Archive for “Aptitude” Tag

Exactly How to Become The Best Youth Coach Possible…

Posted on: March 7th, 2011 by IYCA 11 Comments

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OK… Here are the definitions that were emailed to me.

What do you think?

(1) Balance
The ability to remain centered while center of gravity changes within static, dynamic, locomotive and non-locomotive action

(2) Rhythm
The ability to express timing

(3) Movement
The ability or aptitude to be locomotive through varying levels and directions

(4) Strength
The ability to express force

(5) Mobility
The ability to move within free and full ranges

(6) Tactical
The ability to demonstrate strategic or intentional action in order to produce a desired outcomes

Become a Youth Coach

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Train a Group of Young Kids With Different Abilities

Posted on: November 7th, 2010 by IYCA 4 Comments

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Is it really possible to effectively train a group of young kids with varying levels of

ability at the same time?

What if some of them were highly skilled in movement aptitude while others (in the same group) had Autism?

Watch this fascinating ‘practical’ video from 2010 IYCA Trainer of the Year, Dave Gleason, and see for yourself:

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Endurance Training & Young Athletes

Posted on: August 13th, 2010 by IYCA 3 Comments

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Young Athletes Endurance Training

Endurance training and young athletes is an often-misunderstood topic. On one hand, there are strength coaches who tend to disregard developmentally sound elements of endurance training in lieu of producing stronger and faster young athletes via strength and power type exercises exclusively. On the other hand, there are over-zealous coaches and trainers who equate endurance to long distance/duration activities, often with little regard for the athlete’s stage of development, ability or current level of conditioning.

Endurance can be defined quite simply as one’s ability to withstand fatigue or the ability to control the functional aptitude of movement while experiencing external stress. The latter definition lends itself well to the concept of athletic development and training young athletes. As I have stated many times in both print and lecture, when working with youngsters, the key ingredient to producing a successful training program is the ability to recognize that quality of execution is profoundly more important than quantity. Having said that, I still see coaches, trainers and parents opting for more difficult training sessions that include high volume or high intensity activities rather than concerning themselves with how correctly the exercise is being performed. Poor execution results in habitual patterns that are difficult to break and could result in injury. With respect to endurance training, proper mechanics are often compromised for higher volumes or intensities and this is very much a mistake.

One thing to consider is that the term ‘endurance’ has application to varying lengths and types of effort:

• Long slow distances – efforts of limited intensity but high distance or time

• Speed – efforts typically lasting 15 – 45 seconds with high levels of intensity but obviously limited time or distance

• Muscular – the ability to sustain a muscular contraction for a prolonged period of time

There are several factors to consider with respect to the development of endurance in young athletes:

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Young Athletes Power Training Myth?

Posted on: June 29th, 2009 by IYCA 4 Comments

Young Athletes and Plyometrics

Almost without exception, every ‘sport-performance training center’ and youth sporting association in North America both markets and incorporates some degree of plyometric conditioning into the routines of the athletes they manage. More often than not, the trainer or coach prescribes an unintelligible series of jumping exercises and can be seen either holding a clipboard and a stop watch as they count and record the number of jumps or foot contacts a young athlete makes within a certain period of time, or barking out commands to the young athletes ‘jump higher’. Plyometric training has become such a ‘catch-phrase’ in the vernacular of trainers and coaches that it is often marketed as a sole measure of distinction for a training facility or individual coach/trainer. Do you know how many sporting clubs, for instance, have told me that they would love to have their young athletes train at my facility, but their Director of Coaching has a ‘plyometric class’ that he/she hosts every week and that’s all the conditioning they need?

Plyometric training has become watered down in North America to such a level that now even basic health clubs have introduced ‘plyometric jumps’ into their general group exercise classes as a means of achieving some measure of ‘high intensity’ training. Jumping and then abruptly stopping and holding a fixed position, jumping and then jumping again after a cursory pause or being taken through a series of jumping exercises without being taught proper execution of either the jumping or landing phases respectively are simply gross misappropriations of what plyometric training is or how it should be applied.

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Developing Young Athletes: Intelligent vs. Dumb

Posted on: June 15th, 2009 by IYCA 6 Comments

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>Developing Young Athletes With the IYCA

‘Intelligence’.

Defined by the dictionary as –

“The capacity for learning, understanding and aptitude for grasping relationships”

That sets the stage very nicely for the meaning of this IYCA-based term.

What about ‘Athletic’?

It’s defined as such –

“Involving the use of physical skills or capabilities”

String those two definitions together and you’ve got the basis for the main motivation needed when training and developing young athletes.

In short –

“Increasing the capacity for learning and understanding various physical skills and how they relate”

That is the crux and critical requirement with respect to programming for young athletes.

And how backwards do we have that these days?

Increase the capacity for learning:

It’s not about over-coaching pre-adolescent children.

Teaching them the ‘mechanics’ of how to throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball.

It’s about enhancing their knowledge and understanding of how to perform these actions via Guided Discovery.

Allowing them to play.

Get a feel for the motion themselves and through trail and error, develop bodily aptitude.

Understanding various physical skills and how they relate:

Through this ‘trail and error’ period of development, it can’t be about specificity, either.

It’s about indirect, global stimulus.

Running fast, for example, isn’t just based on the action of running.

It’s based on:

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Developing Young Athletes: What is Athletic Intelligence?

Posted on: July 14th, 2008 by IYCA No Comments

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Developing Young Athletes

‘Intelligence’.

Defined by the dictionary as –

“The capacity for learning, understanding and aptitude for grasping relationships”

That sets the stage very nicely for the meaning of this IYCA-based term.

What about ‘Athletic’?

It’s defined as such –

“Involving the use of physical skills or capabilities”

String those two definitions together and you’ve got the basis for the main motivation needed when training and developing young athletes.

In short –

“Increasing the capacity for learning and understanding various physical skills and how they relate”

That is the crux and critical requirement with respect to programming for young athletes.

And how backwards do we have that these days?

Increase the capacity for learning:

It’s not about over-coaching pre-adolescent children.

Teaching them the ‘mechanics’ of how to throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball.

It’s about enhancing their knowledge and understanding of how to perform these actions via Guided Discovery.

Allowing them to play.

Get a feel for the motion themselves and through trail and error, develop bodily aptitude.

Understanding various physical skills and how they relate:

Through this ‘trail and error’ period of development, it can’t be about specificity, either.

It’s about indirect, global stimulus.

Running fast, for example, isn’t just based on the action of running.

It’s based on:

– Rhythm

– Movement Adequacy

– Efficient production and absorption of force

– Body position for optimal acceleration and deceleration

These physical skills aren’t only developed via performing endless sets of sprints or start and stop drills for young athletes

In fact, they are BEST developed singularly. Learned and understood in isolation and then eventually brought together in a relative format.

If you haven’t already, watch this basic ‘Skip Loop’ exercise from the ‘Coordination Development’ DVD found in Complete Athlete Development –

Rhythm

Timing

Movement Adequacy

Force Production and Absorption

Through drills like these, my young athletes are learning how to be ‘intelligent’.

It is through indirect methods of enhancing bodily knowledge that kids form the basis of becoming superior athletes in time.

It’s a process that can’t be rushed or overlooked.

The problem is, we rush and/or ignore this phase of athletic development all the time.

And that’s the main reason so few of our young athletes ever amount to much in terms of optimal sporting success.

They were rushed through a process.

Over-coached and ‘specified’ too early.

They simply aren’t Athletically Intelligent.

And when you don’t have basic intelligence, you can’t possibly expand your knowledge passed a certain point.

You lack the foundational aptitude on which to learn more.

Ask yourself this question –

Are the indirect aspects of learning addition and subtraction important to the eventual mastery of specific mathematical skills such as calculus or algebra?

You better believe they are.

Now apply that reasoning to developing young athletes.

Isn’t it time you saw firsthand what training for sporting success should REALLY look like?

Have a look at Complete Athlete Development and see what you’re missing –

Complete Athlete Development – Click Here Now

Brian