Archive for “Paul Taylor” Tag

Athlete Development- What I Did in Australia…

Posted on: August 21st, 2008 by IYCA No Comments

Worldwide Athlete Development . A post From Brian Grasso.

I just got back from Australia…

…. And let me tell you – I am jet lagged!

The trip home from locations that far away are always

toughest.

I ended up flying from Melbourne to Auckland – Auckland to

Los Angeles – Los Angeles to Chicago.

Total time = 28 hours.

But it was worth every second.

Not only is it an honor to get invited to share my

knowledge worldwide, but it’s also incredibly enlightening

to sit in the audience and learn from other athlete development professionals.

Most of whom you may never have heard of.

This past week in Melbourne, I had the sincere pleasure of learning from my athlete development co-presenters, Douglas Heel from South Africa and Paul Taylor from Ireland.

And although we didn’t prepare any topics together,

we all ended up talking about the same general thing –

Communication.

Not one second of time was spent on discussing sets,

reps, exercises or programming.

All three of us lectured on the importance of

communication when it comes to your clients and athletes.

And our messages were 100% congruous:

The program doesn’t matter if your clients don’t

‘buy into’ the message.

Paul discussed this topic from his perspective as a

human behavior specialist.

Douglas from his specialty of sports medicine.

And of course I presented my take on the topic from

the perspective of a coach.

:: How do you coach young athletes who have different

personalities and learning styles?

:: What is the approach you use with high skill athletes

versus low skill athletes?

:: Why communication is the most important, but most

misunderstood part of producing champion athletes?

These are the main questions I answered during my two

hour lecture.

And the reality is that I took every second of my

presentation from the material contained in Complete

Athlete Development.

Not only has this all-inclusive package become known

worldwide as the number one collection of speed, strength,

flexibility and coordination athlete development training for

young athletes, but it also contains my own personal

coaching template that teaches you how to get the very

best out of each and every one of your young athletes.

I was overwhelmed at the conclusion of my seminar to

see and hear the audience so incredibly appreciative of

the information I provided.

Time for you to look at Complete Athletes Development and

see for yourself why ‘communication’ is the most critical

factor to developing championship young athletes.

Here’s a link for you to look at –

http://developingathletics.com/cad-short-copy.html

I’m off to get some sleep…

‘Till next time,

Brian

Much More than Training Young Athletes…

Posted on: June 23rd, 2008 by IYCA No Comments

Training Young Athletes goes a lot deeper than you might think.

I had an exceptional time this past weekend.

Training Young Athletes

I got a chance to hang out with one of the best and most unique
minds in our industry – Paul Taylor.

Paul owns and operates ‘PT Academy’ in Australia – which is the
largest and most well-known certification organization in that
part of the world.

What makes Paul so unique and ‘visionary-like’ is his
understanding of human behavior, cognitive function and its
connection to both fitness and sport training.

Now I don’t mean your standard run-of-the-mill sport psychology,
either.

Paul’s understanding of mental/emotional science and the way
stressors, stimulus and regressive beliefs actually serve to
shape our ‘who we are now’ realities is absolutely astounding.

And as always, I was listening intently and learning everything
I could during our conversation.

I was also incredibly happy to see that so many of my thoughts
pertaining to youth fitness and sports training were valid
from a scientific level.

Here’s a recap of what I learned from Paul –

:: The key toTraining Young Athletes is to connect fitness with fun.
This develops a positive correlation in the brain at the
neuro-transmitter level and leads to a favorable and habitual
pattern for years.

:: Over-training is a great sin. Stress at large punishes the
delicate balance of the endocrine system and can lead to
extremely problematic health-related issues. Infusing fun and
following a ‘teaching model’ of athletic development is the
best and most effective way of working with young athletes.

:: The Pygmalion Effect truly is a critical factor in working
with youngsters. Placing positive and constructive expectations
on kids is essential for optimal development.

:: Language is absolutely critical – calling kids ‘fat’, sending
them to ‘Fat Camp’ or always telling them that ‘they should
be faster’ are surefire ways of establishing that exact
slant in their minds. Essentially, the stigma you place on
them is what they will begin to believe about themselves and
eventually create habits around fulfilling (i.e. they will
become exactly that).

:: Although teaching and training young athletes to ‘think positively’ is
key, you must also teach them to create habits around those
positive thoughts. Thoughts don’t change things – habits do.
Positive thought processes must lead to or be accompanied by
positive habitual patterns. When combined, the road to change
begins.

All in all, absolutely fascinating stuff!

Very much like my stance on the Art of Coaching…

Training is the SCIENCE.

But Coaching is the ART.

To be truly effective in what we do, we must understand how
the mental and emotional science of our work connects with the
physical portion.

‘Till next time,

Brian