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"Putnam Valley Varsity Football Trains With Science"

This past Saturday, August 19th, Putnam Valley Varsity Football ran a combine to evaluate their athletes. This combine, however, was different, because instead of only evaluating their players’ physical attributes, like strength, speed, and power, they also tested cognitive abilities. “It’s great to have data like this for our players,” said Head Coach Ryan Elsasser, “it gives us a good understanding of where our players stand and where we need to improve.” To get these readings, the team used high tech Microgate ™ sports science equipment, the same equipment used to train Olympians, pro-sports stars, and other elite athletes around the world! Alex DiCioccio, the team’s Offensive Coordinator, is also a Sports Specialist at MicrogateUSA’s professional facility in Mahopac, NY. Alex has five plus years experience working with this equipment and thought it would be a great opportunity to help his team get the edge they need. Alex also runs his own practice called “TrainWithScience” in this facility, and plans on opening it to his Putnam Valley Fall Season Athletes at an affordable cost. “It was a big project with a lot of moving pieces, but thanks to Dr. Gorman, my superior and President of MicrogateUSA, and Coach Elsasser, we were able to get incredible data for our athletes.” - Alex DiCioccio “Big, fast, and strong, alone does not make an athlete. Football is a think-and-move game, if a player cannot recognize and react to a stimulus, they will have a fundamental competitive weakness.” - Alex DiCioccio The two tests conducted in the combine were a modified 40-yard dash, and a football focused 5-10-5. The data collectively showed an average reaction time of between 0.55 and 0.7 seconds, with a few outliers. To put this into perspective, Olympic track runners train their time to consistently below 0.2 seconds. Player’s saw first hand and in real time that simply improving reaction time could save them precious fractions of a second on the football field. To the average reader, this may not seem significant, but, being half-a-second slower or faster than your opponent in game means the difference between winning and losing. The good news is it is actually very easy to improve reaction time and other essential cognitive abilities, all it takes is practice, consistency, and the right equipment. All of these are available at MicrogateUSA’s facility at 7. Miller Rd. in Mahopac at a very affordable price. Visit www.trainwithscience.com to learn more. Thanks to the data collected at Putnam Valley High School’s Varsity Football Combine, the players and coaches have a much better idea how to improve their team and win more games.

"Train the Brain to Match the Body"

A center fielder hears the crack of a solid strike off the center of a bat. A small dot flies high and far from the direction of home plate, and in this instant, he knows action must be taken. This hypothetical athlete is well equipped, a strong, fast, confident 6 foot 3 190 lb honor student. He runs directly under the flight path of the ball, misjudging its landing spot, causing an error, and giving the opposing team precious time to round the bases. We’ve all seen or experienced a scenario like this. While everyone makes mistakes and errors, is this particular scenario something that can be prevented? What skills can this athlete improve to increase his chance of making the play next time? The answer is brain speed. New advances in neuroscience have proven that the brain can, and should, be trained. The brain can be trained under measurable metrics such as reaction time, processing speed, visual acuity, attention, and memory. Studies have shown improvements in these cognitive abilities dramatically help performance in sports.

"Sports are think and move, so why not train think and move?"

There are countless trainers that can teach you to move, and there are plenty of ways to train your brain, but thats not what 'sport' is, and that's certainly not what 'life' is. 'Sport' in it's true definition, is think and move. When an unknown variable is entered into the equation, can the athlete recognize, react, and respond? At TrainWithScience, we train athletes to be more effective in-game by presenting these think and move scenarios in a sport context. To take it a step further, we use laser timing to create SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals and track the athletes progress.

"Everyone's An Athlete"

Summer 2023 is flying by, which means the Fall Season for many school and club sports is quickly approaching. People of all levels and ages are striving to improve at their respective sports. The goalkeeper is improving skills to make saves, the offensive lineman is improving blocking, and the track runner is improving mile time. These individuals described are the common archetype of an athlete, however, we believe athlete is a broad term. In fact, we believe everyone is an athlete, and every person, whether age 9 or 99, sport involved or not, should be improving a vitally important aspect of health called symmetrical balance.  Sport-specific athletes have competition, whether it’s an opposing team, a time to beat, or a score to shoot. Just like them, every-day athletes need to compete against the body’s naturally occurring degeneration. Research conducted on Optojump ™ machines has shown that a person with an imbalanced gait cycle will only continue to deteriorate unless a training program is put in place to reverse this effect. We need to be proactively solving issues with our body, rather than reactively. For example, a Gait analysis on Optojump ™ reads a 5% imbalance in stride length today. A 5% imbalance may not cause pain or issues today, but, in 5 years, that 5% can turn into a 10,15, or 20% imbalance, where there can be pain, surgery, and physical therapy. Correcting a 5% imbalance in your gait today, will prevent future debilitating injuries.

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