This interview was conducted between Craig Ballantyne and Kevin Levy as they discuss the getting in shape, losing fat and improving your lifestyle.

My good friend Ron Diviney (from Texas where football is BIG and officials wear spurs) sent me this PDF which goes into great detail on stretching. Stretching is a fundamental component of my workout regiment as well as my pregame preparation.

I keep a large resistance bandwhich is about 4 inches wide and about 6 feet long in my bag. I use it to assist in stretching my hamstrings and glutes, shoulders and chest. You can find one at Amazon.com and you should definitely have one in your gym bag. If you want to see the one I have…click here

I continue to see officials use stretching techniques without a proper warm-up period which can do more harm than good often leading or contributing to injury.

Check out this article which does a great job explaining the proper way to stretch.

http://www.iahsaa.org/officials/Officials_Warmup_&_Stretching_Handout.pdf

Here is to better health, better fitness and better football officiating!

Be the Best on the Field,

Todd

This is number 4   of 6 articles in the Fitness for Football Officials series.

The 3 Best Bodyweight Exercises

Some of you may know in addition to my love for football officiating, I have recently become a high school basketball official. I’m in my rookie season as a JV official with the Kentuckiana Basketball Officials Association. I’m having a lot of fun and this experience reminds me of my rookie football season 7 years ago.

So I’ve been thinking about how to apply what I’ve learned from football to basketball, and there are definitely parallels. Let’s take mentoring for example. I want to move up to varsity in the quickest amount of time. There are some officials that are working JV for the 7 and 8th year.  While that may  be okay for some, its not how I’m built. I want to improve and advance. Just my nature.

Jim Augustyn, former Big Ten umpire and Arena League official is currently a regional supervisor of the Arena II Football League. Jim sheds some light on officiating Arena Football, how it prepares you for higher levels and what to do if you want to apply.