Sport Specific Youth Training: Part 2

Posted on: March 9th, 2011 by IYCA 2 Comments

[wpfblike]

Sport Specific Youth Training Principles

The following are some guidelines for training and developing figure skaters from an athletic and functional perspective:

Promote concepts of multilateral development. This is a hard pill to swallow within the world of figure skating due to the fact that many coaches, parents and trainers are interested in pushing the limits with young kids in the hopes of national and international success. Your job as a parent or coach with young skaters is to introduce them to as much athletic stimulus as possible.

The nervous system of a young athlete is malleable and requires input to develop optimally. If you are prescribing little more than basic fitness and on-ice type movements, you are robbing the child of potential athletic growth and limiting his or her prospective success. Look at Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko respectively – one played hockey the other took martial arts. Diversity contributes to athletic success not hinders it.

(more…)

You’re Destroying Young Athletes

Posted on: February 9th, 2009 by IYCA 4 Comments

Young Athletes Programming

One of my favorite things to do is chat with the ‘big name’ trainers in our industry about programming, speed training, strength development or flexibility for young athletes.

Sometimes, in the middle of a casual conversation about nothing at all related to conditioning, I will switch gears in an instant and turn the discussion to something related to training.

And that’s just what I did with superstar trainer, Alwyn Cosgrove this past weekend.

Alwyn and I are good friends, so it’s not really unusual for us to be chatting about sports or family late in the afternoon on Saturday.

“Ya, baseball doesn’t really do it for me – after all, I’m Scottish!” Alwyn was telling me.

“Uh huh” I replied, not really listening… I was planning my big move.

“It’s kinda like Cricket I guess, except for a smaller field, smaller bat, different throwing motion, different scoring system… actually, it’s not really like Cricket at all is it?” Alwyn continued on.

“I guess not,” I countered… about ready to evoke my patented conversation-switching technique.

“Ya, and besides, Cricket games can go on for like 4,000 years or something like that. Rugby, now there’s a game. I remember…” Alwyn stopped mid-sentence – I had finally sprung into action.

“What’s the biggest mistake trainers are making with young athletes in this industry, Al?” I finally asked.

(more…)