Performance Testing

Speed

10 Yard Sprint

Winning a race is heavily dependent on your first 10 yards off of a starting position. In our training we teach techniques for stretching and strengthening your hip flexors, ankles and knees to be mobile and helps our athletes get faster acceleration. Our 10 yard sprint (TYS) test does exactly this test. We aren’t as much concerned with the remainder of the sprint as you would see in the 40 yard dash in the NFL or the ¾ court sprint for the NBA. These are important aspects, but the majority of the training comes in building up explosive speed out of the blocks and then technique building on this momentum is secondary.

Best Practices / Preparation: Athletes are encouraged keep their head down for almost the entirety of the drill (10 yards) as this would allow you to focus on driving forward not upward. Drive with the hips, followed by driving the balls of your feet into the turf and additional momentum generators with each step. Pro Day offers speed camp throughout the year specifically designed to focus on these key steps in conjunction with our sports performance training to develop your muscle strength and muscle memory over a period of time.

Power

Bench Press

Our one rep max (ORM) calculation for bench press is used in the NFL, NBA and the NHL. Although the tiers of weight fluctuate from sport to sport, we determined at Pro Day that we would offer 5 different weight levels to cover the variety of skills levels for our youth athletes and pros alike. *Although athletes are ranked on a one rep max, know that safety is our number one priority as it is with all of our testing and training and therefore the name is deceiving and is calculated on safely completing as many reps before failure using a trained spotter. This number in then used algorithmically to determine the athletes on rep max.

Best Practices / Preparation: Athletes are encouraged to select 1 of 5 weight levels that will allow them to reach between 3 and 20 reps. This safely avoids an athlete selecting a weight too heavy for them as well as too light of a weight that no longer tests their explosive power but instead endurance power.

Explosiveness

Standing Vertical Jump (SVJ)

Simulating an under the basket rebound in basketball, a block touch in volleyball, a 50/50 ball in the endzone in football, or a header in soccer for example the standing vertical jump is often times referred to as the great leveler. It’s used in nearly every sport to showcase lower body explosive prowess however there are several ways to test. It’s easy to be sucked into the newest ang greatest technology to determine hang time off of a mat for example. However what we found is our athletes don’t have something physical to reach for nor can we definitely determine that the technology is calibrated at all times correctly so we decided that the vertical jump test still used by the NFL is the way to go using a vertical jump tester with flipping markers.

Best Practices / Preparation: consider your body as a rubber band. We recommend a rocking motion up and down to load power in your thighs and calves in unison with your arm swing. A combination of all of these factors results in the highest scores. Upon starting your jump start directly below the markers then take a small ½ step back with two feet. From this position you have to launch upward without any extra steps. Being too far backward will result in you coming downward with your swing and losing maximum reach. Too Far forward you are arching your back and losing optimal max height. Lastly the markers don’t need a massive swing to move, use a tipping/tapping motion that achieves the same outcome moving the markets just enough for the evaluator to see.

Agility

Agility Star Drill (ASD)

Agility is the method to which you can move quickly and easily. All sports require agility and it can be tested in a variety of ways dependent on the sport. At Pro Day we have adopted the Agility Star Drill (ASD) test that historically is the standard for challenging an athlete to perform change of direction and body control.

Best Practices / Preparation: Finding a level of coordination while staying low is important. Upon starting the drill, you can touch cones with either your dominant or non-dominant hands so consider the quickest route while maintaining coordination and completing the drill as quickly as possible, not necessarily using your dominant hand for every touch. Run through the final cone and use the space provided outside of the drill to slow down.

Reaction

React 5-10-5 (FTF)

Reaction is very undertested in today’s youth. Undertested, yes but today’s youth have had some significant training of their motor skills playing video games. Video games can be a great training tool at the very least between the stimuli the adolescent is visualizing on a screen and reacting with the controller. This training is often limited to eye-hand coordination only, however. It’s important for today’s athletes to be proficient in the ability to quickly react to stimuli by deciding quickly the most important information about a play, having the motor skills developed to begin those steps using their entire body (feet, hands, core), and finally athleticism to carry out the skill.

Likely the most recognizable and most used test for an athlete’s ability to change direction is the 5-10-5. At Pro Day we added a reactive stimulus to this drill as it challenges the athlete to not rely on the same set of circumstances to perform the drill i.e. always running to your dominant side first. Athletes can’t rely on the same set of circumstances in a game, so this helps prepare an athlete for new stimuli in their sport.

Best Practices / Preparation: Stay low during this drill! At least in the first ½ of the drill your attention should be covering 5 yards in one direction then the next 5 years in the opposite direction as low and fast as possible. However as is in the NFL combine you must not use your hand for balance on the backside of your change of direction. This will result in disqualification. You will receive 2 attempts on the react 5-10-5 (FTF).