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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.
Are they stressed?
Have they slept much?
Is school getting them down?
Adjust your training program AND coaching style accordingly.
Factor #2
2) Understanding How Learning Variances Occur
Some young athletes need to hear it.
Some need to see it.
Others need to feel it properly in order to grasp the concept.
When working as a Youth Fitness Coach with teenagers, it’s critical to involve all three teaching modalities.
This may seem like a moot point.
Something you’ve heard over and over before.
But ask yourself these two questions –
:: How often do YOU use all three teaching stimulus?
:: Do you know which teaching stimulus each of your
young athletes respondes to best?
If you said ‘sometimes’ or ‘never’ to question 1 and ‘don’t know’ to question 2, than this point is something you need to pay more attention to.
What else?
What coaching keys are critical in your eyes?
Leave your comments below –
A major distraction…girlfriends. It becomes quite evident if player and girlfriend had a disagreement…not to mention if they they just “broke up”. I have come to realize that girlfriends are a strong influence in how the player thinks and acts. Girlfriends are just another factor to be aware of regarding players performances…obviously not all relationships are detrimental
I would say girlfriends and home life are the two issues that are big influences in a kids life whether they are good or bad and I have learned( from IYCA) to gauge where he/she is at mentally before going through a work out.
Brian, in education you have the 3 r’s revelance,rigor and relationship!!! Your comments of being able to communicate w/the athlete or student. showa the value of the most important R and thats RELATIONSHIP!!!!! iT’S THEN AND ONLY THEN CAN YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR EFFORTS AND THEIR LEARNING!!!!!!! Brian keep up the good work you are doing great!!! See you at the confrence!! Vince
I love the factors above which ironically could translate into how the parents of these players may want to approach their participation in the development of the kid. Every parent wonders whether he can influence the level of interest and success their kid has in sports. The answer is simply YES! But before I ask parents to get out of your favorite chair (off your BUTT), I’ll give you a tip that will help while you’re just sitting there. Watch games with your girl or boy – on television, or listen to a game on the radio. Take your kids to games of age groups one step above his current age group. Interest your kid in a favorite player. It gives them someone to identify with. Collect cards! This can make the game more personal and interesting when your kids know who’s on the field. More info at http://www.funbaseballconcepts.com
Working with kids with ADHD is also a challenge. Patience and keeping the workouts and drills interesting is the key. Some days are better than others and we just have to go with the flow.
Recently I am having the challenge of communicating with the parents not the athletes. I have noticed that parents are willing to push their kids past the limits. Parents are only concerned about the results of the physical abilities and want to see their kids finish the session exhausted. It is getting out of control.
I think State Strength says it best when he refers to how the parents want to see their kids finish the session exhausted, and if they didn’t and aren’t dripping in sweat, their kid didn’t get a good workout. This is a constant battle I’ve faced countless times with the parents, whether I have been working one-on-one with the youth or in groups. I constantly am up against the dogmatic thinking that their kid has to be spent or I didn’t work them out hard enough. I come across this more often with the fathers who seem more often than not to subscribe to this old-school neanderthal mentality. The athlete’s hardly ever pose a problem for me, it’s their parents. It’s definitely out of hand. Changing how the parents think is a huge uphill battle.
One of my challenge is to get the athletes to focus on his/her goal. For those of us live in a cultural lifestyle and where the ecomony is not match up with developed country, we could not reach our goals in decades. Most support focus on other prior than sport. Sport is just for recreational purposes and not a place where you will earn something for your butter and bread for the next day, month and year. For these reasons althletes are not performing to their personally goals. Get the coaches to attend further coaches courses abroad and obtain better understanding and have good knowledge that will motivate the athletes is another obstacle in this country.