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Archive for “Training Session” Tag

Exercise Programs For Kids and The Art Of Teaching Speed

Posted on: March 11th, 2009 by IYCA 1 Comment

Exercise Programs For Kids Speed Training

One of my favorite things to teach, both to young athletes as well as
Coaches, is the mechanics of speed.

 

Deceleration techniques specifically.

 

And that’s because speed is seldom taught as a skill at all.

 

Usually, the ‘speed work’ of a training session consists of some hurdles,
cones, sprinting and ‘plyo’ exercises with little attention being paid to
form or function.

 

Simply put, we don’t often TEACH speed and respect it in the way we
should.

 

Young athletes can (and should) be taught how to become faster and
more efficient from a movement perspective.

 

And in order to do that correctly, you must have a progressive system
in place that allows them to learn.

 

I always teach speed by instructing on the skill of deceleration first –
and I teach that from both a lateral and linear perspective.

 

Here’s my overview for teaching the skill of lateral deceleration for Exercise Programs For Kids:

 

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Secrets to Young Athlete Rentention

Posted on: February 3rd, 2009 by IYCA 4 Comments

Here’s a brief look at the IYCA Young Athlete system –

 

1) Young Athlete Training SYSTEM, not Training Session

 

School is a ‘system’ that takes years to go through.

 

Parents understand that and are more than willing to pay
and commit their kids into a program that develops them
over time and through progressive phases.

 

This is your selling point for a young athlete.

 

 

2) Per MONTH Fee, Not Per Session Payments

 

Lock the young athlete<,u> in for longer durations by having them
commit to between 4 – 12 month training packages in which
the monthly fee will be significantly less than a per session
rate.

 

Parents love the ‘price break’ and are more than willing to
keep their kids enrolled in your program.

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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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Exercise Programs For Kids: Tip of the Week

Posted on: January 16th, 2009 by IYCA No Comments

 

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Exercise Programs For Kids From The IYCA

I had a great conversation today with brilliant and passionate
IYCA Member, Billy Corbett.

 

He mentioned that while tooling around on the IYCA website,
something caught his eye that he knew he had seen before, but
never really paid close attention to –

 

The photograph of me running around and playing with a group
of small children.

 

"It occurred to me that I should be doing more stuff like that, Brian"
Billy told me over the phone.

 

"Is that kind of coaching a good idea when working with kids?"

 

Excellent question and an easy answer….

 

Yes!
HECK yes!

 

There is certainly a fine line between goofing around with your
young clients and enjoying physical activity with them.

 

In my 13 years of coaching Exercise Programs For Kids experience, I can tell you that one of
the fastest and most practical ways of creating relationships with
youngsters that will bridge a level of trust and keep them coming
back for more (i.e. member retention) is to section off a period of
class time during which you participate in a game with them.

 

In fact, my standard training session for kids between the ages of
6 – 9 looks something like this –

 

1) Introductions (5 minutes)
2) Technique Instruction (5 minutes)
3) Technique Play (10 minutes)
4) Technique Instruction 2 (5 minutes)
5) Technique Play 2 (10 minutes)
6) Free Play (10 minutes)

 

And #6 is where I jump in and play WITH them during the Exercise Programs For Kids!

 

They love it, I love it and the parents LOVE it!

 

Be sure to get down and dirty with your young clients and play
with them during certain period of your training session.

 

To learn more about my Exercise Programs For Kids training system and why this ‘play time’
is absolutely critical to the proper growth and development of your
young clients, click on the link below to access the IYCA’s Level 1
Youth Fitness Specialist certification –

 

http://www.iyca.org/fitspecialist1.html

 

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Brian

 

Training Young Athletes: The Biggest Mistake You’re Making

Posted on: December 15th, 2008 by IYCA No Comments

 

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Training Young Athletes Successfully

I’ll be blunt, brief and to the point with this email.

 

You’re making a big mistake when training young athletes.

 

And it’s the same mistake virtually every single Coach and Trainer makes.

 

It’s got nothing to do with speed, agility, flexibility or strength.

 

It has nothing to do with sets, reps or program design.

 

It’s got to do with assessment and training session length.

 

And I don’t mean the kind of assessment where you take your young
athletes through a specific battery of tests in order to discover any
dysfunctions or asymmetries.

 

I mean the kind of assessment in which you actually pay attention to
how they feel on a certain day.

 

That’s your mistake.

 

You don’t alter your training program on a given day even though on
most days it’s 100% necessary to do so.

 

We think that the quality of a training session is measured in sweat and
effort.

 

Lots of sweat and tons of hard work = good.

 

No sweat and minimal work = bad.

 

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

‘John’ came in for his training session with me this past Saturday morning.

 

Exhausted from the night before and preparing for a basketball game later
on that day, he just wasn’t ready for the training session that I had planned
for him.

 

So I scrapped it.

 

Pure and simple.

 

Of course I have an agenda for this young man.

 

Places I need to take him in terms of speed and strength, but I can’t force
him to improve.

 

More over, I have to hang in the balance the fact that my ultimate goal is
to make him a better athlete – which includes limiting any injury potential
he may be facing.

 

Here’s the advice that you simply must heed when training young athletes.

 

And it’s the mistake virtually every Coach and Trainer is making –

 

What you want to do in a training session doesn’t always matter. You have
to be sure that the organism in front of you in prepared to receive it.

 

Words to live by.

 

I will be explaining the key points of this concept at my first annual
International Summit in February of 2009.

 

Until this Friday (December 19) you can gain access to this event through a
very basic and easy payment plan.

 

With the Holidays around the corner, no one wants to shell out big bucks for
something other than presents for their loved one’s.

 

Well, I’ve taken care of that for you with this incredibly easy 3-month
payment plan to assist you with Training Young Athletes.

 

Have a look for yourself by clicking on this very exclusive link –

 


http://www.iyca.org/2009summit

 

 

‘Till next time,

 

Brian

 

 

 

 

Programming for Youth

Posted on: November 3rd, 2008 by IYCA 3 Comments

The Youth Sports Mentality:

Without a Plan, You Will Be Mediocre at Best

 

The most common problem facing Trainers & Coaches today with
respect to developing young athletes over time is the ability to plan
long-term.  The personal training and coaching professions are most
typically based on a session-to-session consideration – clients pay per

session most often and Trainers create training programs one session

at a time. 

 

The same is true for coaching sport – most Coaches script
out one practice plan at a time, rather than create a relative flow
for an entire month or even season.

 

 

Limited Plan…  Limited Gain

 

The problem with this industry standard as it relates to youths and
adolescents is that this type of shortsightedness serves to limit the
potential gains made by a young athlete.  It is not unlike running a
business or corporation – when business owners take the time to
organize their objectives and action steps for a given month or year,

they almost always are successful at implementing the plan. 

 

Far too many business owners, Trainers and Coaches feel as though

their actions during a sales drive, training session or practice is what
will lead to positive change, when in fact it is the planning that
occurs before these actions that accounts for the true gains.

 

 

Become An Objective Monster

 

No one can learn how to create Programming for Youth for 6 or 12 month plans in a day.  It
takes time and diligent effort to acquire this skill, but your ability
to get better over time will have a direct and positive impact on

both your young athletes’ success rate as well as your businesses

ability to attract new clients. 

 

Set an objective for yourself to create a system or plan that allows

you to develop long-term and wide-focused agendas for your
young athletes.  Take several days or weeks if need be to create a
system that is streamlined and easy to implement – although your are

looking for a comprehensive system, the more basic you make it, the
more easy it will be to adhere to.

 

 

Action Steps

 

Start simply.  Take a piece of paper and write out where you want
your young athletes to be in 4 weeks.  Create headings and then
just fill in each category.  For instance, what skill sets are you
working on now?  To what degree of competency do you want
an athlete or team to be able to demonstrate that skill set in one
month’s time? 

 

This can also be applied to elite adolescent athletes.  Are you
working on squat or power clean totals right now?  If so,
where do you want these numbers to be in 4 weeks? 

 

 

Create Critical Path

 

Once you have organized your thoughts on where you would like

to be in 4 weeks, you have to consider how you are going to get
there.  On the same or a different piece of paper, right out how
many training sessions or practices you have with this athlete or
team between now and 4 weeks from now. 

 

Date each training session or practice on your piece of paper.  Now,
using your skills as a Trainer or Coach, literally just fill in the blanks. 
Compare where you want to be in 4 weeks with the number of
training sessions or practices you have between now and then.  In
order to accomplish your 4-week goal, what action steps along a
critical path must be taken? 

 

This is the essence of how to develop a long-term approach to
working with young athletes.  You will simply just write out your
next several training sessions or practices in order to meet the
objectives you have laid out for 4 weeks from now.

 

 

Critical Path & Beyond

 

This system can easily be applied to 6 months or even a year.  Just
follow the same type of procedure as mentioned above – set out an
objective for the time frame and decide where this athlete or team
needs to be within that time frame. 

 

Let’s say you have a 13-year-old athlete for 6 months and you want

to determine an objective and critical path.  Take out a piece of
paper and write out where you want this athlete to be in 6 months. 
Be descriptive with this – what skill sets do you want him to have
mastered?  What kind of movement-based techniques will he show

great competency in. 

 

Once you have decided that, break those large objectives down into

more manageable ones and make them your first 4-week objective.
To get to your end destination, where to you have to be at the end
of this month?  From there break it down even farther by deciding
on how many training sessions or practices you will have over the
next 4 weeks and design them in accordance with your 4 week
objective.  Next month, do the same thing.

 

 

The End Result You Need

 

An amazing thing happens when you create objectives and critical

plans like this.  You will start seeing results in your athletes and
teams beyond what you ever-dreamed possible.  Failing to plan is

one of the biggest concerns facing this industry.  It seems everything
is taken on a session-by-session basis with no vision or thought to
the long-term.  It could argued that individual Trainers and Coaches
didn’t know how to plan for the future… well; now you do!

 

Practice the skill of objective writing and critical path creation.  It
will take time to design a system that flows well for you, but it is
more than worth it to your young athletes’ and teams.

 

 

 

‘Till Next Time,

 

Brian

 

 

P.S. Don’t forget that tomorrow, Tuesday November 5, I am
unveiling the IYCA’s first CEU course – The Insider Secrets
to Program Design. Everything you ever wanted to know about Programming for Youth
and how I create training programs for the kinds of situations that
you face everyday…. Stay by your email for the announcement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


IYCA Family: Does This Make Sense to You?

Posted on: September 15th, 2008 by IYCA 5 Comments

IYCA is against everything you are about to hear

Because of potential criminal fallout, I’m not allowed to tell you where I saw this.

What’s criminal is the fact that this happened at all.

And the criminals in this case shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind our legal system.

But what can I say?

That’s the law I suppose.

So, with the details muddled and the offenders protected, let me tell you what happened while I was working out yesterday.

A Personal Trainer was conducting a training session with a middle-aged client.

That in itself is not a story.

The fact that I even noticed them at all was based on what I kept hearing.

Groans.

Groans of effort.

Groans of effort that eventually turned into screams.

I mean tribal screams – the kind you usually only hear from elite power lifters or world-class bodybuilders.

Rep after rep after rep, this middle-aged man was literally screaming, cursing and grunting his way through the workout.

All the while, his Personal Trainer was paying literally no attention.

I mean at all.

He wasn’t even watching.

His eyes were fixed across the gym at a couple of other Personal Trainers who had joined the rest of the people in the facility as we all watched in horror at what was going on.

Only, the Personal Trainers weren’t in shock, disbelief or concern.

They were laughing.

The Personal Trainer who was actually conducting this training session was looking at his buddies and laughing.

Rep after rep after rep.

I could go on about how poorly the middle-aged client was performing each repetition and how dangerous his movement patterns were, but that is not the point of this story.

And it isn’t where I believe the Personal Trainer erred most by not watching his client…

…This guy was turning greener and greener by the second.

And the laughing Personal Trainer, acting cool to his buddies, didn’t even notice.

And then it happened.

And anyone actually watching this freak show would have predicted it.

I did.

The middle-aged client leaps off the leg press machine (don’t even get me started on that one), and runs to the closest garbage can.

In a lucky twist of fate, he managed to pull the lid off the top just as the vomit started soaring out of his mouth.

And the Personal Trainer laughed..

He didn’t once go over to his client and see that he was o.k.

He just laughed, smirked and grinned at his buddies.

The vomit stopped, the lid was placed back on the garbage can and everyone in the gym went back to there own business.

The smug Personal Trainer walked over to the now completely exhausted and defeated middle-aged client and says – and this is not me exaggerating –

“Good job.  That’s the price you have to pay.  Let’s get back to work”

I want to end the story there and let you stew for a moment about all the things that are wrong about that situation…. But I have more to say about it in a second.

First, think of this –

I want you to realize and even internalize the fact that when the general public, our consumers at large, think of ‘Personal Trainers’, they think of you and the jackass in this story in the same way.

To the public, you and him are the same.

Here’s how the story ends.

As I’m walking out of the gym, pretty much ‘done’ with what I had just seen, I notice a sign on the front door that I hadn’t noticed when I walked in:

‘Coming This Winter – Our New YOUTH FITNESS PROGRAM’

There was a photograph of the Personal Trainer who will be heading up this gym’s new Youth Fitness program.

Any guesses who it was?

See, this is why the IYCA was created.

To actually differentiate you from Personal Training clowns like this guy.

I checked out his bio on the website, by the way.

He is certified by all those mainstream certification companies – the ones that you are certified by as well.

And because of that, the potential customers you and him as equal.

The IYCA is different. 

We are the only certification agency that actually specializes in educating you on how best to train and develop young athletes and youth fitness participants.

In fact, we do such a great job at preparing Fitness and Sport Training professionals for the endless opportunities that exist in ‘Youth’ niche of the industry, we were recently featured in the internationally acclaimed magazine, Newsweek.

Our youth-based curriculum is not ‘one’ of the certifications we offer.

It is all we offer.

And I created it so that consumers knew that you were different than idiot-boy above.

Right now, the IYCA has certified professionals working in the ever-expanding field of youth fitness and sport development all over the world:

Canada
The United States
Singapore
New Zealand
Australia
England
Scotland
Wales
South Africa

I mean, our IYCA Testimonials page has letters and comments from professional Trainers all over the world who have been overjoyed at the way there careers have changed since becoming IYCA certified.

Have a look for yourself –

http://www.iyca.org/testimonials

The Wall Street Journal reported that over $4 billion a year are being spent on Personal Training and Coaching for youths in the United States alone.

Parents are going to take their kids to fools, or they’re going to bring them to you.

It’s your choice.

‘Till next time,

“What the IYCA has done for my career is worth more than I could ever repay”

Robert Belley
Youth Conditioning Specialist – since 2005

 

 

Become certified as a Youth Conditioning Specialist today and see how much your career will change.

IYCA Certification is the GOLD STANDARD… Click here to find out why –

http://www.iyca.org/fitspecialist1

 

P.S. – There was a recent story in media publications all over the world showing that nearly 1 million children and teens throughout the United States alone use Personal Trainers.

Client demands are changing in the fitness industry…

Are you prepared to change with them??

Become IYCA Certified Now –

 

http://www.iyca.org/fitspecialist1

 

 

Kids Fitness Team Training Made Easy

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

During the ‘Activation/Torso’ portion of my training session.

 

That’s when I do it.

 

I literally walk around and chat with each athlete while they go through their
basic activation or torso drills.

 

And that’s where I ascertain and mentally plot the session.

 

Have a look –

 

 

 

 

It never stops amazing me how often I see coaches and trainers discussing
the finer points of making young athletes and general kids fitness better, but only ever focus their
conversation on things like speed training techniques or set and rep ranges.

 

COACHING and COMMUNICATION are the real keys to

kids fitness
 

Developing a system of training that works and then understanding how to
effectively implement it.

 

That’s what makes a great coach.

 

And not surprisingly….

 

…. Great athletes.

 

In Complete Athlete Development I took the time to create both for you.

 

My template complete with a training system that involves 5 separate categories
in a given session along with every instruction imaginable on how to implement the
entire program effectively.

 

Have a look at Complete Athlete Development through the link below and see for
yourself –

 

 

Complete Athlete Development – Click Here

  

Youth Speed & Strength Training

Posted on: June 11th, 2008 by IYCA 13 Comments

 

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Here’s a look at some of the speed work from this mornings youth speed training session –

 

 


 

 

Basic yes, but exactly what my football players need to increase youth speed. Check out some of the strength work –