Youth Training … Think Outside the Box

Brian Grasso is the CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association and is considered one of the premier authorities on youth athletic development in the world. Access Brian’s free database of articles and exercises at www.DevelopingAthletics.com.

Through both my articles and seminar series, I discuss the Art of Coaching quite frequently.

The Art of Coaching infers that it is not what you know as a coach that matters.

It’s how you can relay it to young athletes.

This is a common concern I see especially with younger coaches just out of college and still looking to impress people with there high intellect and advanced vocabulary. In fact, out industry is littered with coaches who talk a great game, seek out as much PR and notoriety as they can, but don’t truly have any degree of experience or ability when it comes to effectively applying training strategies to athletes in unique and varying settings.

In that, I want to discuss today a coaching strategy that I have used that truly enables young athletes to master a given technique.

Rewrite Strategies

If you have ever been driving in a car with a small group of teenagers and had a familiar song come on the radio, you have already experienced in practicality the essence of a rewrite strategy.

By most contemporary definitions, a rewrite strategy is simply “a teaching strategy designed to help students explore content area topics using music”.

For the purposes of sport and training, it involves using common musical tunes to both learn and support the retention of a given set of instructions.

Those teenagers in your car, once they hear that familiar song, all begin to sing along – word for word. That is the point… we all tend to remember the lyrics of our favorite songs. Even if 20 years has past, we can still sing the words or hum the tune of a given song, because of music’s innate ability to stay within the long-term memory of our brains.

Training Application

As you know, I am a strong proponent of teaching young athletes the skill set of a given exercise. That is, a 4-point instruction series on how to set-up their bodies prior to initiating movement (primary skill set) followed by a brief one or two instructions, which define the movement (secondary skill set).

Let’s take the basic squat for example.

My secondary skill set is as follows:

Hips Back – To ensure that the athlete is driving into hip flexion/extension and using the powerful muscles of the hip to execute rather than the anterior thigh.

In-steps Off – To protect against valgus knee motions and further elicit a kinetic chain that runs outside heel to glute medius.

Although the young athletes are taught this sequence and have it reinforced constantly, some youngsters may still fail to execute session to session.

The Art of Coaching

Many times in my career, I have used rewrite strategies to force these basic instructions into the vernacular of my young athletes’ brain.

I challenge them to take the words of my skill set and place them into the tune of a favorite song or catchy jingle that they can recount at will. Once in the form of a common tune, the skill set literally comes alive to the young athlete and they can communicate it immediately. I even have them repeat the ‘song’ in their heads as they perform the movement.

One young athlete I trained comes to mind as I am writing this article. Her name was Mary and she couldn’t seem to get her hips back during the eccentric phase of a squat. More over, her heels kept coming off the ground as she descended.

Her solution?

Mary wants to learn to squat

Learn to squat

Learn to squat

Mary wants to learn to squat

Hips back, insteps off

Say those words aloud to yourself…

Now sing them to the tune of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.

Beware… rewrite strategies work and this little jingle may stay with you for some time!

Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

Global Development vs. Sport Specific Training: It’s All in the Science

Brian Grasso is the CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association and is considered one of the premier authorities on youth athletic development in the world. Access Brian’s free database of articles and exercises at www.DevelopingAthletics.com.

The goals of any trainer or coach working with a young athlete (pre-pubescent) should include increasing proficiency of motor ability, developing functional versatility (from a strength, movement and biomechanical standpoint) and lastly, inhibiting the potential negative effects of specialized training. Upon reflection, these points, both individually and collectively, lend to the credence that when working with young, pre-pubescent aged athletes, the mandate should be one of global, all-encompassing development rather than specialized ventures into sport specific training.

With pre-pubescent children, muscle innervation is completed by roughly the age of 6 years. Muscle innervation refers to the final expansion of motor nerve endings within a muscle fiber’s interior. The impact of this action on motor coordination is quite profound. At the conclusion of the muscle innervation process (again, roughly by the age of 6, although individual variances occur), children are now able to learn and begin the process of establishing functional proficiency in gross motor skills and movement patterns. It is critical to understand, however, that the innervation process happens more quickly and earlier (chronologically) in larger muscles. Again, innervation being linked to coordination and motor control, it stands to reason that children gain proficiency in gross motor skills more quickly than finer skills. This remains another argument for why early specialization is counterproductive – every sport requires various degrees of fine motor skills, which can simply not become functional abilities in younger athletes. Global aspects of gross motor skill development are most understandably the crucial component of training pre-pubescent children.

No one can learn how to create 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.

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 1 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?

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.

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 course of the next 4 weeks and design them in accordance with your 4 week objective. Next month, do the same thing.

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.

Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

Goal Confusion

Brian Grasso is the CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association and is considered one of the premier authorities on youth athletic development in the world. Access Brian’s free database of articles and exercises at www.DevelopingAthletics.com.

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?

The actual answer falls in line with a concept that I discuss constantly in my newsletter.

You have to have a system.

Effectively and safely developing a young athlete is not something that you can do in one practice or one training session at a time.

You must have a direction-based path that extends over several months or years.

This path must, of course, be dynamic in nature, but a “system of development” is what is lacking globally in the youth sports world at large.

Let me explain this by using the example of “form vs. outcome” as discussed above.

The central nervous system of a young person is very plastic – meaning i is explorative by nature and extremely sensitive to new stimulus.

The old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” really does have merit when it comes to learning the skills of a sporting task. The older you are when you experience a new motor skill, the less likely you will be able to cultivate that skill in an optimal way.

But, as a child, your ability to learn new skills and solve motor tasks is quite high.

The essence of this reality, however, is founded on the notion of free exploration. Kids seem to learn the best when they are given nothing more than loose instructions on how to accomplish a task, and then allowed to work at solving the objective in their own way.

This is especially true when the form of execution of the skill in question is not a critical as the outcome.

And this is the crux of the debate.

As you know, I am a huge proponent of teaching young athletes proper execution-based foundations…

…And here’s where the audience of coaches started challenging me.

“This doesn’t make sense, Brian”

“You are known as the guy who preaches about teaching first”

“Agree”, I said. “But what do I always equate that to?”

“Training young athletes”, the coach responded.

“Exactly! TRAINING young athletes. That is substantially different than COACHING young athletes to perform the skills of certain sports.”

I went on to explain the difference.

“When I teach a squat, the outcome doesn’t matter to me. In fact, I think it matters TOO MUCH to most trainers.

“Too many trainers focus on how much they can get a young athletes to lift – all I care about it that they lift it well. The amount of force they can produce will be both proportional to and synergistic with how well they perform the movement.”

The coaches were starting to get it.

“Shooting a basketball is not a form-based event, though. It’s an outcome-based event.”

“You just lost me”, responded the coach.

“Okay, look at it this way. Does anyone grade or evaluate the way a young athlete shoos a basketball?”

“No.”

“Then all that really matters is that the ball goes in the hoop. You get two points for a successful outcome, and there is no scoring system in place that either adds points or takes them away based on the execution of that shot, is there?”

“No.”

“Then shooting a basketball successfully is nothing more than an outcome-based event.”

“Are you saying that we should not be teaching how to shoot a basketball? Just let the kids have at it any way they want?”

“No. Learning the proper execution of a skill as it related to motor tasks such as shooting a basketball, throwing a baseball or hitting a tennis ball with a racquet are important to eventual success, but the style with which you do those things are directly related to solving those motor tasks,” I countered.

And herein, my friend, is where I made the coaches finally understand everything…

“If you tell a young athlete that the goal is to make a basket, throw a baseball right over the plate or return a volley over the net, but at the same time tell them how they should do it, all you end up doing is confusing the young athlete in terms of what the actual goal of the event is.”

‘Goal confusion’ is a term coined by researchers (Gentile, 1972) which explains the ‘form versus outcome’ debate.

It also forms the basis of the groundwork for the ’system of development’ I referenced above.

Athletes as young as 6 and 7 are being taught and over-taught the specific skills and nuances of how to perform various sporting skills in youth leagues, camps and clinics the world-over.

And this is tragically counter-productive.

When training or coaching young athletes, you must understand and then categorize how you will introduce them to certain sporting skills.

More often than not, your task will be to tell them the outcome of what you are looking for and stave off your desire to teach them the form of how to accomplish it.

By creating only outcome-based events and exercises for young athletes and allowing them the freedom to solve the task on their own recourse, you will be fostering and enhancing their globalized athletic ability and taking advantage of the extreme adaptability of their central nervous system.

Over time, it will be necessary to change the goals or objectives of your practices or training sessions into more form-based events in which you begin to refine and improve the execution of the motor task.

And in a nutshell, that is the ‘system of development’.

Understand the importance of free discovery and its impact on the central nervous system.

Create less confusion in your young athletes life by remaining either form or outcome-based with your practices and training sessions.

“O.K. Now that makes sense”, the coaches agreed.

Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

7 Fun Cardio Exercises for Kids

With all the T.V. shows, computer programs, and video games available now, it’s hard to get kids up and moving anymore. That’s one big reason why childhood obesity is becoming more and more prevalent. Getting your child in shape doesn’t have to be a fight; you just have to find activities they enjoy that are good for them as well. Here are some great workouts that will entertain your kids at the same time.

Tennis. If your child isn’t into traditional team sport, then tennis is a great alternative. It gives a great cardio workout while also working various muscle groups and improving hand-eye and overall coordination. Plus, even though your child isnít necessarily working on a team, tennis is a great way to meet and socialize with other kids.

Hacky sack. This is a simple cheap way to get your kids up and moving. It also teaches coordination, balance, and helps your kids socialize and work together in a group to accomplish something. Plus, unlike most group sports, there are no teams so children are trying to beat their old records instead of trying to win.

Dance. Sure, you can enroll your child in dance classes, or you could just turn on the radio a couple times a week and make up silly dances to go along with the songs. This not only encourages movement, balance, and coordination, it also work out kidís brains by getting them to be imaginative.

Video games. These have gotten a bad rap in the past few years, physical video games have come a long way since the original Nintendo. Now there are tons of products available that get your child to stand up and move. One popular game series is Dance Dance Revolution. There are also games on the new Nintendo Wii system that encourage physical movement. These are a fun entertaining way for your kids to get a workout while they play video games. And trust me; these are just as addictive as other video games.

Soccer. There’s a reason there are so many soccer mom’s around; because these moms know that soccer is a great way for children to get their heart rate up, improve their footwork skills, learn teamwork, and have fun at the same time. Plus, if you’re worried about the problem of intense competition, there are many areas with leagues that don’t keep score. This has been, and still is, a great way for your kids to stay in shape.

Swimming. Doing laps is a great way to get an aerobic workout without causing a lot of wear and tear on your child’s growing bones and joints. It’s fantastic and increasing endurance and stamina. Plus, a pool is a great place for them to hang out, play, and meet new kids in the neighborhood during the summer.

Jumping rope. This is a great workout whether it’s done the traditional way, or the newer more faced paced version. This can help your child meet new people, and some areas even have it as a competitive sport.

So why not get your child involved in one of these great activities? You could even get a workout yourself by joining them or just helping them practice regularly.

Please feel free to email me at wilsonk92@mac.com

Kristy Lee Wilson

Total Lifetime Fitness Interview

In our Total Lifetime Fitness Radio Network Interview, Kristy Lee talks about how people can stay motivated to follow-through on lifetime training programs and how people can realistically fit exercise into their day. She discusses the childhood obesity epidemic and the long-lasting benefits of sports participation for children. Importantly, Kristy Lee discusses how parents can help their children to become healthier and more active.

Listen to Kristy Lee’s interview here

Why Exercise May Help Battle Teen Depression

Are you worried about your teen? Has their behavior changed recently and you think they might be depressed? If your teen is depressed, you’ve probably looked into antidepressants and found yourself even more concerned, and you should be. Drugs designed to fight depression in adults can actually increase the incidence of suicide and other destructive behavior in teens. There are other options. While seriously depressed teens should visit a therapist, some symptoms can also be alleviated through regular exercise. Exercise works directly, and indirectly, to help relieve many of your teens depression symptoms.

While there are other benefits, exercise itself can directly improve the mood of your teen. Exercising produces chemicals in your system that work to improve your mood. While the effect is short term, regular exercise can help improve your teen’s mood even when they’re not exercising. As an added bonus, many children and teens in this country are overweight and obese. Regular exercise will help fight these diseases and leave your child healthier as well. And when you’re healthy, you feel better and are less worn down.

A major factor in teen depression is low self esteem. By helping your child improve their physical appearance, you can help improve the way they feel about themselves. Regular exercise will help your child look and feel better. Even if physical results are minimal, exercise can help make your child feel better about the way they look.

As I already said, low self esteem is a big factor in teen depression, but it’s not entirely determined by how they look. A lot of teens opinions about themselves come from how they think others feel about them. There are plenty of exercise opportunities for teens that involve socializing, such as team sports. These will allow your child to meet new people and make new friends. Even if they’re not good enough to make their schools team, there are plenty of other opportunities through the YMCA and other sport clubs.

One big factor in determining whether or not a teen will become depressed is whether or not they have a depressed parent. A teen with a depressed parent may be up to 6 times more likely to become depressed than other teens. This may be caused by genetics, or simply by becoming depressed through exposure. Whatever the reason, there’s great news. All the depression fighting benefits of exercise for teens also apply to adults. So if you’re feeling a little down, why not take your teen to the gym or out for a run around the block. You’ll not only be exercising, you’ll also have some quality time to spend with your child.

So talk to your teen, and then get them up and moving. With regular exercise, your son or daughter will feel better in no time.

Kristy Lee Wilson

Sports ALL Kids Should Play

Brian Grasso is the CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association and is considered one of the premier authorities on youth athletic development in the world. Access Brian’s free database of articles and exercises at www.DevelopingAthletics.com.

One of the questions that I get asked most routinely is which sports I believe offer the best development capacity to young athletes.

This is a loaded question for several reasons…

First of all, ANY sporting activity lead by a quality-based coach is wonderful for kids.

That being said, the true crux and efficacy of that statement is based largely on the ‘quality-based coach’ comment.

It is only when poorly educated and over zealous parents and coaches (i.e. adults) get involved too heavily in youth sports that the experience can become sour. Parents often push too hard and seek success at a young age; coaches often are limited in their understanding of developmental science and routinely ‘drill’ kids with ‘sport specific’ (I hate that phrase) exercises that are too narrow in scope (not to mention that many youth sport coaches don’t know how to TEACH specific aspects of movement or speed and yet get annoyed when their athletes don’t perform a given drill to a high enough standard).

One the most prominent and problematic realities of the above comments is that there don’t seem to be many (any?) outlets for kids just to play anymore. Every young sporting activity is a life or death struggle that MUST climax in a victory… heaven forbid we actually teach developmentally sound skills in a fun and energetic way in order to promote a wholeness to our youths development – which by the way should include emotional stability (for instance highlighting the skills gained in a given season rather than the ‘wins’ and trophies accrued) and mental stimulation (in the form of engaging life lessons that instill a lifelong love for physical activity rather than a win-at-all-costs mentality which can burden kids with various complexes for years).

Having said that, I encourage parents to remove the desire to watch their 8 year olds win the weekend tournament; I encourage coaches to remove there ‘Lombardi’ hats when they walk into a practice or game situation; I also encourage strength and conditioning coaches to remove there yearning to ‘test’ young athletes from a biomotor perspective and look only to increase a child’s ability from a performance outlook.

In fact…

My message is simple…

Play sports seasonally.

Find coaches and programs that highlight skill acquisition rather than victory.

Find trainers who do the same – work towards instilling skills into kids rather than creating performance markers.

So, here than are my top four sports that all kids should play (in no particular order)–

1) Soccer

In most parts of North America, kids lack foot dexterity and soccer is a wonderful natural enhancer of both foot dexterity and foot-eye coordination. Don’t pigeon hole this ability as only necessary for soccer either. Remember, the crux of developing a ‘whole’ athlete is to engross them in as much athletic stimulus as possible at a young age. Increased foot dexterity will, in time, round out a youngsters overall ability and allow them to progress in there ‘chosen’ sport more proficiently.

Additionally, although many North Americans find soccer to be ‘boring’ (although I will need an explanation on how soccer is boring, but baseball and golf are America’s pastimes) it is a wonderfully athletic and tactical-based sport. Sudden bursts of explosive power, change of direction, looking two plays ahead, playing a ‘forcing’ based defense in which the defender uses their body/skills to change what the offensive player wanted to do – these are fantastic athletic lessons that can be filed away in the nervous system and used at a later point in any sporting activity.

2) Swimming

Unloaded shoulder and hip mobility adds a great deal of pliability to the frame of a young athlete. With so many injuries occurring due to restrictions and tightness in kids (yes… I do believe wholeheartedly that many of the youth sport injuries we see annually throughout the world could be prevented with a simple and basic increase in both systemic strength and mobility) hip and shoulder mobility initiatives are crucial.

Additionally, kinesthetic differentiation is a physical skill lacking in many kids (this refers to the knowledge of how much force is necessary to produce a desired result). My opinion on this matter is simple – everything we tend to do with kids, both in sport and training, is based on maximal efforts. In our zeal to search for those ‘performance markers’, we overlook the notion that sub-maximal efforts are both developmentally sound and build certain physical qualities not seen in high force-based outputs. Swimming is the essence of building kinesthetic differentiation – kids simply won’t last long in a pool if they put as much force as possible into every stroke.

3) Martial Arts

Almost every martial art I am familiar with is based on skill acquisition as a primary marker. Not only is that mentally and emotionally good for a child, but it infers the teaching of patience and ‘enjoying the journey’ rather than ‘searching for the destination’.

While a great deal of martial arts practices in North America have become watered down (8 year olds earning black belts – if you knew anything about traditional martial arts, you know how ridiculous that is), most organizations I am familiar with teach a wonderful style of patient skill development and discipline.

Athletically speaking, dynamic flexibility, end-range systemic strength, mobility, spatial awareness – the physical ability built through martial arts is awe-inspiring and can apply to any sport.

4) Gymnastics

Again, the physical elements that can be built through gymnastics are amazing – spatial awareness, flexibility, relative strength, dynamic and static balance – the list goes on.

If for no other reason, the ability to know where you are in space and take a fall ‘well’ is a required skill for any sport.

So… there’s my list.

Don’t get me wrong, the list is nothing without a quality coach at the helm of each of these respective sports. Martial arts instructors for instance, are often archaic in their knowledge of warm-up design as are gymnastic coaches in their practices of flexibility enhancement. Having said that, good coaches do exist and I urge you as a parent to find them. I also encourage trainers to seek out joint venture partnerships with quality coaches and augment a child’s development with solid strength and skill acquisition-based training habits.

Play soccer in the autumn.

Swim in the summer.

Participate in martial arts through the winter.

Take gymnastics in the spring.

Mix in some developmental training and play other sports recreationally for interest and development sake (basketball and baseball for example).

By the age of 13 – 14, you’ll have a solid athlete with limited injury who understands sport tactics and is strong, mobile and flexible…

Not a bad place to be!

Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

Benefits of Strength Training for Children

When most people think of strength training, they imagine big buff body builders. Contrary to popular belief, when done properly, strength training can be safe and very beneficial to your child.

Helps with sports performance
Many pre teens want to start a strength training program to improve their sports capabilities. When done properly, strength training can help your child become a better athlete. Just remember that it should be used to help sport performance, not be a sport itself. Pre teens and teens bodies are not ready for extreme muscle building.

Can prevent injuries
The stronger your child is, the less likely they are to hurt themselves when participating in other physical activities. You may think that they can hurt themselves through strength training, but injuries are usually minor when proper technique is used.

Improves child’s stamina
This is helpful when it comes to sports, but can be a plus in all aspects of life. Improved stamina can help your child get through long, physically and mentally demanding days with less pain and stress.

Improves overall health
Strength training can strengthen bones, lower cholesterol, improve heart and lung function and help your child maintain a healthy body composition.

Teaches healthy exercise practices
With the high percentage of obese children today, most parents should be concerned about teaching their child healthy exercise practices, and strength training is one way to do it. They’ll learn to be able to stick with a healthy exercise program and not overdo it. For this reason, you should also incorporate regular aerobic activity into your child’s schedule.

Builds self esteem
A lot of how your child feels about themselves comes from the way they look. If they start looking and feeling better, they’ll feel better about themselves. They will also build their self esteem knowing that they can set goals and achieve them in a healthy manner.

While many people promote strength training for children, there are some safety concerns. If you’re going to let your child do strength training, make sure it is done properly.

Don’t start too young
In order to master strength training, a child must be able to do the movements with proper form. Young children are still learning to control their motor functions and shouldn’t e distracted by building muscle.

Visit your child’s pediatrician
Your doctor can not only tell you if your child is physically capable of starting strength training, they can also refer you to a trainer who specializes in youth fitness to help choose an appropriate exercise program for your child.

Start slow
Make sure your child has mastered the basic movements before allowing weights or other forms of resistance to be added. Many injuries in strength training are caused by incorrect form. In order to keep your child healthy, be sure they can perform the activity correctly without resistance before letting them use weights. Remember to ad weights slowly. This is meant to help your child, not get them stronger as fast as possible. A child should be able to do 15 reps of an exercise properly before moving on to more resistance.

If you follow these safety guidelines, you will start to see all the benefits to your child’s life in no time.

If you have any questions regarding your child’s health and fitness, or would like help getting your child started on a fitness program … contact me. As a gymnastics coach I have over 10 years experience working with children of all ages.

Kristy Lee Wilson

Coaching Styles

Brian Grasso is the CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association and is considered one of the premier authorities on youth athletic development in the world. Access Brian’s free database of articles and exercises at www.DevelopingAthletics.com.

Previously, I discussed the need to look at the personality traits of your young athletes when considering a coaching style. I do not believe in a ‘one size fits all’ approach to coaching and work to make Trainers and Coaches understand that within every training session and team setting exists the need to conform and streamline your delivery style to fit the situation or athlete(s) – indeed, respect the ART of coaching.

I had one very insightful subscriber email me a great question based on the information I presented last week. Specifically, what do you do when you have more than one personality represented on a given team or within a given training session?

Points to Consider

This is not only common, but also almost impossible to avoid. Whenever you bring two or more young athletes togethers, you are bound to see more than one personality type (and therefore need to employ more than one coaching style).

When coaching a group of 2 or more athletes, restrict the tendency to have each of the athletes performing the same drill at the same time. For example, during a standard warm-up for me, my athletes will do some basic ROM activities (typically through the hips and shoulders) and then proceed on to technique skills instruction. Let’s say you have a group of 4 athletes. As opposed to each of them performing a hip circuit at the same time and then moving on to the next ROM activity, create 4 different exercises and segment them in such a way so that each athlete is performing a separate drill.

To the casual reader, that may sound like a chaotic mess!! In actuality, it allows for a much simpler training session, an individualized approach to coaching and an important feature missing from many basic training sessions – instruction and explanation time.

Here’s the Scenario

Athlete 1 (low motivation & skill) – requires a “direct” coaching method
Athlete 2 (low motivation & high skill) – requires “inspire” coaching method
Athlete 3 (high motivation & low skill) – requires “delegate” coaching method
Athlete 4 (high motivation & skill) requires “guide” coaching method

Warm-up Routine

Hip Circuits – 2 sets/leg, 3 reps/exercise
Prone Bridge with Leg Lift – 3 sets, 5 reps/leg
Shoulder Circuit – 3 sets, 4 reps/exercise
Hurdle Walk-Over – 3 sets, 10 hurdles

Sequence & Flow

First off, bring the whole group together and explain what the task of the day will be. Address each participant individually by name and welcome them. Explain what the training session will look like for the day and encourage verbal and non-verbal compliance.

Then… TEACH!

I have long maintained that every development program must begin with an introductory or assimilation phase for the young athlete. The bulk of your basic teaching should fall into this category. The teaching component at the beginning of each training session should be reminder-based or build off of previously taught skills.

Take 5 – 7 minutes to teach each of the 4 warm-up drills. Explain why the athletes will be performing these drills and why they are important (and yes… do this with even young pre-adolescents. You are building a long-term approach to their development and need to invest the time to acquaint them with your system. Even young kids are ‘teachable’ given the proper application of stimulus).

Once the teaching time is done, assign them each to an exercise.

Now, you have the time to flow and work with each of them individually and correct body alignment, movement habits and exercise adherence. Because they are all doing different things, you can apply the proper style of coaching to each individual.

Application

Athlete 1 (direct) – Hip Circuit
Athlete 2 (inspire) – Prone Bridges
Athlete 3 (delegate) – Shoulder Circuit
Athlete 4 (guide) – Hurdle Walk-Overs

Coaching Cues

Athlete 1 – Get down to his level (which would be on your knees given the ‘Hip Circuit’) and quietly let him know what a good job he is doing. Ask him if he has any questions about what he is doing. Chances are, if he did have questions, he would not have asked them when the entire group was together. The key here is the tone of your voice – be patient, relaxed and easy-going.

Athlete 2 – ‘Seriously Johnny, that is even better than last week!’. ‘Your making this look easy, let me show you a more challenging method, because I know you can do it!’. Remember, they have low motivation, but high skill – Encouraging and challenging are good methods to employ.

Athlete 3 – Ask him what he thinks. ‘How’s it feel?’ ‘You feeling good with that today or you want to switch it up a little?’ ‘What do you think we could add to it?’ Delegate some of the responsibilities of their training to them and help them make it work . Empower them to seek out and create new ideas.

Athlete 4 – Verbally reward their effort and work to make them understand the movement better. “That looks great, Sally! Now, you see how your left leg is pointing out to the left when you go over the hurdle? How can we fix that?”

This flow and sequence of coaching can be taken through the entire workout – even through your movement and strength skill portions. Just create and segment the exercises, include a teaching component preceding each portion and apply the appropriate style of coaching to each individual athlete.

Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

Ways to Add Exercise to Your Child’s Day

Childhood obesity is becoming a growing problem in many countries. Some situations are so bad that children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a disease that used to be isolated to older, overweight adults. As parents, it is your responsibility to help keep your child’s weight and health in check. A great way to do this is by getting your children to exercise more often. This can help them to lose weight and simply be healthier.

Here are a few tips to help you get your child up and moving:

Sign them up for group sports.

These are not only a great way to get a workout, they also promote socialization and self pride. Plus, most kids think sports are fun. If you find a sport your child really likes, they’ll want to practice all the time and they will therefore be getting more and more exercise. Try to enroll your child in a sport that promotes aerobic activity.

Don’t rely completely on sports.

Some kids just don’t like sports. If this is the case, you need to make adjustments to the plan. If they really don’t enjoy it, find something else for them to do. Many fitness centers offer classes for children including martial arts, dance, and even yoga.

Work out together.

Children learn a lot of their behavior from their family. That means, if you sit around all day and don’t work out, that’s probably what they’re going to do. You should set a good example for your child by getting regular exercise. A great way for you to both get a workout is to find something you both enjoy and do it together.

Make it fun.

You may enjoy the quiet time you get running on a treadmill, but you’re child is probably going to complain. Instead of doing normal adult workout routines, make up games, play sports, or dance. It doesn’t really matter what it is, just make sure it’s fun and entertaining for your child. Just be creative.

Cut back on TV and video games.

The best way to keep your child from playing too many video games is to stop the problem before it starts. If you allow your child to veg in front of the TV for hours at a time and then cut back, they’re going to be angry. It’s best to limit times of inactivity from a young age. If you’re having trouble getting your kids to give up the games, buy games that require physical activity like Dance Revolution or the various games available on the Nintendo Wii. This is a great compromise where you both win.

Fit it in where you can.

Today some children have busy schedules just like adults do. If you don’t have a large open chunk of time for you kids to get exercise, you can squeeze in small activities when you do have a few free minutes.

These are just a few ways to get your children up and active. They may be resistant at first, but keep trying. Starting good exercise habits when your child is young is a vital part of a healthy adult lifestyle.

Get Fit and Stay Fit!

Kristy Lee Wilson