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Archive for “Stimulus” Tag

Stretching Young Athletes with Bands

Posted on: March 16th, 2012 by IYCA 1 Comment

 

Young Athletes and Resistance Band Stretching

 

By Dave Schmitz
 

What age is good to start band stretching?
 

Is it appropriate to stretch young athlete ages 10 to 13 with Bands?
 

Are there precautions when stretching young athletes with bands?
 

As a band expert I have never felt doing band stretching with athletes younger than 14 was an effective way to improve passive mobility because of the hypersensitivity of the nervous system to passive over pressure stretching. Anytime I attempted to introduce band stretching to this age group, I met with a great deal inhibition and compensation. Passive overpressure stretching of young athletes for years seemed to be very noxious to the neuromuscular system which resulted in kids just putting their body through unproductive stress that the body was not mature enough to handle. The key word in this sentence was mature or from a functional standpoint integrated.
 

Band stretching is like any other movement skill, it must be integrated progressively which means eliminating inhibition by introducing the movement skill in a progressive manner. With band stretching that means:
 

  1. Using the correct band strength that provides the young athlete with enough resistance to initiate a contraction but does not put their muscle under inhibitory causing stress
     

  2. Providing a manual training stimulus using your hands and verbal cueing to guide them through the movement patterns
     

  3. Stressing the importance of opposite side stabilization and manually assisting with this so they can feel the impact of locking out the opposite arm and maintaining a solid foot contact against the wall
     

  4. Not overwhelming them by showing all stretching positions in one training session. Start with hamstring stretching first and then gradually introduce hip rotation, hip flexor/quad and ankle on subsequent sessions
     

    Other important keys to remember are that many of these young athletes are going through abrupt growth spurts which disrupt their neuromuscular control and coordination instantly. Lever arms are lengthened which in turn challenges dynamic stabilization. Also with this added length neural tissues become shortened leading to neurotension restrictions which are best addressed with rhythmical dynamic stretching versus using a static stretching approach.
     

    A Case Study
     

    My son Carter was 13 years old, 135 pounds and 5 feet 1 inch tall going into 8th grade school year. Carter moved very well for his age but had recently gone through a 3 inch growth spurt over a 2 month time frame which dramatically increased his hamstring and hip rotation tightness. Carter played soccer as well as football. He had become very interested in becoming the kicker for his 8th grade club football team. In watching Carter kick during the summer prior to his 8th Grade year, he was not able to get effective hip flexion with knee extension during the follow through of his kicks which had decreased both his power as well as accuracy. In accessing his Straight leg Raise (SLR) Test, Carter demonstrated only about 30 degrees of hip flexion with full knee extension.
     

    Up until this time, I had never implemented band stretching with Carter but decided to do a 3 week trial. For the first three 15 minute stretching sessions, I manually worked with Carter to insure proper movement and stability during the movement. I did not apply any overpressure but rather allowed Carter to create that with the band. My role was simply to guide the movements and assist with stabilization. After the first 2 sessions Carter started demonstrating very good neuromuscular control using a Red Small band and was able to perform all hamstring and hip rotation stretches effectively without my assistance. He stretched a total of 15 times over a 21 day period with each session lasting about 12 to 15 minutes. Many of the sessions were done prior to practice or before going out to play with his friends.
     

    After 3 weeks of band stretching, Carter’s SLR Test increased to 75 degrees and his kicking accuracy from 30 yards was 90%. After 6 weeks his SLR Test was 90 degrees and his accuracy was now 90% at 35 yards.
     

    Obviously after seeing this incredible change in Carter’s hip flexibility, I quickly started to adjust my opinion on band stretching for younger athletes. One of the other factors that I realized while going through this experiment with Carter, was level of muscle stiffness maturity he was experiencing. Carter’s tissues were stiff but not to the degree of an individual in his 20’s or 30’s Therefore by applying the correct stretching stimulus Carter’s tissues quickly adapted and lengthen which explained the dramatic improvement but also provided a stronger support towards instituting band stretching sooner than later in young athletes.
     

    Recommendations for stretching young athletes with bands

     

    Here are a few recommendations for starting a band stretching program for ages 11 to 14.
     

    1. Begin by using a red band before considering any stronger level band. Very important to not over tension their muscle tissue and make them struggle getting into the correct positions.
     

    2. As their coach or parent, you need to help them learn the movements and positions. They will need manual guidance and verbal cueing for at least 2-3 sessions before they can be allowed to stretch on their own.
     

    3. Start with 1 or 2 stretches and gradually implement the others as they master the initial stretches. Again keep in mind, this is not fun stuff and the motivation to train flexibility will probably not be there initially. Until they begin to feel functional improvement, getting young athletes to stretch effectively will require coaching patience.
     

    4. Stretch slowly but actively. 2-3 second progressive holds while performing at least 90 seconds of rhythmical movement in each position is important. Progressive holds are defined as maintaining increased tension for 2 to 3 seconds while still attempting to push further into the range.
     

    The video below will take you through what stretches I feel you should start using with young athletes.

    It should be noted the hip flexor- quad stretch is not performed but should be added into the routine once hamstrings and hip rotation stretches are mastered.
     


     

     

     

Making Youth Training Work No Matter What

Posted on: April 4th, 2011 by IYCA 1 Comment

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Youth Training Systems

Youth Training

 

(1) Create An Ascension System

 

Prior to my arrival, if you watched the Novice Teams (8 – 11 years old) go through their conditioning regime and then you watched the Senior Team (16 – 18) right after, you’d have trouble distinguishing the difference.

 

Exercise Selection.

 

Volume.

 

Coaching Style/Intensity.

 

Across the board; identical.

 

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Young Athletes & Coordination – Part 3

Posted on: August 10th, 2010 by IYCA No Comments

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Young Athletes & Coordination Series

Here is the third and final portion of ‘Young Athletes & Coordination’:

 

(3) Teenage Athletes Are ‘Too Old’

 

Now, while there is truth to the matter that many of the sensitive periods for coordination development lay during the preadolescent phase of life, it would be shortsighted to suggest that teenage athletes should not be exposed to this type of training.

 

Firstly, much of the training of coordination takes the form of injury preventative.  Any sort of ‘balance’ exercise, for example, requires proprioceptive conditioning and increases in stabilizer recruitment.  With ‘synchronization of movement’, large ROM and mobility work is necessary.  ‘Kinesthetic differentiation’, by definition, involves sub-maximal efforts or ‘fine-touch’ capacity which is a drastically different stimulus than most young athletes are used to in training settings.

 

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Young Athletes & Coordination – Part 2

Posted on: August 9th, 2010 by IYCA 1 Comment

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Young Athletes & Coordination Series

 

Part 2: Coordination – Can You Teach Young Athletes?

 

The answer, in short, is yes.

 

Coordination ability is not unlike any other biomotor – proficiencies in strength, speed, agility and even cardiovascular capacity (through mechanical intervention) can be taught, and at any age.

 

The interesting caveat with coordination-based work however, is that its elements are tied directly to CNS (Central Nervous System) development and therefore have a natural sensitive period along a chronological spectrum.  The actuality of sensitive periods tends to be a contentious topic amongst researchers and many Coaches – some of whom are not satisfied with current research and therefore not eager to believe in their existence and others who accept sensitive periods of development to be perfectly valid.  It’s worth pointing out that I am in no way a scientist or researcher, but have read numerous books and research reviews on the subject and feel satisfied that they do exist and can be maximized (optimized for a lifetime) through proper stimulus.

 

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Young Athletes & Coordination – Part 1

Posted on: August 8th, 2010 by IYCA 3 Comments

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Young Athletes Coordination Series

In this 3-part article, I will discuss the role and significance of ‘Coordination Training’ as it relates to both preadolescent and high school athletes:

 

The myths and falsehoods associated with young athletes Coordination Training are plenty.  I’ll outline the ‘Top 3’ here:

 

  1. Coordination is a singular element that is defined by a universal ability or lack of ability
  2. Coordination cannot be trained nor taught
  3. Coordination-based stimulus should be restricted to preadolescent children

 

This article will provide a broad-based look at each of those myths and shed some light on the realities behind coordination training as a continuum for the complete development of young athletes aged 6 – 18.

 

Part 1: Coordination & Young Athletes

 

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Top 3 Mistakes in Youth Sports Training

Posted on: July 12th, 2010 by IYCA 5 Comments

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Youth Sports Training

It is customary to see young athletes being taught and drilled on how to run as fast as possible in a straight line.

 

Coaches spend hours teaching the mechanics of ‘linear speed’.  Arm drive, hip drive, ankle push, forward lean – all the usual suspects.  Whether on a high speed treadmill, gymnasium floor or football field, anywhere you go, you’ll likely see Coaches teaching the techniques of running fast in a straight line moving forward.

 

Now, I don’t really have any fundamental issue with respect to this style of training.  I could (and will) argue that virtually every sport is played in a non-linear format and so spending time on the mechanics of an exercise that a young athlete won’t typically ever need in a sporting situation is paramount to a large waste of time.

 

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How To Shape Speed Training – Part 1

Posted on: December 28th, 2009 by IYCA 7 Comments

Speed Training

Many articles, books and information products discuss the development of speed from its physiological perspective of bio-motor enhancement.

 

How to get athletes stronger so as to create more force production and absorption.

 

How many sets and reps are necessary in a given training program in order to elicit the greatest possible hypertrophic response.

 

How long should the rest times be between sprints or cone drills so as to ensure maximum recoverability.

 

These are all valid considerations and the purpose of this article is not to diminish their value.

 

The pursuit of lasting speed and movement enhancement with your athletes however, should not be reduced to learning and applying just the overviews of quality programming. There is a much larger picture to consider – and it requires a more long-term approach and keen eye from a coaching perspective.

 

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Young Athletes: Are they an Oak or a Squash?

Posted on: October 12th, 2009 by IYCA 4 Comments

 

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Young Athletes Development

“It takes God a hundred years to make an oak, but it only takes Him two months to make a squash.” –President James Garfield

 

In our results-now, win at all costs, sports-crazed society, many athletes, coaches, parents, and professionals seem to have lost sight of the goal of sport and physical activity for growing young athletes.  What is currently widely marketed as “athletic development” by individuals across the country is, in many instances, quick-fix training designed to show immediate results.  While results are great, young athletes and their parents and coaches must be certain that such short-term improvements don’t compromise long term outcomes.  The following represents an incomplete list of potential warning signs that may indicate that programming may be too short sighted in nature to be optimally effective.

 

1.    Heavy emphasis on measureable assessments to demonstrate progress. Developing children will usually improve no matter what type of stimulus is introduced; the key is finding the optimal training approach.  Testing eight year olds in the 40 yard dash or in the vertical leap may be acceptable, but developing an entire training program around such testing is laughable.  Competent professionals are more interested in mechanics and the acquisition of steadily improving motor patterns rather than showing stunning improvements in “measurable” early on.

 

2.    Short-term programming. Six and eight week programs are popular and certainly have their place in contemporary athletic development facilities; however, the main utility of such programs should be to introduce athletes, parents, and coaches to the long-term athlete development model.  Beware any facility that does not offer long-term training plans, as it is impossible to effectively develop a young athlete with such a myopic approach.

 

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Overtraining Young Athletes – Part 1

Posted on: August 12th, 2009 by IYCA No Comments

 

 

Young Athletes

I have long supported the notion that the zeal many Trainers and Coaches show with respect to conducting high intensity training sessions with young athletes is akin to the unsure actor who feels a need to "over-do" his or her role in a given appearance for fear that the audience may disapprove of his acting ability.

 

Almost like a "they paid for it and now I must deliver it" mind set.

As a Coach, you sometimes feel as though you must have your athletes walk away from a training session dripping with sweat and barely able to open their car doors. After all, if they don’t feel as though you are ‘training them hard enough’, they may opt to go and seek the services of a different Coach.

 

The problem is that overtraining syndromes are not hard to develop with adolescent athletes and must be recognized as an issue with respect to programming.

 

For ease of explanation sake, let’s just say that if your athlete walks into your training center at what would constitute a normal biological level, and if your training stimulus was at an intensity that would enable the athlete to dip below this normal biological level, but not be too much so as to not be able to ascend into a level of super-compensation, then, well… that would be good.

 

But there are energies in the world that effect an athletes recoverability from a training session (you know… recovery… that’s the part of the training routine during which your athlete’s body actually makes improvements and gains).

 

For example:

 

– Nutrition
– Emotional Stress
– Sleep

 

Let’s examine those individually for a second.

 

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Injury Prevention and Youth Performance Training

Posted on: July 22nd, 2009 by IYCA 1 Comment

 

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Youth Performance Training,/h1>

 

So here’s where I chime in.

 

Want the truth from my perspective?

 

Blunt and to the point as usual….

 

 

Injury prevention and youth performance training is the same thing.

 

 

When working with young athletes in a well-designed developmental
process, the goal is simply skill acquisition and advancement.

 

Done correctly, injury prevention and performance gains take care of
themselves.

 

Now, this is in stark contrast to much of the industry who pontificate
about specific "6-Week Injury Prevention Programs" or "8-Week Off-Season
Speed Training Programs"

 

A well-designed developmental system of training involves little more than
teaching skill, progressing the skill and then subsequently applying it
to specific patterns or sports when required.

 

Biomotor gains (i.e. speed, strength, flexibility increases) occur naturally
as a bi-product of such a system.

 

So to does injury prevention.

 

When technique and force application is taught correctly and in a progressive
manner, efficiency of movement, systemic strength and range of motion increases
happen naturally.

 

When young athletes move better, are stronger head to toe and have full, complete
ranges of motion through joints, they are naturally less likely to incur injury.

 

It really is just that simple.

 

But do you know how to construct a fully developmental and progressive
training system?

 

Do you understand fully what sorts of training stimulus are necessary at certain
ages in order to maximize athletic performance?

 

Maybe it’s time to look very seriously at my Complete Athlete Development
System.

 

More than 10,000 young athletes worldwide, Coaches, Trainers and Parents
haven’t been wrong.

 

Click on the link below to see what I mean –

 

www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

 

 

‘Till next time,

 

Brian

 

 

 

Youth Speed Training Myths

Posted on: July 15th, 2009 by IYCA 24 Comments

 

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Youth Speed Training success

Training young athletes for speed is a topic that I love to chat about.

 

Mostly, because I learn from a variety of sources.

 

What’s your philosophy on speed training?

 

Deceleration first?

 

Systemic strength as a base?

 

Multiple parts of different kinds of stimulus?

 

I love to learn from IYCA Members worldwide and would be honored if
you would click on the link below and share with me your thoughts
on Youth Speed Training

–

 

So, what say you about speed training, my friend?

 

Please…. Leave your thoughts and comments below –

 

Developmental Fitness For Kids And Teens

Posted on: June 18th, 2009 by IYCA 5 Comments

 

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Fitness For Kids Long Term Success

Remember one of the critical pillars of the IYCA –

 

Don’t Train…. Teach!!

 

Here’s a look at our unique Fitness For Kids development system:

 

Discovery (Ages 6 – 9) – Creating A Champion

 

The purpose of this phase is to introduce participants to a wide spectrum on non-specific exercise stimulus that aids in the natural development of coordination habits.

 

Coaches utilize the principle of Outcome-Based Coaching which allows young participants to learn the physical skills of exercise through an experimental and self-discovery based means.

 

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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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Youth Sports Training: Do You Confuse Your Young Athletes?

Posted on: March 24th, 2009 by IYCA 8 Comments

Youth sports training with kids

You could open an interesting debate with respect to teaching sporting skills to kids.

 

I did last week during a presentation I gave to area basketball coaches.

 

Some trainers and coaches have decided that the skills required to achieve a certain task should be taught from the beginning.

 

Others believe in the concept of motor patterning – allowing the young athlete to find his or her own way of achieving a task.

 

The debate gets even trickier when you factor in the varying nuances and therefore objectives of different sports.

 

For example, in basketball, if the ball goes in the hoop, it doesn’t really matter how it got there.

 

But in diving, you know going in that once you jump off the platform, gravity will pull you into the water – the style in which you get there is all that really matters.

 

Where do you sit on this debate?

 

I asked the coaches in my audience the same question.

 

Should you teach or over-teach a certain style of execution to young athletes from day one, or should you allow the young athletes to learn the relative motor patterning via exploration and natural refinement?

 

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How Do Young Athletes Learn?

Posted on: February 2nd, 2009 by IYCA No Comments

 

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Young Athletes Development Tips

 

Developing young athletes is not based solely on a given conditioning
coach’s understanding of scientifically valid measures of motor stimulus,
strength training or flexibility exercises. In fact, it could be argued that
given all of the critical information contained in this textbook on exercise
selection, methodology and sensitive period development, successful
coaches will be the ones who can teach and relay information to young
athletes well, more so than the coach who merely reads and digests the
scientific information offered via clinical research.

 

The science of developing young athletes, then, is centered in the particular
technical information associated with pediatric exercise science whereas
the art of developing a young athlete is based on a coach’s ability to teach.

 

There are several styles of coaching that do not adequately serve to aid in
a young athlete developing skill, yet are none-the-less common amongst
North American coaches and trainers.

 

An example of this would be the ‘Command Coach’. Command coaches
presume that the young athlete is a submissive receiver of instruction. The
instructions given and information offered moves in one direction only:
from the coach to the athlete. Coaches who display this habit believe that
coaching success is based on how well the athlete can reproduce the skills
as taught or demonstrated by the coach.

 

There are also various misappropriations relating to how young athletes
actually learn –

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Top 2 Factors in Becoming A World Class Youth Fitness Coach

Posted on: January 27th, 2009 by IYCA 8 Comments

 

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Youth Fitness Coach

Factor #1

 

1) Understanding How to Communicate

 

It’s imperative that you assess your young athletes personality type and temperment prior to each training session.

 

On a given day, the stress of teenage life could alter your young athletes mood dramatically.

 

If you aren’t aware of that, then you could be offering instruction to someone who just isn’t listening at all.

 

Engage each of your young athletes in an informal, yet important conversation prior to your training session.

 

Ascertain how they’re feeling about life in general.

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Your Opinion on Children’s Fitness, Please…

Posted on: November 12th, 2008 by IYCA 43 Comments

 

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Children’s Fitness… What Age?

I received a very interesting email yesterday regarding children’s fitness.

 

Dan Coyle, a freelance author who writes for the New York Times among
other publications, recently finished a new book he’d been writing.

 

He emailed to ask if I would read the manuscript and give him feedback.

 

I was honored to even be asked and of course said yes.

 

The book itself – and of course I can’t mention any details since it won’t
published until 2009 – has to do with children’s fitness and being exposed to various
aspects of sport, art, music and other stimulating activities in order to
ensure their proper development and the proper development of the
nervous system at large.

 

Very much in line with what I stand for in terms of early and multi-faceted
exposure to a wide variety of physical and cognitive stimulus.

 

Now here’s the interesting thing –

 

This is in direct contrast to many Fitness Professionals who believe that
you should never ‘train’ or ‘work with’ a child under the age of 12.

 

Clearly, I disagree for several reasons.

 

Now I’ve explained my reasons more than once and don’t want to take
up any space doing it again.

 

Instead, I want to know YOUR thoughts on the matter.

 

Over the next couple of days, I will take some of the responses I get
and discuss them in emails to you.

 

So what do you think?

 

Is early exposure important for children’s fitness or is 12 some kind of magical age we should
wait until?

 

Click below and let me know….

 

 

Brian

 

 

Fitness Training For Youth – Even the Best Don’t Get it Sometimes…

Posted on: October 14th, 2008 by IYCA 8 Comments

Fitness Training For Youth – what age do you start training someone?

 

How old should your fitness training for youth clients be?

 

How about young athletes?

 

I have to admit to being utterly stunned by the opinions

some very esteemed members of our industry shared on this

topic on a popular website recently.

 

“No one under the age of 12”

 

“It’s hard to teach kids under the age of 14 proper technique”

 

I am more convinced than ever that the IYCA is 100% necessary

in this industry.

 

In the world for that matter.

 

What is magical about the age of 12?

 

Why is that considered an age that adjunct fitness training for youth is fine,

but 11 or 10 is an issue.

 

Here’s the real crux of the problem –

 

Many people in this industry simply don’t understand.

 

And although we live in a free country and I wholly support

the right of everyone to express there opinion, it really

makes me wonder why highly esteemed and influential

members of any community don’t first understand the issue

before stating a strong stance on the matter.

 

Notice how I never discuss the virtues of training highly

elite athletes or senior citizens?

 

It’s because I understand and respect my limitations as

a professional and find it silly to wield any sort of

influence over a topic I know nothing about.

 

Ideally, I wouldn’t want to have children pay for my

services either.

 

Kids should be outdoors, in the sun, playing and growing

physically for the exercise stimulus they encounter.

 

Just like I was as a kid.

 

The problem is they’re not doing that.

 

Kids should be enjoying at least 45 minutes of well-designed

and developmentally-sound physical education everyday in

school.

 

But that’s not happening either. 

That is why we need fitness training for youth.

If you know anything at all about human growth and

development, you know that the plasticity of the nervous

system is such that exposure to physical activity is a

must at an early age.

 

And while I would love to see kids just step outdoors

again and enjoy ‘free play’ experiences or partake in

vigors daily exercise in gym class, I also long for the

days when the gas to fill my car cost less than an

entire paycheck.

 

Obese kids aren’t active and must outlets to become

active.

 

Young athletes are at the mercy of under-educated and

over-zealous Coaches so must have a voice of reason in

their adjunct training programs that involve more than

just pushing through biomotor increases.

 

I’m not going to say that our industry has done a fantastic

job of understanding and applying proper elements of  fitness training for youth…

 

… But that’s all the more reason to LEARN them through

a credible organization rather than merely cutting off a

segment of the population who desperately needs help.

 

Let me know your thoughts…

 

‘Till next time,

 

Brian
fitness training for youth
 

  

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

Screening Young Athletes

Posted on: June 10th, 2008 by IYCA 10 Comments

Young Athletes Assessments

Gray Cook is arguably the most well-known and respected man in the fitness industry today.

His ‘Functional Movement Screen’ has literally developed a cult following the world over.

He presents seminars throughout North America, Europe and beyond.

His FMS Certification is one of the most popular in existence.

He is sought after by every major fitness and sport organization as a consultant or keynote educator.

Gray Cook is the Brad Pitt of our industry.

And not too long from now, he and I will be creating something absolutely transforming.

Here’s the summary of what we talked about –

  • Screening young athletes to decide if further assessments are necessary is an important step in reducing the irrelevant nature of corrective exercise but also in determining injury potential properly and effectively.

  • Some coaches and trainers have very instinctive ‘eyes’ when it comes to seeing movement dysfunction, but many don’t. Creating a simple but effective screen allows every trainer or coach to ascertain movement irregularities and determine follow-up action.

  • Every IYCA Member must have access to this screen – it is the building block of the work we do with kids and young athletes.

  • Once you understand how to screen, you also must be able to assess and provide the right sort of exercise stimulus necessary to evoke change and help reduce the chance of injury if required.

Long story short…

Gray and I are about to create a young athletes specific screening process and subsequent Functional Movement Screen.

Not sure yet when the roll out will be, but I can tell you that all IYCA Members will have access.

I’ll keep you posted on everything as it develops.