous. When the ball hits the ceiling, it kind of just ricochets all different directions, and rather fast too. It can be a good thing too, if the ceiling is low enough, it can stop homeruns and save the pitchers butt! One of my teammates would have definitely gotten a homerun last weekend when we played had the ceiling not been there!
My favorite part about indoor is sliding on the turf. For me, I steal almost every time I get on base, and I use a slide by instead of a regular pop up slide. It's the most fun thing to do because when you do a slide by, you purposely try to slide past the base, but at the last second, you grab on to the base and flip over on to your stomach. Fun in any kind of situation, indoor or outdoor. But when you are indoor, you just fly all over the place. The first time I did it I flung by the base so fast that I took the base with me! Good thing or I would have been out!
A lot of people don't enjoy playing indoor, but it's a time to get all the kinks out and get ready for the softball season. Try some new things, and just try to have fun with it!
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Image: http://archive.inside.iastate.edu/2011/0217/0217.php

Too Cold for Comfort!

Since it's track season, and its February, I feel it's important to address the need for stretching. Stretching is important in any conditions, but it's extra important when it's cold outside. If you think about it, it makes sense. People use the phrase "warm up" when stretching out, and if it's warm outside, there is not much warming that your muscles need. That's why it's always easier to play sports in stifling heat rather than the freezing cold.
For a runner, it is a good idea to start out with a run. Get your muscles moving. For my track team, we run a mile on our track, but since its February and in Iowa it snows so much I want to cry, we have to run in our school parking lot because the track is covered. Usually we run for about 10 minutes.
After we run, we do all sorts of different stretches. Most of them are dynamic, because you need to get your muscles nice and loose by moving them around. First we start with hamstring and quad stretches. There are many different stretches for these muscles. Knee pulls, toe pulls, toy soldiers, walking RDL's, lunges, side to side lunges, and Spiderman's are my favorite. Then, you get into the running stretches. These work on your running form, like high knees and pushing off of the ball of your foot. "A" skip works on picking up your knees, and if you do them correctly, it stretches out your hamstrings. "C" skip is my favorite. It progresses off of "A" skip, but instead of just putting your foot down, you kick it out and put it down real fast. This also stretches hamstrings. Quick step is very similar to "C" skip, you just add running in. Then there is anklings and straight legs. These are practically the same thing, you just bounce off of the ball of your foot, but in anklings, you are aloud to slightly bend your legs. Obviously in straight legs, you have to keep your legs straight.
These are just a few different stretches you can do, but I highly suggest you do something before you start a run in the cold weather. It is very uncomfortable, and there is a very high chance you can pull a muscle, which believe me, is no fun at all. Be smart and stretch!
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Image: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/stretches

Qualifiers: soak it all in

The best part about the club volleyball season is going to the qualifier tournaments. For those of you who don't know, a qualifier is a tournament that if your team does well enough, you can qualify for Nationals. These qualifier tournaments are the most amazing things. You walk in to these giant convention centers and there is just court after court. There are like 100 of them! If that's not cool enough, there's venders set out all around. You can get really cool things like headbands, clothes, and I've even seen phone cases and random stuff like that. Going to these tournaments just makes me feel like a professional. 

These tournaments are incredibly tough to win. It depends on the division you play in, but all of them are hard. I'm not sure what all of the divisions are, but I do know that the top division is called the open division. In this division, you have to be super really absolutely fantastic otherwise you're going to lose almost every game. Yay for my team because we are playing in the open division for most of the qualifiers we go to. We have to be on our game! 

I wish that I could have been on good teams every year I play volleyball because the qualifiers are the best part and I haven't been to one since I was like 13. That makes me super excited for next weekend because my team is going to our first qualifier in Minneapolis. It's a 3 day tournament and we have to do good on the first day for any of it to count. Wish us luck!

Let the running begin...

The time has come!!!! Yes you guessed it, track season is almost here! Exactly 23 days until first practice! How do we feel about this? I'm feelin a little shaky, considering there's still snow on the ground, but I am very excited.

Last year, the season at my school was a little rough. We have over 2000 people in our school and yet only 30 girls go out for track. Doesn't seem right does it? So if you didn't already guess, that means we're lacking in the speed department. We only had 1 girl go to Drake Relays this year and my freshman year I had 3 events go, plus like 15 more events.

Track is an individual sport, but it's also a very team dependent sport too. If your not fast enough to make it to State in open events, your whole team has to be on point. One messes up hand off and all your hopes and dreams are over (maybe I'm exaggerating that!). 

I am dreading the first, maybe 2 weeks or so of season because those are the days where your getting back into running everyday  and your legs feel like they are going to fall off. This happens to me every year! Last year was a little worse because I'm vitamin D deficient and apparently if you don't have enough vitamin D in your body, your muscles can't get rid of lactic acid (the stuff that makes it sore). It was a terrible time! I recommend taking ice baths, they actually work. It is terribly hard to make yourself do them, but it's worth it I promise! Once you force yourself to get in, stay in for like 10 minutes. Your legs will eventually go numb so it won't be as bad!

Practicing is a hard thing to do for track because if you're not already fast, there's not much practicing can do to help you. Plus, practices at our school are outrageous. One day last year, we did 17 200's at 100%. I felt like I was going to die! In the long run, I think those kind of days paid off because we turned our season around and ended up bringing 18 girls to the State Track Meet. Always a really fun experience. It is very important for every runner, may you be distance or sprinter, to work on your fast twitch and your slow twitch muscles. Alternate days of practicing hard sprinting and days of longer strides. For sprinters, long strides are not as important unless you are a 400 runner. 

Hopefully you are all ready to get runnin, because first day of practice is right around the corner!

Volleyball: refing and scoring clinic

Worst part about club volleyball season, the refing and scoring clinic. My team was just told that we needed to get certified. One of my teammates actually wrote a blog post about this too! It takes a solid 4 hours to complete, and you already know how to do all of it! Or maybe you know none of it and it's just a lot of rules you don't understand. But push through it, you need to be certified to play club.
Fortunately, you can now do your clinics online, when I was younger, you used to have to actually show up at a lecture and listen to someone speak about refing and scoring. REALLY boring. But, you didn't have to take a test at the end. Now, after you've watched the lesson, you have to pass a quiz about it by at least 90%. Fortunately, you can take a pre-quiz and if you pass it, you get to skip the whole video. That saves a good 20 minutes! Unfortunately, the pre-quiz has like all these trick questions and its just terribly confusing. You probably end up having to listen to the whole video.
Thank goodness for me I passed 3 of the pre-quizzes and didn't waste and hour of my life!
They really should make the videos more interesting because it's very boring. The voices in the video are very monotone and slow and who wants to listen to that on a weekend when you have to listen to that all week at school? NO ONE! 
Now that I've done all of my complaining, I do understand why we have to do it every year. It surprises me a lot how much I actually forget from one season to the next. It's a good refresher. Also, some people desperately need the help. I have had teams ref for me that have absolutely no clue what they are doing. What I'm wondering is how the heck did you pass the clinics! It also is really awesome when you are refing and you make this super weird call (like an illegal block, I had never seen one EVER until last year!) and your like , yeah I did know that! They should really make the parents take the clinics too so they wouldn't haggle the refs so often. Parents, settle down, you have no clue what's going on!
Yeah I know it's the most boring 4 hours of your life, but sit tight, it'll help you in the long run!
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