Comox Valley Training and then Toronto bound

It has been a beauty last few months here in the Valley but I am starting to get cabin fever as beach volleyball season draws near. It was excellent to spend time back home, training with friends and being a part of the local community once again. Thanks to those who inspired me and pushed me forward during this wonderful time at home.

Thanks to Marc St.Jules and his Stabilizer training methods as well as his Athletes United movement. For those of you who know him, Marc is an incredibly dialled in trainer with thousands of hours of "under the bar" experience as well as cutting edge perspectives and methods that tweak everything during the workout. His neuromuscular pathway driven exercises are based on stability training and are definitely something to be experienced! Thanks for letting me use your custom gym and I look forward to coming back and propelling the next generation whenever I can. Also, it was great to be the cover model for the Stability Xboard poster as Marc is making a push to expose this innovative product to Whistler/Blackcomb during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Secondly a great thanks goes out to Jonny Mac at the Comox Valley Boxing Club. He let me roll into his character club to train any time and he taught me a great deal in the ring. It was such a blast that I will be looking to train with retired beach volleyball super stud Mark "The Funk" Roberts in Toronto at TKMT.  Jonny progressed me through about 12 lessons in about 4 days and it was a great workout.

I truly believe martial arts to be a great training method for any sport (provided you aren't getting brutally beat down!) for a few reasons:

1) Martial arts teaches you to be balanced, focused and relaxed during battle. This is especially tough to do when you are taking a beating but when you are able to control your breathing during activity, you control your recovery rate as well as the tension in your body. Recovery time and minimizing tension increases performance any day of the week and will allow you to play harder for longer!

2) It also teaches you to be spontaneous as you adjust to different situations. Situations are rarely the same (like any sport) and it creates a constant awareness to assess, adapt and counter on the fly. Once I got used to gloves coming at my face, I got the hang of seeing things happen and adjusting to the situation spontaneously. Much like my sport of beach volleyball where my offence is generally a last second adaptation to a weakness in my opponents defence, boxing forces the athlete to be constantly monitoring the opponent while staying neutral to utilize any weakness or opening. I am really excited to build on this concept and improve my "on the fly" thinking, reaction and action! Thanks Jonny for the beats and hopefully I can drop a few shots to your melon when I am around next time!!

Lastly I want to express my deep love for the Comox Valley and all it has to offer. I had some great runs, workouts, road trips, beach walks and some beauty snowboard runs on Mt.Washington our sizeable backyard hill. The locals are wonderful and it was a pleasure to entrench myself deeper into the community that has offered me so much throughout my life!!!

I will be writing more frequently as training starts in Toronto on Tuesday; can't wait to get my feet dirty!! The challenge is on for who will be the best in Canada and I am ready to do whatever it takes.

You can look forward to new game videos as well as workout and skill development videos which I will be producing. I aspire to feature other national team athletes and our new National team head coach so you can look forward to meeting your 2012 Olympic team!

Later ya'll,

Martin