Archive for July, 2009

July 31st 2009 by admin

FAIRMONT SAYS, KIDS – RU READY?

Interactive Fitness Program for Younger GuestsLaunches at Select Fairmont Hotel & Resort Properties

TORONTO, July 29, 2009 – In its continued quest to offer guests opportunities to integrate health and wellness into their travels, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is pleased to introduce RU Ready?, an innovative, interactive fitness program for ouryounger guests aged 7–17 which fusesa kid’s contemporary world of computers, video games and interactive web communication together with outdoor play.

Available seasonally at select resort properties,RU Ready?, a partnership with Trick It Out Sports, offers a fun fitness challenge designed to improve kids’ athletic skills for baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, skateboarding, snowboarding, soccer and more.

Thecurriculum combines the use of playing cards and a web-based experience to provide instructional and competitive participatory skill challenges. Kids are trained in the development of seven essential fundamental fitness skills (agility, balance, coordination, flexibility, speed, strength and stamina) by doing “tricks” similar to skateboarding and snowboarding.

The kids are asked to perform drills of specific tricks that sharpen their skills in different ways, then compete against others or against their own scores of previous sessions. Kids will also receive a special RU Ready? adidas t-shirt to take home.

E-mail updates and customized web pages allow participants to engage and continue their training after they return home. They can compete virtually against other kids or just test their own progress, incorporating online media with outdoor fun.

The program forFairmont was designed by Scott Lancaster, a youth sports expert, with over 20 years of experience developing player and coaching programs for the National Football League, US Soccer, and Arena Football.

RU Ready? is currently available at The Fairmont Chateau Whistler, Canada; The Fairmont Kea Lani and The Fairmont Orchid,Hawaii; the Fairmont Mayakoba, Mexico; The Fairmont Southampton, Bermuda; the Fairmont St Andrews, Scotland and The Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort & Club nearMiami. The program will soon be available at The Fairmont Acapulco Princess, Mexico and the Fairmont Singapore.

Specific program details, including pricing, session times and registration instructions are available on Fairmont.com, under property listings.

With a strong company-wide focus on health and wellness RU Ready? joins other programs and servicesFairmont offers guests, from complimentary BMW Cruise Bikes and golf clubs at select locations to the Fairmont Fit program. Offered to members of Fairmont President’s Club (FPC), the brand’s guest loyalty program, Fairmont Fit provides guests with easy access to adidas training gear during their stay, delivering exercise apparel and footwear directly to guestrooms for use in room, in the gym, or to enjoy outdoors. Free to join, Fairmont President’s Club provides guests with special benefits and privileges designed to reflect individual travel preferences and offer an enhanced level of service. Guests can enroll at time of booking or online at www.fairmont.com/fpc.

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ABOUT SCOTT LANCASTER

Scott Lancaster is the founder and President of Athletic Fitness, Inc, Trick it out Sports, and author of Fair Play: How to Make Organized Sports a Great Experience for Your Kids (Prentice Hall Press, September 2002), and Athletic Fitness for Kids, (Human Kinetics, January, 2008). Lancaster has 20 years of experience in developing youth sports programs in soccer and football, yet his innovative approach can be implemented to improve all youth sports. Over the 12 years he worked for the NFL, Lancaster developed a youth sports philosophy with an innovative turnkey structure that has reinvented football, providing a more family-friendly way to play and attracted more than four million players (ages 5 to 17) nationwide into his programs. The structure incorporates a progression of skill development, allowing more sensible path for young athletes to play traditional football in their later years.Lancaster is also Sirius Radio’s Youth Sports Expert hosting his own national radio programs and appears weekly as a guest on the NFL Channel’s “Movin the Chains”. Prior to joining the NFL, Lancaster spent six years developing grassroots programs for USA Soccer. For more information and to follow Scott Lancaster visit www.scottlancasteronsports.com.

ABOUT FAIRMONT HOTELS & RESORTS

A leader in the global hospitality industry, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is a celebrated collection of distinctive hotels, which includes iconic landmarks like Fairmont Le Château Frontenac in Québec City, Kenya’s Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club, and London’s The Savoy, reopening later this year following an extensive restoration program. Fairmont hotels are one-of-a-kind properties where sophisticated travelers can discover culturally rich experiences that are authentic to the destination. Situated in some of the most exclusive and pristine areas in the world, Fairmont is committed to responsible tourism and is an industry leader in sustainable hotel management with its award-winning Green Partnership program. Fairmont’s portfolio includes 56 world-class hotels, with plans to develop over 30 new properties in the coming years in destinations as diverse asShanghai, The Philippines and India.

Fairmont is owned by Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, a leading global hotel company with 91 hotels worldwide under the Raffles,Fairmont and Swissôtel brands. The company also managesFairmont and Raffles branded Residences, Estates and luxury private residence club properties. For more information or reservations, please call 1-800-441-1414 or visit www.fairmont.com.

CONTACT:

LoriHolland

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts

212/715-7098/lori.holland@fairmont.com

July 15th 2009 by admin

Stretching the Truth

Football and soccer seasons are rapidly approaching and soon we’ll be coaching, assisting or watching our sons and daughters take to the football and soccer fields.

As we find ourselves in the middle of summer I often find it’s a great time to revisit, address, and provide some advice for some of the mistakes I’ve witness on youth fields during the past season.  More times than not these mistakes are simply due to being unaware of the many updated and innovative methods that are now available to coaches at all levels.  Unfortunately many of the methods that we grew up with and experienced are outdated and are often not appropriate for today’s athletes.

One element of practices and pre-game warm-ups that I often observe is the static stretching routines many novice (and sometimes experienced) coaches require their players to execute.  Static stretching at the beginning of any activity can actually lead to more injuries than preventing them, and does nothing to warm the body up.  It is much more appropriate to conduct an active warm-up that gets the blood flowing to all the large muscle groups and joints (shoulders, arms, upper back, mid section, hip flexors, thighs, calves, ankles, etc.). This prepares these vital body parts to be able to fire when called upon during the course of practice or competition.

Static stretching is only appropriate at the end or during an activity after the body has had a chance to actually warm-up by moving and allowing the blood to circulate.  At this point the muscles, ligaments and joints are prepared to be stretched out, assisting in recovery rather than starting up.

HOW TO MOST EFFECTIVELY CONDUCT WARM-UPS

In order to begin a practice or prepare for a game, warming up is important.  At the same time you don’t want to start with a low key, low energy activity that does nothing to motivate and get your team fired up and prepared.  Typically warm-ups are presented in a low-key almost nonchalant fashion due to static stretching and a lack of importance placed on this portion of practice.  When in fact, this may be the most important part of practice or preparation for a game.

I like to get the group moving immediately with high-energy activities that motivate the team while warming up the entire body.  Preparing, choreographing, and setting up this station prior to the team’s arrival will help accomplish this goal.  The following provides a sample warm-up segment for a team practice for just about any sport.

Active Warm-up – 10 Minutes Mark – off an area with cones (10yard x 10 yards)

Keys to segment: keep every athlete moving (jogging) the entire 10 minutes while incorporating free range of motion (shoulders/back/hips/thighs/ham strings)

Equipment: Tennis ball for each athlete, cones to outline 10 x 10 yard area

Elements of Warm-up:

  • Jog counter clock wise around area for one lap (maintaining a good distance between each athlete)
  • Ask athletes to toss tennis balls with right hand in the air above their head while keeping right arm fully extended for one full lap – then repeat for one lap with left hand – followed by tossing the ball from hand to hand with both arms fully extended above head.
  • Ask athletes to backpedal while repeating above sequence of ball tosses for each lap of three total.
  • Have athletes jog clockwise while rotating ball around waist for two laps, followed by rotating ball through legs in a figure 8 rotation (should keep moving without stopping) for one full lap. Repeat backpedaling with same sequence of ball rotations around back and figure 8’s through legs
  • Ask athletes to roll ball with left hand about 3 feet in front of them & pick up immediately with right hand followed by picking up with left – rotating rolls and hands for one lap

6.Close the gap between athletes and ask the front jogger to roll the ball to his/her right followed by the last athlete in line retrieving the ball before it stops and running to the front of the line, repeat till everyone has retrieved a ball three times on both sides.

Follow this portion of the warm-up with small-sided (3 on 3) ultimate Frisbee games on multiple 20 x 15 yard areas, for a total of 5 minutes.

Equipment: One Football &/or Frisbee, four cones to mark off field – four additional cones to mark off

end zones

Execution: The objective is to score by catching a Football/Frisbee in a designated end zone, there are no designated positions. The Football/Frisbee can move in any direction around the field, and play is continuous. Change of possession occurs when the Football/Frisbee is thrown out of bounds, is dropped by the offense, is deflected by a defender to the ground, or after a score. When a change of possession occurs, the defense immediately goes on offense and begins play at the spot where the Football/Frisbee was dropped, thrown out of bounds, or scored in the end zone. Players may take two steps after receiving the Football/Frisbee and can transfer it only by throwing it to a teammate. The objective is to keep everyone moving, so divide your group into an even amount of teams and allow them all to play at the same time on different playing areas.

What have you accomplished?

  • Every athlete is fully engaged all major muscle groups (preparing their mental as well as physical skills), and broken a sweat.
  • Every athlete feels energized and excited to continue on with practice.
  • A complete team activity that promotes working and preparing together is a great way to start any practice or competition.
July 7th 2009 by admin

2009 Trick It Out Play of the Year

In 2009 there has been no other combined Team Trick It Out Sports Play of the Year than what happened at the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse National Championship – Syracuse University vs Cornell.  Great trick plays in live competition are often executed by an individual, yet in this game with just under 20 seconds left and Syracuse down 9 to 8, three players combined to execute one of the best Trick It Out Lacrosse Plays in the history of the game, we pick it up highlights with just under 4 minutes to go in regulation.

July 6th 2009 by admin

Do You Root for the Right Outcome in Youth Sports?

I just read a great article by Leonard Mlodinow in the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Journal titled “The Triumph of the Random” – From banking to baseball, winning streaks owe much to the laws of chance. Every parent should read this article before building that trophy case for the living room.

If you want your child to have the best opportunity to develop to their fullest athletic ability, it’s time to disregard the pure randomness and unimportance of a final score in a youth sports game, and begin to make some serious changes to the entire youth sports infrastructure.

For too many years we have stressed results based on the wrong criteria to measure athletic success and champions.  Final scores of youth games rarely indicate a true story of what was actually achieved.  The numerous variables that affect a final score rarely have little to do with individual or team performance. Between inconsistent game day rosters, inadequate coaching, poor preparation, blown officiating calls, etc., there is little an athlete or team can do to affect final scores.  Regardless we cherish those final scores as if they were sacred pieces of history that our children will reflect upon for the rest of their lives.  When in fact they have often forgotten the score before they reach the car ride home. Often they’re asking for play dates, what’s for dinner, or can we get ice cream. When in fact, it’s the misguided parent that carries the weight of a final score in their mind.  At the same time we become frustrated with our children’s skill progress, believing that the final score of a game is the most telling sign of their child’s development.

Many have argued that kids do keep score and do care who wins and who loses.  And I agree when referring to during a game or as one concludes.  There are two reasons why this happens.

1. Our society, and we as parents have trained kids to focus on winning games by our reaction and single-minded focus the final results of our children’s games.  They have no other mechanism to measure competition, therefore they care about the scoreboard, yet only in the moment, before quickly forgetting and moving on.

2. We have provided no other alternative to measure success.  If we provided different metrics to measure performance during a game (both individual and team) a child’s attention would quickly change.

What we must understand, and what the Wall Street Journal article forewarns us about is that chance and luck play a significant role in all aspects of our lives including for a large part in sports.  No matter the talent level, chance can determine the outcome of an athletic competition at all levels from youth to the pros. Mlodinow warns us that though we should recognize singular achievements we must not place tremendous importance on them due to the factor that chance plays into outcomes.  He goes on to explain that it’s worse when we interpret, plans or people, simply because they did succeed, when we consider the likelihood of how chance can affect final results.

The final result of a singular youth competition should never bolster nor should it be judged as failure if you truly want to measure real progress, accomplishments, and effect proper athletic development. Moving forward remember this the next time you overreact at the end of your son or daughters games.