Youth Sports Conditioning Missing Factor.
I was horrible today.
I stunk out the joint.
My timing was off.
My movements weren’t crisp.
My balance was non-existent.
I took 13 days off of training for my fight in April, and
boy did I notice a difference.
My conditioning was fine.
I wasn’t breathing too heavy or feeling out of shape.
But my SKILL LEVEL had dropped something awful.
The combination of my travel schedule, workload and a
cold thrown in there had left me unable to meet up with
my Coach for nearly two full weeks.
And the layoff was 100% noticeable.
The experience actually got me thinking about the way
we train kids for Youth Sports Conditioning.
With our ‘quick fix’ programs or ‘give me 6-weeks and
I’ll increase your vertical’ training systems.
We’re robbing kids of skill.
We’re placing an over-emphasis on their conditioning
and completely negating their skills and abilities.
Because skill takes time to develop.
Moreover, as I learned firsthand today, skill takes
consistency to make right.
I’ve been training for my fight for the past 7 weeks.
And after only 13 days off, I had decreased my skill
levels noticeably.
That’s the problem.
We still look at the process training young athletes
as a conditioning path.
It’s not.
It’s a skill acquisition path.
And that perspective difference is paramount.
When we sell young athletes on short term training
programs, what we are selling is little more than
improved conditioning.
We can’t possibly effective skill in 6-weeks.
And if we do, it’s short-lived and temporary.
Make no mistake about it either.
Strength is a skill.
Speed is a skill.
Agility is a skill.
And to truly become proficient at them, we must treat
them like skills.
Youth Sports Conditioning must be taught, practiced and improved upon over
time.
It’s not how much you lift or how quickly you can
navigate through cones, it’s how well and efficiently
you perform it.
Lapses in skill or technique place a ceiling on the
young athlete and limits their ability to improve beyond
where they are now.
And that’s why we can’t sell 6-week programs.
We have to make sure that our young athletes consistently
train throughout the year.
So that skill doesn’t begin to fade.
The IYCA training protocol and developmental system
is based on a 3-tiered approach:
1. Guided Discovery
:: Outcome-Based Coaching
:: Global Stimulus
:: Organized Play
2. Learning Exploration
:: Hybrid of Outcome and Form-Based Coaching
:: Advanced Coordination
:: Technique Introduction and Development
3. Training with Application
:: Form-Based Coaching
:: Applied and Specific Training
:: Introduction to Complexes
Each of these phases of training are primarily based on
the chronological age of the young athlete.
Other factors such as Training Age, Biological Age and
Emotional Maturity also gets factored in.
As I found out today, time away from training results in
a diminishing of skill.
And skill development must be the number one consideration
when training young athletes.
Look into the IYCA Level 1 Youth Fitness Specialist
certification in order to understand the basis of our
highly effective system.
Our young athletes are the best and have Youth Sports Conditioning Pure and simple.
And it’s because we understand how to develop them.
Here’s an exclusive link for you –
http://www.iyca.org/fitspecialist1
Tomorrow I’ll explain how we categorize our young athletes
into the groups mentioned above.
It’s going to be an eye-opener for you.
‘Till next time,
Brian