January 12-13

Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

Friday, January 12:

2:30PM Welcome, overview

3:00PM Play as understanding: the what, why, and when, with Chris Ruffolo

Breaking down the concept of play as interaction - between a person and a thing, between two persons, and between a person and a concept.  Audience members will walk away from this session with both a greater appreciation of what play offers, how to better create conditions for it to thrive, and how play can be used as an expression/ application of learning.   

4:15PM Yoga for performance: Using the concepts from Let Me Introduce

You, with Dawn Ross

How can you utilize concepts from yoga to maximize performance in dynamic sports such as skiing, hiking, or biking? In this session, you will learn:

  • How common yoga poses can be used to emphasize rotations and mechanisms specific to athletics and sport

  • Ways to shift focus and attention so that yoga can enhance performance by understanding the underlying principles of dynamic movement

5:30PM Mindfulness and its applications to coaching and performance, with

Jenn Pilotti

You will learn:

  • What the term mindfulness means

  • How to identify unwanted distractions and reduce them

  • How to determine what your goals are with your instructions and how to assess whether you are being successful

  • Different types of instructions and how they impact a client or athlete’s motor output

6:45PM Dinner, no host

CEUs:

1.2 NSCA

1.2 NASM

Saturday, January 13:

9:00AM Windlass mechanism review with Adarian Barr

You will learn:

  • What the windlass mechanism is

  • How it works in the body

  • How it coordinates movement

  • Practical application of the concepts to dynamic movements such as running, jumping, and walking

10:15AM Yoga for performance: from the feet up, with Dawn Ross

Do your clients or athletes complain of hip stiffness or a lack of hip mobility? Does hip stretching appear to be a temporary solution? During this session, you will learn:

  • How to load the feet and use them to initiate movement and how that translates to the rest of the leg

  • How the feet and toes move the hips and what happens throughout the rest of the body when the feet and toes aren’t participating enough

  • Ways to utilize these concepts to reduce the sensation of tightness in order to access dynamic range of motion in the hips and legs

11:30AM Weight room strategies to support athletic competition—how does it correspond? With Matt Hank

Understanding which strength and power movements have the greatest transfer to on-field/on-court performance.

  • Learn how to train various movement mechanisms in the weight room that correspond to competition.

  • Are there additional “buckets” that should be incorporated into the training routines for team sport athletes?

  • Find out why accessory drills and exercises do not have to be so general.

12:45PM Lunch, no host

1:50PM Play as understanding part 2: the how, with Chris Ruffolo

Using both prepared examples AND live audience proposed suggestions, Chris will breakdown multiple methods of how play can be a tremendous source of inquiry and investigation.  She will also address the many biases that infiltrate the process, as well as offer various perspectives on what is actually happening and how to use it to learn, apply, and adapt.

3:05PM Learning and motor skill acquisition: how coaching creates the environment for learning and success, with Jenn Pilotti

You will learn:

  • The three stages of motor learning

  • How to create the space necessary for processing, application, and refinement of motor skills

  • How input from the environment determines the output (including auditory, visual, and kinesthetic information)

4:20PM Strategies to develop team speed with Matt Hank

What are universal movement mechanisms that enhance game speed?

  • How do you train these mechanisms and integrate them into patterns, drills, and exercises?

  • Learn why traditional sprint drills are limited and what you can do instead to maximize movement capabilities.

  • We’ll cover the few instructions that make the biggest changes to sprint mechanics for a team setting.

5:35PM Training post Achilles rupture: putting rotation back in the system, with Adarian Barr

You will learn:

  • Strategies to put rotation back into the system after an Achilles rupture by using rotation to create elasticity

  • How to re-establish the windlass mechanism (which is lost) post Achilles rupture

  • How to utilize the concept of rotation to return to dynamic movement, sport, and play

6:45PM Wrap-up, no host dinner