Coaching High School Athletes in the Weight Room   By Jim Kielbaso   Just about every sport coach now recognizes the fact that a strength program can help their athletes optimize performance, reduce the risk of injury, and improve overall health and self-esteem. Some coaches are very comfortable in the weight room, while [...] read more

    Young Athletes Need Support   By Dave Gleason   The last month and a half I have been making more of a concerted effort to attend as many events that our AR Champions are involved in as possible. This includes sporting events, plays and concerts. I have quickly come to the realization that [...] read more

    Creating a Great Youth Fitness Program   By Wil Fleming   Non-Programming elements of a great youth fitness program   That sure is a mouthful for a title. Maybe the meaning is quite self evident or maybe it is a little more veiled. Either way I think that these elements are essential to [...] read more

    Hybrid Movements For Young Athletes     By Dave Gleason   Creating fun, imaginative and challenging activities for 6-9, and 10-13 year old can be a difficult task.  Keeping in mind that 6-9 year old athletes are still discovering movement and 10-13 year old athletes are exploring movement will help.  Combining 2 or [...] read more

    High School Athletes Strength Training     By Wil Fleming Nearly all high school athletes, with very few exceptions, need to develop explosive strength.     The instances in which the skill of explosive strength are used in sports are endless, but when used “explosiveness” is very apparent.   A linemen firing off [...] read more

    by Wil Fleming   I remember vividly 3 years ago at this time Ryan and I were working our tails off to get ready for our grand opening that was only a couple weeks away. It was a really exciting time for us.   We were assembling all the equipment we ordered.   [...] read more

Youth Training For Sports As a given sport evolves and the participants within that sport begin to break records and perform what was once considered impossible, you can be sure that advancements in training and conditioning regimes have occurred within that sport. Very few athletes ever become great sport technicians without the inclusion of a [...] read more

When it comes to young athletes I’m confident for a lot of reasons…   I’ve field-tested the ‘Complete Athlete Development’ system with about 20,000 young athletes worldwide over the past 12 years.   The system itself contains more than 100 photographs of exercises I use every day in developing the best and most dominant young [...] read more

  Kids Programming Picking up from yesterday…   Over the years, I have grown fond of referring to these issues as the ‘Likely Bunch’ and have created a training template intended to meet of the aforementioned needs as a matter of principle rather than what an assessment tells me.   Rather than programming for the [...] read more

KISS Me: Skill Setting the Jump Shot for young athletes (Part I)   My college kinesiology professor may have been the first to introduce me to the KISS Principle, but I have come across it many times since. “Keep it simple, stupid!” is a mantra we might all do well to give some thought as [...] read more

Youth Training Done right  Last November, a good buddy of mine who is a very accomplished college strength coach came up to Boston for a seminar we put organized on a Sunday.  He actually flew up Friday night so that he could observe on Saturday while we trained our clients – which was a nice [...] read more

Youth Fitness Rules to follow When I look around the industry, I find myself becoming more and more discontented with the view.  It seems that there is a never-ending litany of new, innovative and advanced techniques in the field of strength and conditioning that are, in essence, just re-fabricated models and methods that have proved [...] read more

  Training Young Athletes What a young organism needs to experience in the way of physical stimulus can largely be deduced by chronological age.  Certainly biological age (relative body maturation), emotional age (psychological maturation) and even personality (temperament) can all be factored into the equation, but I have found in my 13 year career that [...] read more

  Training Young Athletes For the purposes of this article, let me say this:   “Kids” is a term I will use to encompass everyone who inhabits the ages of 6 – 18.   Athletes and Non-Athletes alike.   Miniature superstars, bench-warmers and the overweight, will all be lumped under the same umbrella.   And [...] read more

Youth Fitness Specialist Good Afternoon Brian,   I am a PGA golf professional and do a lot of teaching, including junior clinics. I am looking to include physical fitness into my junior golf program and get away from having the kids just hitting golf balls for the hour lesson. What information do you have to [...] read more

Training Olympic Lifting by Wil Fleming – www.beforcefit.com   How soon should you start training Olympic lifting technique in young athletes? My answer? As soon as the athlete walks in your door.  As soon as a young athlete starts training at my facility we are either doing the Olympic lifts or preparing them to eventually [...] read more

    Train Young Athletes Correctly From a study published in the Swimming Science Bulletin. Authored by Brent S. Rushall & John Marsden:   "All sports require high degree of skill for superior performance. The major emphasis of a (youth athletic) training program should be skill excellence. For skills to be developed, learning should occur [...] read more

    Young Athletes Programming In far too many situations throughout North America, strength coaches and personal trainers make common errors in their programming for young athletes, many of which can lead to overtraining syndromes -   Critical Analysis of Biomotor Ability   In working with young athletes, there is very little reason to ever [...] read more

    Kids Coaching Triumphs Justin was overweight, shy, awkward and without a shred of athletic ability.   But he had a ton of passion.   Loved baseball.   And I mean loved everything about the game.   You could see the delight in his eyes and practically feel the joy in his smile when [...] read more

    Young Athletes long term development insights In lieu of an article or interview, I thought that I would hit you guys with some great information and solid insight into the training & development of young athletes-   >> From a study published in the Swimming Science Bulletin. Authored by Brent S. Rushall & [...] read more