A Brief History on Steve Veltman

Wheaties approached the ABA because they were interested in featuring a BMX racer and their easy answer was Steve. He had just won both the ABA National #1 Amateur and ALSO the ABA National #1 Cruiser titles in THE SAME YEAR! Steve was the first BMXer to ever do this.

At the ripe young age of 13, Steve had quite the collection of trophies, enough to make him a household name in the BMX industry. Thousands of kids across the world look up to him, including young Isaiah, who idolized him out in the boonies of Western Massachusetts.

At the Del Mar Faigrounds, down the street from the future EZIA Human Performance, Steve catches some style through the Pro section.

In 1984, digital photography wasn’t quite up to it’s game. Steve and his teammates from HUTCH had to hang there for over an hour, for the photographers to get the perfect shot. Oye.

After 2 years off from the sport, when Steve was catching up on being a kid, he reentered on the McDonald’s team and had a successful resurgence. He had a Corporate McDonald’s Card as a kid, imagine how many Chicken Nuggets he ate?!?

Nevertheless, Steve hasn’t stepped foot in a McDonald’s since.

EZIA is super stoked to be partnering with Steve Veltman, who is being inducted into the 2010 BMX Hall of Fame on Thursday. We will be with him on Friday and Saturday at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, where he will be signing autographs. For more info visit:

http://ababmx.com/

Welcome to the family, Steve!

We are pumped for this year’s 4th Annual Future of Surfing event presented by RERIP

Come out to Fletcher Cove in Solana and support a sustainable surf industry! Facebook invite here

This was our booth last year, wait till you see what we got going on this year

Hi Friends,

Recently Red Bull asked me to write up a summary of training with 3x XXL of surfing champion Maya Gabeira.  Maya also won an ESPY for woman of the year and was recently won the teen choice awards.  Check out my outline below!

Maya Gabeira training program for Red Bull Media

Maya Gabeira is a world-class athlete with an amazing work ethic in and out of the gym, we have noted that she is extremely focused and doesn’t waiver from her plans.  In addition to what she is doing with us at EZIA Human Performance, her diet is impeccable and she is religious about yoga, biking and beach runs.  When there are no waves, Maya trains 3-4 hours a day.  Most importantly, Maya is learning the importance of full recovery to reach her highest level of performance, an aspect of training that is often overlooked by athletes who push themselves to the limit.

Maya has been training at EZIA Human Performance for the last 5 months when she is home from surf trips.  She trains at EZIA for 1-3 weeks at a time with 1-2 week trips.  Her basic athletic abilities have quantum leapt forward.  For example, when we met Maya, she could not perform basic jump rope or Olympic lifts properly (clean and jerk and snatch). She now excels at both, and can clean and jerk 20 kilos.  From a coordination, timing and power standpoint, this represents a huge achievement, and is only the beginning for her….

When Maya arrived at EZIA with Blair Marlin from Wasserman Media Group, her request was to focus on explosive power development.  Based on our assessment, she didn’t have any know injuries or limitations (except for some weakness in her left wrist) so we began with an EZIA- power-training cycle.  This is normally something that we progress clients into over time but Maya was able to handle the intensity without any complaints or issues (please see her customized program attached). As she began to plateau, we shifted her training focus to stability and endurance. When she plateaus in the future, we will shift the priority back to explosiveness and power.

On a side note, the difference between strength and power is time.  Maya wants to be faster at everything she does.  It doesn’t matter how much Maya can lift relatively; what’s important is how quickly she can move while maintaining impeccable form and technique.  This holds true in the surf and in the gym.

Maya’s EZIA program consists of extended dynamic warm-ups to develop her basic mobility, coordination and balance.  Often times the warm-up would last up to 30 minutes and include a variety of dynamic drills, moving stretches, body weight floor exercises, medicine ball, tubing, stability objects, light barbell, light kettle bell and other activities.  As her overall condition improved, the duration of the warm-ups became shorter. The intensity and complexity of the warm-up increased and we began to focus our time more on the workout itself.

For high-intensity Energy System Development (the anaerobic version of cardio, think sports conditioning), Maya engaged in a variety of drills including incline treadmill sprints (she can run at 10 miles an hour and 10 on the incline for almost a minute.  Try it yourself, it will kick your @$$), incline hill runs (10 blocks up hill, 2 minute runs), beach runs with stair runs throughout the run, 100 yard sprints and 300 yard shuttle runs, speed and agility ladder, cones and hurdles to name a few…

Our focus here is to simulate a training experience for Maya’s heart that mimics her actual surfing. We spike Maya’s heart rate to the max, give her a big rest, only to repeat the process.  Keep in mind that when we spike the HR, we are using drills that require a lot of timing and focus, which increases the challenge and therefore the overall training effect.  This experience is similar to catching a big wave (timing) getting your butt kicked on the inside (HR spike), and getting a long break after the paddle out, only to repeat the process an insane amount of times.

In the strength component of Maya’s EZIA program, our focus initially was to learn the skill lifts (snatch, clean and jerk, dead lift, overhead squat and back squat) with barbells, dumb bells and kettle bells.  We also use explosive movements like box jumps, long jumps and triple jumps to increase her overall POWER.  This is not circuit training, usually we compound exercises (one lift, one jump) sometimes as many as 5 sets.  For her upper body strength training we have used bench press, step ups, push-ups, pull-ups, curl press, lunges, arm and leg curls and extensions.  Finally, we develop Maya’s already strong core with medicine ball throw exercises against a wall or while she is sitting or lying on the floor.  She has also learned how to perform hanging leg raises (one of the toughest core exercises in the book) and PNF cable wood chops with 30lbs.

Maya is a tough Brazilian girl. She once told me she never gets nervous until at a least a few guns are pulled out. Obviously 50 foot waves don’t intimidate her either. She has a tough exterior shell, but inside she is a warm person and we really have some good laughs.  Maya Gabeira is one of the most prepared athletes that EZIA has ever known or worked with.  She will go far in whatever she chooses to do!

-          Isaiah Truyman, owner

I personally love the speed ladder, and feel that it is a vital tool for any athlete. Those little boxes I lay out on the floor are doing more than just making you sweat! Its improving coordination, mental and visual focus, The ability of your body to accelerate and decelerate its self in several directions, increasing you  kinesthetic awareness, and promoting proper  biomechanics all while increasing neuromuscular efficiency… that’s how I relate it to Ignition mapping for a motorcycle or car, the power is there you just have to tap into it… Interested in the speed ladder? stop by EZIA and I would love to show it to you…

EZIA Human Performance will be leading this FLASH MOB on October 2nd and 3rd at the Cardiff Surf Classic & Green Beach Fair 2010 at Cardiff Reef. We will be there with our tent doing demonstrations and getting the whole crowd in on the FLASH MOB! Practice will take place at the Movie Night at Cardiff Elementary on September 25th. They will be showing Chris Cutri’s new Hanging Five movie and will have food and deserts too! Get the kids practicing for the big day with this video and parents, don’t forget to join in too. The dance/fitness routine is really easy so make sure you get up and join the “movement!”