We often say that an athlete must be ready for anything, at any time, and in any place.
The core of every athlete is decision making, which is why our holistic focus trains an athlete to make creative, accurate, and fast athletic decisions, with both sides of their brain.
Using a unique combination of exercises and drills, both functional and outside-the-box, while focusing on correct form and “in the core” movement, we specialize in helping athletes be ready all the time, in any place, for anything.
Individual Training
Our premier individual training program has a track record of proven results with hundreds of athletes over 20+ years and the last 15 years along the front range. We specialize in crafting the training program specifically for each athlete and their particular sports focus and needs. One of our goals is to educate the athlete why we do what we do. We believe this best equips them not only for great performance but to be a leader in life.
Your Training Experience: The ITC pyramid
Our unique training and methodology teaches and trains athletes how to be in the core and thus eliminate all the obstacles that keep them from peak performance. The flow of each session takes them through the In The Core Pyramid beginning with:
- Whole-brain decision making
- Movement form, muscle elongation and activation
- Neuromuscular firing and athletic response
- Speed, strength and power training
- The conditioning effect
The In The Core Pyramid, trained once or twice per week, results in increasing core and body strength, foot and body speed and agility, quick decision-making skills, our athletes quickly find their performance separates them from the pack.
Each session will train the entire body, with specific focuses given to the individuals “targets” for that day. The exercises work the muscles in partial and full range of motion in positions that the athlete may or may not be used to being in. This increases the muscles’ ability to perform in normal and abnormal positions and movements. This increased demand and new level of all-around athleticism can benefit any specific motion. Our flow of training pyramid helps to explain this.
We consider flexibility a big part of being able to perform and avoid excessive soreness and injury. Our variety of stretching exercises will be taught. And manual stretching is applied when needed. This is to increase the muscles range of motion and elasticity which is essential for athleticism, injury prevention, and recovery.
With a Focus on the Whole Brain
Every athletic decision by the body begins in the brain, travels down the spine into the core muscles, and goes out to the rest of the body. In order to perform at any sport, there are countless individual decisions beginning in the brain. The more of the athlete’s brain that is involved in making these decisions, the greater the resulting outcome.
When we train you as an athlete, we don’t just consider your muscles; we go right to the core of the matter, your brain. We give you exercises that develop the power, connectedness, and coordination of these crucial pathways in your brain, teaching you to utilize your right brain and enhancing the connection between your two hemispheres.
This inside-out approach is the foundation of In the Core. Every athlete is challenged to perform and master whole-brain-building drills and skills. These skills are what will truly allow you to soar beyond your expectations and break through the limits of your previous peak performance.
Fired Up
Neuromuscular firing is essential to performance. We train the point of attack of each sports skills through our “twitch” program. This focused training brings a greater level of communication ability and thus execution of the skills. Here are some examples …
- The first three steps of a sprint
- Take off acceleration
- bat, stick, racket, swings
- Throwing, kicking, shooting speeds
- Jumping speed
You Need Core Strength and Athleticism
Yes, I said core athleticism. We train the core to be the leader of the body and thus it keeps the external extremities in their right place. It’s one thing to have increased the strength of the core and a whole other to have an athletic core much like a gymnast. At In The Core, the core is trained just like any other muscle through our training pyramid.
Core strength training differs from many traditional weight training routines by working both the lower back and abdominals in unison. Since the whole body works as a unit (very few muscle groups are isolated), and all athletic movements incorporate the core in some way, our focus on core strength training will increase overall athleticism.
Athletes find that our focus on core strength enables …
- Greater efficiency of movement
- Improved body control and balance
- Increased power output from both the core musculature and peripheral muscles such as the shoulders, arms, and legs
- Reduced risk of injury (the core muscles act as shock absorbers for jumps and rebounds etc.)
- Improved balance and stability
- Increased confidence in their ability to perform a desired skill
- Improved athletic performance
Need for Speed
SPEED BEGINS WITH PROPER RUNNING FORM
Most athletes have never been taught how to run or move correctly, if at all. That means by transforming this area weakness into a strength, they can operate at their full potential.
Running involves little active muscle power. Much of the work of running is done through passive mechanical processes, in which tendons and muscles act through elastic rebound, much like springs uncoiling. The uncoiling delivers the power to swing your legs. What limits top speed, then, is the minimum time you take to swing your leg into position for the next step. What determines how fast you can run is how fast you’re going when you reach that limit. And this means you can train to run faster.
The keys to running faster aren’t mysterious. To increase your speed, you need to increase two things: your stride length and your stride frequency. Length is the distance you cover in one stride; frequency is the number of times your feet push off the ground during a given unit of time.
Fortunately, your stride length and frequency aren’t preprogrammed attributes like the color of your eyes or the shape of your nose—there are ways to increase both. But you shouldn’t consciously try to increase your stride length or frequency the next time you go out for a run. That effort could quickly exhaust your muscles and cause injury.
Instead, we have developed a series of drills that train the legs and core muscles in all phases of the run should be used.
In short, our athletes learn how to run and move faster in their sports.
Efficiently Move Your Body
AGILITY
An athlete needs to be able to effectively move their own body. And the ability to change directions and body positions require balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and power. Agility is the ability to move quickly and change directions while maintaining control and balance.
Simply put agility is: Mobility + Ability.
This control and balance begins and is greatly affected by the strength and condition of the core muscles—a key focus in every training session.
Plyometrics
BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN STRENGTH AND POWER
Plyometric training for athletic performance is a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements and improve the functions of the nervous system, generally for the purpose of improving performance in a specific sport. Plyometric movements cause a muscle to be loaded and then contracted in rapid sequence, and it increases the speed and force of muscular contractions. This training uses the strength, elasticity, and innervation of the muscle and surrounding tissues to enable the athlete to jump higher, run faster, throw farther, or hit harder, depending on the desired training goal.
By incorporating plyometrics into our training sessions, our athletes have discovered…
- Increased core strength
- Increase speed
- Increase agility
- Increase power
- Increase prevention of injury
- Increase confidence in body movement
Total Athleticism
THE MAKING OF AN ELITE ATHLETE
The goal of In the Core’s individual sport-specific training is to take an athlete and make a champion. Many of the drills and circuits are designed to train the athlete beyond their sport—with the desire for each athlete to have total athleticism—the right things in the right place at the right time … or perhaps better stated: ready for anything at any time in any place. We just call it being In The Core.