Having the right resistance tools is important, but you need to have a specific program focused on your training goals to ensure success. We recently spoke with Matt Diener from True Athlete Performance (TrueAP), a company offering specialized athletic training programs for athletes of all ages. We were curious to talk with Matt about his approach to training and how NZ Manufacturing products are key to ensuring his athletes are able to train both on the field and off.

Can you give us a little bit of information about your background as well as your role at True AP?

I Went to Mount Union College in Ohio and was a Sports management major and minored in Exercise Science. I was a multi-sport athlete and played baseball, basketball and football growing up and went on to play football in college. I wanted to get into the business of Sports. I interned under Rob Rose, our company president and now we’re business partners. I’m currently in charge of sales and marketing. Everyone on our staff are trainers, certified with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) as Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialists.

What type of athletes do you train at TrueAP?

We work with all sports and all age ranges, which keeps us involved with all different types of athletes.

Can you tell us more about the training approach of TrueAP?

We are a performance training company that embodies speed and strength. When it comes to strength training, it’s not only about helping our athletes get stronger, but also allows them to become more powerful and helps with injury prevention. We want our athletes to be strong through their core and hips, to be explosive on the field, but also reduce common injuries to ankles, knees, and lower back, which often can be traced back to lack of proper strength training.

The bulk of what we do is off season or preseason training. There are typically three components to each of our training programs:

Preparation Work

We use a variety of warm up routines to activate muscles, which include active stretching as well as neural activation to teach muscles to fire more quickly.

Performance Training Work

All of our training programs focus on speed, agility and quickness. We teach our athletes the proper mechanics to move. This phase of training is broken down into different training dynamics, which include:

  • Linear speed
  • Agility (change of direction)
  • First step and reaction
  • Power (jumping)
  • Quickness

A key part of our performance training work also includes strength training. We offer a variety of strength training programs depending on the age of the athlete. For younger athletes, our programs are very functional and use lighter weights, while our strength training programs for older athletes are geared towards improving strength and building muscle mass.

Recovery Work

Recovery is key to preventing injuries. We help properly teach athletes how to cool down and in turn increase flexibility and mobility, which helps to prevent injuries and soreness.

How have NZ Manufacturing products been an integral part of your training regimen?

We use NZ Manufacturing resistance training products in a wide array of different ways. We like the NZ Manufacturing products because they offer very consistent resistance. We can provide consistent resistance and can gauge how much resistance to give while keeping an athlete’s form. This additional resistance helps our athletes to become much more explosive on the field.

Our biggest use is probably the TurfCordz® training gear because of consistency and for first step training. For instance, we’ll attach NZ TurfCordz® to a wall and place athletes all on a line. We can do a 5 yard stretch out that will stretch the cord to the max, but help work on the first couple of steps, which is critical. We teach our athletes that they don’t necessarily have to be the fastest in the room, but if they have the quickest first step, they’ll do well on the field.

We also use StretchCordz® training tools for recovery work. It helps our athletes to get deeper into a stretch. It’s almost like having a partner even when you don’t. We’ll also use them for some of our shoulder prep work for throwing sports like baseball, softball and lacrosse. We can do shoulder raises with bands, with much lighter resistance to help put less stress on the shoulder, while building more strength in the back.

What sort of advice would you give to younger athletes about being successful as they get older?

You have to be an athlete and not specialize. If you look at most pro athletes, they played 2-3 sports growing up. They’re a variety of statistics that show how many professional athletes did not specialize in one sport. Our goal is to help our athletes learn and become better at their sport, not necessarily on how to be an athlete. Get out there and try different sports. Think of yourself as, I need to get faster, jump higher, get stronger, not that I need to be shooting 1000 shots a day. Specialization should never come at the expense of being an athlete.

We’ve seen countless athletes that focused on one sport early on become burned out by the time college rolled around. If you’re doing the same movements over and over, day after day, year after year, it can lead to more injuries, and can turn you off from the sport that you once loved.

Interested in learning more about TrueAP?

If you’re interested in learning more about TrueAP, you can check out their website at www.TrueAP.com. We really appreciate Matt taking the time to sit down with us today and we hope you learned something about how to better perform as an athlete. For more information on any of the NZ Manufacturing resistance products listed in this blog, feel free to reach out to our team today at 800-886-6621.