Teaching the Basics of Movement – The Key to Youth Fitness

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.

In the initial phases of training with a young athlete (technically referred to as General Preparatory or GPP), the undeniable key and focus (outside of fun!) should be aptitude development. This aptitude should transcend to both movement-based skills in their basic elements (balance, jumping, throwing, linear and lateral motion progressions etc) as well as strength-based exercises. I have always firmly believed that basic squatting techniques, for example (along with squatting variations and unilateral efforts), should be introduced into the training sessions of young athletes.

That being said, how does one begin the process of teaching movement habits?

When working with truly young athletes (6 – 7 years old), you need to adopt a progression template within which to work. No template can ever be applied to 100% of your athletes 100% of the time – that is the beauty of coaching; understanding what to apply, when and for how long (i.e. knowing when to progress or regress on an individual basis). Trust me when I say that no system is foolproof and that any strength coach or trainer that claims to ‘have all the answers’ is completely full of crap. For that exact reason, one of my industry hero’s is Mike Boyle.

He is a) straight to the point with no fluff and b) bold in his assertion that he is still developing and evolving as a coach himself.

After 10 years of working with young athletes, I have reached one undeniable conclusion – the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know and the more I want to change my methodologies.

Having said that, these are the first three progressions I use in teaching a movement habit -

Skill: Lateral Deceleration

Firstly, break key points down into skill sets that are easy to remember so that kids can recite them both to you and to themselves (this makes teaching and cuing much simpler). I have four points I want my athletes to learn/know/commit to memory with respect to lateral deceleration:

1. Bend your knees and drop your hips
2. Be on a flat foot or slightly on the ball of the foot
3. The toe/foot of the decelerating leg should be square to the angle of the body (i.e. not out)
4. The foot placement should be outside the box (the ‘box’ is a reference to an invisible line drawn from the shoulder to the floor. Any placement outside of that line is good; within or too close to the line will result in a poor deceleration and potential injury).

Have the kids understand each of these items individually and then in conjunction with each other.

Progressions

These represent the first three of my progressive steps:

1. Repeat Statically – have the athletes assume an athletic position or stance. From here, they will ‘hit’ the decelerating position upon command. Be patient with this step and make sure all your athletes are comfortable and competent with the motion. Add fun to this by calling out different legs unpredictably.

2. Repeat Dynamically - when you feel your athletes are ready, have them perform one or two moderately paced side shuffles prior to ‘hitting’ the decelerating position. The side shuffles should be slow and easy. At this point, you will begin to ascertain if further teaching is necessary (it likely will be). With the additional movement prior to the deceleration, a common mistake you will see is athletes not planting their foot outside of the box far enough. This results in a poor alignment and a less than satisfactory deceleration (even at these slow speeds). My colleague, Lee Taft, calls this a shoulder sway (because the shoulders lean towards the decelerating leg rather than sitting back in a ‘braking’ type position). I love this term and reflects what the actual concern looks like.

3. Repeat Randomly – Now that the athletes are comfortable with the motion, create games and situations within which they react to a particular signal and move (unpredictably) different directions. On your ‘point’ for example, the athlete will take one or two moderately paced side shuffles and then ‘hit’ a deceleration. Have them hold the position so that both you and them can ascertain what is right and wrong with their posture.
Learn more about Brian’s complete system of developing young athletes – www.CompleteAthleteDevelopment.com

Coordination and Movement Skill Development: The Key to Long Term Athletic Success

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 key ingredient to working with pre-adolescent and early adolescent athletes is providing global stimulation from a movement perspective. Younger athletes must experience and eventually perfect a variety of motor skills in order to ensure both future athletic success and injury prevention. Developing basic coordination through movement stimulus is a must, with the eventual goal of developing sport-specific coordination in the teenage years. Coordination itself, however, is a global system made up of several synergistic elements and not necessarily a singularly defined ability.

Balance, rhythm, spatial orientation and the ability to react to both auditory and visual stimulus have all been identified as elements of coordination. In fact, the development of good coordination is a multi-tiered sequence that progresses from skills performed with good spatial awareness but without speed to skills performed at increased speeds and in a constantly changing environment. As Joseph Drabik points out, coordination is best developed between the ages of 7 – 14, with the most crucial period being between 10 – 13 years of age.

As with anything else, an important issue with respect to coordination development is to provide stimulus that is specific (and therefore appropriate) for the individual. Prescribing drills that are either too easy or too difficult for the young athlete will have a less than optimal result.

An interesting note, as I have suggested in past articles, is that there appears to be a cap with respect to coordination development and ability. Younger athletes who learn to master the elements associated with good coordination (balance, rhythm, spatial awareness, reaction etc), are far better off then athletes who are not exposed to this kind of exercise stimulation until advanced ages. The ability to optimally develop coordination ends at around the age of 16. This validates the claim that global, early exposure is the key from an athletic development standpoint. Again, global coordination will serve as the basis to develop specific coordination in the teenage years.

Once again, it is important to mention that coordination development is a process that encompasses years of exposure and is based on DIVERSITY and VERSATILITY. Young athletes cannot be pigeonholed into sport specific stimulus at a young age and expected to vault into the ranks of elite athletics. As the motto of my company says, ‘You Can’t Become a Champion Until You Become An Athlete’.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that coordination-based exercises must be introduced during the preadolescent ages. Adolescence is not an appropriate time during which to begin elements of coordination training. As strength, speed, height and body mass change significantly during these years, it is much more prudent to reinforce already known movements rather than teach new ones. Herein lies the art and understanding of developing a young athlete. Coaches, trainers and parents must accept the fact that developing a healthy and successful athlete is a journey or process that encompasses several varying degrees of stimulus, all of which build on top of the other.

Coordination training, for example, is introduced during the pre-adolescent ages while nervous system plasticity is high and movement habits have not yet been ingrained as permanent. The scope of coordination training changes during the adolescent ages, during which physical growth alters the young athlete’s previously mastered movement habits. At this time, refinement of movement should take precedent over learning new movement-based skills. In post-adolescence, coordination training can once again be taken to new heights.

One point to consider about coordination is that genetic pre-disposition plays a significant role. Less coordinated children will likely never exhibit the tendencies of naturally coordinated children regardless of training. That is not to say that improvements cannot be made, however – quite the opposite.

Here are three basic principals of coordination training –

1. Start young – coordination improves as a result of learning and mastering new movements. Start young athletes off early with coordination-based exercises that challenge their abilities (within reason). The more coordination a young athlete has, the more ability he or she will display at any perspective sport.

2. Challenge young athletes on an individual and appropriate level – Some youngsters have good balance while others display good rhythm. The key to successful coaching is to undercover what elements of coordination each athlete requires and develop drills/exercises that most suitably target the weaknesses.

3. Change exercises frequently – young athletes learn quickly in most cases. Be sure to challenge them physically and intellectually with new exercises often.
The following list provides some basic exercises that you can use with your young athletes to help develop elements of coordination –

• Multi-directional forms of running, jumping and skipping
• Single leg balancing games
• Mirror games (mirroring each other’s movements)
• Known exercises starting or finishing in new positions (start sprints from belly or one knee; end with hands up or on all fours)
• Opposite arm circles (right hand circles forward, left backwards)
• Simultaneous arm and leg circles
• Jump in place with 180 or 360 turns while in flight
• Balance exercises on a low balance beam
• Cross step-over running or carioca
• Somersault to balance (somersault to standing one legged balance)
• Skipping A, B and C’s
• Obstacle running (place hurdles directly on floor and have athlete run over them)

Remember, coordination includes elements of balance, spatial orientation, rhythm and various other traits. This list reflects exercises to improve several of those elements.

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

Endurance Training for Young Athletes

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.

Endurance training and young athletes is an often-misunderstood topic. On one hand, there are strength coaches who tend to disregard developmentally sound elements of endurance training in lieu of producing stronger and faster athletes via strength and power type exercises exclusively. On the other hand, there are over-zealous coaches and trainers who equate endurance to long distance/duration activities, often with little regard for the athlete’s stage of development, ability or current level of conditioning.

Endurance can be defined quite simply as one’s ability to withstand fatigue or the ability to control the functional aptitude of movement while experiencing external stress. The latter definition lends itself well to the concept of athletic development and training young athletes. As I have stated many times in both print and lecture, when working with youngsters, the key ingredient to producing a successful training program is the ability to recognize that quality of execution is profoundly more important than quantity. Having said that, I still see coaches, trainers and parents opting for more difficult training sessions that include high volume or high intensity activities rather than concerning themselves with how correctly the exercise is being performed. Poor execution results in habitual patterns that are difficult to break and could result in injury. With respect to endurance training, proper mechanics are often compromised for higher volumes or intensities and this is very much a mistake.

One thing to consider is that the term ‘endurance’ has application to varying lengths and types of effort:

• Long slow distances – efforts of limited intensity but high distance or time

• Speed – efforts typically lasting 15 – 45 seconds with high levels of intensity but obviously limited time or distance

• Muscular – the ability to sustain a muscular contraction for a prolonged period of time

There are several factors to consider with respect to the development of endurance in a young athlete:

1. Mechanical/Coordination/Movement – Efficiency of movement is a paramount factor with respect to the endurance capabilities of a young athlete. Poor mechanics (which are only reinforced with repetitive training) lead to higher degrees of fatigue. To truly increase the ability of a young athlete (in all facets), coaches and trainers must exercise patience and teach proper movement habits rather than prescribe endless numbers of sets. A critical point here is that by perfecting technique, you can effectively improve endurance without increasing training volume.

2. Body Type – The more overweight a young athlete is, the less endurance they will likely have. Excess bodyweight (particularly in the form of body fat) will serve to decrease endurance due to an increased energy cost. Additionally, being overweight often leads to poor mechanical efficiency (as per point one). According to Joseph Drabik, “each 5% of excess weight penalizes a child approximately 89 meters in a 12-minute run test”. Conversely, “in a 10-mile run, each kilogram reduction of body mass improves performance by 30 seconds”. Drabik did not indicate how bodyweight was determined to be excessive.

3. Psychological – Many young athletes do not possess significant amounts of mental toughness (but they’re kids so why would they?). To combat this, many over anxious trainers and coaches opt to make drills and exercises purposefully difficult in order to produce some sort of perceived mental strength. Given that both the physical structure as well as mental potency of a youngster is tenuous, this often leads to little more than burnout or injury. A more prudent approach to this issue is to systematically present challenges to young athletes that respect their individuality as well as their current stage of development and offers positive feedback at the conclusion. By offering challenging yet achievable forms of exercise, you will progressively improve their endurance and develop their confidence to attempt new and more challenging things.

It is important to understand that endurance training with young athletes is critical for long-term development and not immediate results. Developing good endurance allows the young athlete to tolerate an increased amount of exercise stimulus in the future and this alone is the key point. Don’t become pre-occupied with immediate effects – like any other aspect of athletic development, endurance training is part of a continual, multi-tiered effort.

Developmentally speaking, from the ages of 3 – 7, general endurance increases due to the typical activity level of kids in this age range (which has become a crucial issue of our time – kids don’t ‘play’ as much as they used to, and this fact has a potentially damaging effect on their future athletic abilities and conditioning). For young males, endurance increases are best seen between the ages of 8 – 11 and then again between 15 – 16. For young females, increases are shown best between the ages of 8 – 10. After the age of 13, endurance capabilities of young women stagnate and actually regress. These numbers illustrate that the young female sensitive period for endurance development is shorter than it is with young males. Because of this, young females should begin their endurance training at a younger age than should young males.

There are several key points to remember when designing endurance-based training programs for young athletes. The most crucial aspect is to always start with a broad aerobic base. This will serve to raise the anaerobic threshold of the young athlete (delay needing to use anaerobic sources of energy during activity) and allow the athlete to tolerate increased loads in the future. Begin this aerobic-base phase with low to moderate volumes. Children, although physiologically more fit than the average adult, still must begin their training programs gradually, working up to longer durations and higher intensities. As typical with the entire athletic development science, it is advisable that you alter the stimulus of endurance training you do with young athletes. Think in terms of seasonal activities – In the summer, enjoy swimming; in the autumn, change to hiking or cycling; in the winter, offer stimulus such as snow-shoeing or cross country skiing. Notice how the suggestions are movement-based activities and NOT going to the gym to run on a treadmill! In our fixation for ‘the perfect body’, it seems we have forgotten how important movement and coordination-based activities are for young athletes. Don’t train kids on single function pieces of fitness equipment. Understand that there is a definitive crossover with all exercise stimulus and young athletes. Yes… snowshoeing is a perfect endurance building exercise for young athletes, but it also involves coordination and skill – IDEAL for the young, developing athlete.

Another key factor is training load increases. Coaches, parents and trainers must remember that increases in volume or duration must precede increases in intensity. In short, make things longer before you make them harder. Lastly, wonderful progress can be made by altering the surface on which the young athlete is performing their endurance training. For instance, if you are incorporating long walks or jogs into your training program, switch the training surface periodically to add variety and improve progress; sand, shallow water, forest trails, pebbles. Quick point of reference – by jogging or walking on sand, forest trails or shallow water, you will also add to lower compartment strength and stability. Ankle proprioceptors, picking up varying degrees of balance-point change, will become stronger and more efficient. KEEP KIDS OFF THOSE MACHINES AND GET THEM MOVING!

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

A Practical Way to Prevent Overtraining

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.

In far too many situations throughout North America, strength coaches and personal trainers make common errors in their programming for young athletes, many of which can lead to overtraining syndromes -

Critical Analysis of Biomotor Ability

In working with young athletes, there is very little reason to ever ‘test’ their ability at certain lifts or speed variances. Your programming guidelines must be based around instilling proper execution of technique in your young athletes from a lift and movement economy standpoint. Having said that, gleaning 1, 3, 5 or 8 RM values on any particular exercise should be deemed a distant secondary consideration to teaching the proper values of form and function.

By using a ‘Teaching Model’ of exercise development rather than a ‘Training Model’ you are taking the pressure off of kids to reach for biomotor improvements at the expense of developing sound technique.

Changing Exercises to Often

Although when training adult clientele, there are neural advantages to altering your exercise selection often, with young athletes the reality is that the initial stages of training should comprise little more than dedicated time to teach and become proficient in the basics of lift and movement economy.

Far too often, trainers work to make young athlete routines challenging and neurally stimulating by incorporating complex programming and exercise selection into the mix early in the athletes’ training life. Resist the urge to make a neurological impact and instead, focus your efforts on developing sound competency in just a few basic lifts – the foundation you build during this time is paramount to eventually increasing both the volume and intricacy of your programming.

Consider the Athlete’s Entire Life

When creating a training program for a young athlete, you must take into consideration their entire life – that is, don’t just make training sessions hard for the sake of making them hard. You do a disservice to the athlete and your business by following this practice.

For instance, if the young athlete is in-season for a particular sport, there practice and game schedule must be considered into the reality of your overall programming. Soccer practices, for instance four days per week coupled with one to two games per week, will leave any young athlete bordering on the verge of overtraining syndrome as it is. Your job during times like this is to augment them with restorative training that does not serve to push them lower beneath what would be considered normal and healthy biological levels.

Additionally, you must work to understand your young athletes’ eating and sleeping habits as well. Inappropriate nutrition and poor sleeping patterns (which many teenagers face today) are precursors to overtraining syndrome in that they are two of the more important restorative elements trainees can use to combat such concerns.

As a professional trainer working with young athletes, you are responsible and must assume accountability for their overall health and wellbeing. When training young athletes and in an effort to ensure quality, efficacy-based training practices, resist the temptation to do the ‘norm’ by making exercise sessions hard and physically challenging. Instead, follow the three key points above to ensure optimal training conditions and guard against the very real concerns of overtraining.

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

How to Design a Warm-up For Young Athletes

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.

This may be among the most controversial and misunderstood topics within the entire youth development industry.

Warming up for sport or activity is, in essence, preparing the body for the task it is about to do. This includes increasing body temperature and improving the efficiency of the nervous system (which controls movement). Warm-ups can generally be classified into two categories:

1. General – Incorporates a broad assortment of movements in order to prepare the body as a systemic unit. Arousal of an appropriate ‘mental attitude’ for the upcoming competition or practice is a valuable component of this phase.

2. Specific – Involves precise actions or exercises relating to the particular sport. This serves as a more accurate neuromuscular preparation for the movements and tasks about to take place in the game or practice.

There are two misleading notions regarding warm-up design that are generally believed to be true by many coaches, trainer and parents:

1. Aerobic activity is the best choice as a warm-up exercise.

2. Static stretching must precede all workouts, practices or games in order to reduce the potential for injury.

The ‘aerobic activity’ phenomenon is a wide spread myth to say the least. Soccer, football and baseball coaches often send their athletes on 5 – 10 minute jogs around the field prior to the start of a game. Likewise, Personal Trainers will habitually have their clients ‘warm-up’ on a stationary bike or treadmill prior to a strength-training workout. This type of pre-event warm-up equates to dogmatic practice without any analysis of what the warm-up is meant to supply. Specifically, a warm-up must elevate body/muscle temperature to a certain point, increase both respiration and blood flow as well as enhance nervous system activity thereby heightening coordination and movement aptitude – this must all be done to level at which the athlete is not fatigued but prepared.

With aerobic-based warm-ups, energy reserves may be diminished and the ability to exhibit speed, strength and motor control lessened. This is quite problematic considering most sports and workout programs involve either displaying speed and strength abilities or are designed to enhance speed and strength capacities. More over, if a given training session is geared towards upper body strength exercises, how does running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike prepare the body for the specific neuromuscular demands about to be placed on it?

With static stretching, it must be understood that any type of prolonged, held stretch can actually CAUSE injury. The concept of flexibility as a whole is largely misunderstood in contemporary sport performance (and fitness for that matter). The notion that static flexibility exercises are necessary as a pre-event habit in order to both prevent injury and prepare the body for movement are two primary incorrect ‘facts’.

Firstly, static flexibility exercises can disturb the stability of joints to a point that may actually serve to increase the potential for injury. Acting on nerve transmissions from the brain and spinal cord, muscles serve to move joints through various ranges of motion in order to produce a desired task. Understanding the laws of human motion, their exists a delicate balance between mobility and stability within the context of any movement. A muscle’s job then (in conjunction with both ligaments and tendons), is to produce movement (mobility) while protecting a given joint from ‘over-movement’ (stability). ‘Over-movement’ refers to uncontrolled motion that exceeds the natural limits of a joints capacity – this could result in acute trauma of varying degrees of severity. This mobility-stability interplay can be disrupted if statically held stretches are performed prior to a period of physical exertion.

The other primary factor to consider is that static exercises of any kind cannot be judiciously thought of as precursors to a movement-based activity. All sports and training exercises involve movement in varying extents. Slow and easy-paced multi-directional movements, sudden bursts of speed and maximal strength efforts are all part of either sport participation or training programs. It is only sensible to prime the athlete specifically for what they are about to do – Prepare To Move By Moving To Prepare.

In reality, understanding the concepts of warming-up for sport could be a book unto itself. How to design an efficient and functionally-sound warm-up is based on several factors including –

• Type of activity
• Duration of activity
• Age of Athlete
• Injury History
• Exercise history

*Adapted from ‘Facts & Fallacies of Fitness’ by Dr. Mel Siff

Here is what a general warm-up may look like for an adolescent athlete (of virtually any sport):

Movements are performed for 20 – 30 feet. Walk back to the starting point and begin again.

• Jog X 3
• High Knees X 3
• Butt Kicks X 3
• Carioca X 2 each way
• Back Pedal X 3
• Lunge Walk X 3
• Walking Hip Thrust X 2 each leg
• Walking Skips X 2 each
• High Skips X 3
• Skipping Bounds X 3
• Tempo Runs X 3

Movement aptitude is taught and perfected during warm-ups. It is not enough to simply ‘go through’ the motions – coaches and trainers must teach adequate movement habits and force productions skills.

For both lower and upper body strength training days, I will incorporate a specific movement complex prior to the actual lifting exercises:

Lower Body

These exercises are performed with a 45-pound Olympic bar without any other external loading. Each exercise is performed in sequence one after the other.

• Good Morning X 5 reps
• Overhead Squats X 5 reps
• Back Squats X 5 reps
• Front Squats X 5 reps
• RDL’s X 5 reps

Perform 2-3 sets

These exercises are specific preparations for the movements the athletes are about to perform and elicit a more particular neuromuscular response. Again, impeccable form is both taught and practiced during these movement complexes.

Upper Body

These exercises are performed with 3 – 5 pound dumbbells and are performed in a sequence or circuit type manner.

• Rainbow Arc X 5 (start in anatomical position, raise your arms in a rainbow-type motion until the dumbbells touch above your head)
• Shoulder Press X 5 (standard)
• Forward Arm Circles (standard)
• Crisscross X 5 (start with dumbbells held at 90 degrees of shoulder abduction, ensuring that the scapulae are retracted and depressed. Horizontally adduct until the dumbbells reach the sagittal midline of the body. Perform a quick over-under crisscross with the dumbbells and return to the starting position)
• Bent Over Fly X 5 (standard)

* Perform 2 – 3 sets

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

Teaching Technique – Laying the Foundation for Sporting Excellence

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.

Demonstrating good technique from a sporting perspective involves applying optimal movement ability in order to accomplish or solve a particular task effectively. A young athlete, for instance, who demonstrates sound technical ability while running is getting from point A to point B in an effective manner.

Technical ability in a sport is typically the underlying measure for potential success. Good athletes are more often than not technically sound athletes. This reality, however, does not start and stop with respect to sport specific skills; this fact extends itself into the realm of general athletic development and the promotion or advancement of general movement abilities. The crux of athletic development as a science resides in the notion that before we create a sporting technician or specialist, we must first build the athlete by instilling competency in both basic and advanced movement abilities; this would include not only multi-directional movement skill but also the technical requirements of basic to advanced strength and power training exercises.

The technical abilities demonstrated in a given sport can be categorized based on the rules or requirements of that sport –

Group One –
A sport in which making a good impression on a judge is crucial (figure skating, gymnastics, etc.) often involves coalescing intricate movements together. Within these sports, the techniques being demonstrated are described or clear (and therefore can be judged for efficiency). They are being performed within a fixed environment and without impediment (i.e. no one is interfering with you). The athlete’s task is to develop technical skill that can be showcased in a performance of pre-determined and practiced movements.

Group Two -
The techniques in this grouping allow the athlete to attain maximal and impartially measured results; there is no consideration for how well the technical abilities were displayed, just objective measurement for how effective they were (i.e. how fast did they run, how far did they throw the object, how much did they lift etc.). Sports in this category would include track and field events, swimming and weightlifting. Outside impediment is not an issue in this grouping either. In this grouping of sports, one’s motor abilities will define success – Meaning, the fastest or strongest athlete will win.

Group Three –
The ability to display adequate technique within this grouping aids in overcoming an opponent. This would include combat sports, racquet sports and virtually all team sports. In this group technical ability is combined with tactical sense and reacting to a continually changing situation and varying conditions. In this category, motor abilities (strength, speed, endurance and flexibility) are submissive to technical ability. That is to say that the fastest or strongest athlete in this grouping of sports is not necessarily the most successful. Motor abilities are developed in order to improve your application of technical skill.

How efficiently an athlete learns the technical skills of a sport, strength training exercise or movement is determined by several variables –

• Age – Complex skills are often understood and comprehended better by more mature athletes (although individual exceptions certainly apply).
• Emotional State – Relaxed and easy-going athletes tend to learn and reproduce new skills better than athletes who are uptight and self-critical.
• Motivation – So many parents, coaches and trainers just assume that the kids they are working with WANT to be at practice or in that training session. This goes back to my argument on effective coaching includes knowing your athletes and what kind of stresses they are under OUTSIDE of your 60 minutes with them. Athletes who are motivated to learn new skills will do so more easily than unmotivated athletes.
• Natural Talent – Athletes with innate natural ability are far superior at learning and reproducing new skills.

Critical to note within this topic are the methods being employed by the Coach/Trainer to teach new techniques. With the lack of stringent regulations at the youth sport coaching level and the youth training industry, it is certainly more than fair to consider the quality of instruction being given:

• What kind of personality does the coach have? In a study released by the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology in 1999 (Youth Athletes & Parents Prefer Different Coaching Styles), it showed that adolescent athletes (ages 10 – 18) enjoyed coaching styles that involved concerns regarding the well-being of each athlete, a positive group tone & feeling and supported friendly interpersonal relationships.
• Does the coach have a solid working knowledge of the technique? This goes right to the route concern of inadequately credentialed Trainers and Coaches – if you aren’t sure yourself how to correct the problem, how is the young athlete supposed to get it right? Remember, when working with kids, you are building habits, good or bad. Your job is to make sure that each repetition is forming a strong, positive habit in that young athlete. That can only be accomplished if the Trainer/Coach understands what they are teaching and can instruct the technique properly.

The core of technique development or learning is in the action of achieving perfect sensory-motor habits. A sensory-motor habit is simply a “learned activity of sensory and motor processes intentionally practiced to the point of nationalization” . From a physiological perspective, this entails creating a permanent conditional reflex connection that enables the exact same motor reactions to respond to the same stimuli. The development of a sensory-motor habit occurs through many stages:

1. Generalized excitation of motor centers in the cortex.

Application
When young athletes are first learning a new skill, they will often become overly tensed as they concentrate hard on performing that skill correctly. This often leads to needless additional movements and a lack of ability to ‘zero-in’ on movement of skill execution perfection.

2. Concentrated excitation in the appropriate motor centers.

Application
This is when young athletes become much more comfortable with a new skill. The movements become much more economical, flowing and precise. Young athletes’ attention is drawn more towards the rhythm and speed at which skills are performed as well as specific details of technique.

3. Nationalization of the entire action

Application
There is no need for any sort of conscious effort with respect to movement control. The skill is performed in the right situation, in the correct way and all via nationalization

Sensory-motor habits are either “open” or “closed” –

• Open Habits are variable or adaptable to unexpected situation changes.
• Closed Habits are suitable for when the movement is being executed in a static situation or environment.

In sports involving closed sensory-motor habits, athletes practice precise and preprogrammed movements. The athletes learn via feedback from their bodies and are eventually able to detect very small divergences from proper execution, divergences that would lead to a poor result or performance. Elite figure skaters or track and field throwing athletes, for example, will know immediately upon executing a jump or throw weather or not it was their best effort based on the feedback their bodies give them in relation to an automatic understanding of what perfect execution feels like.

In sports relating to open sensory-motor habits, once the essence of the technique has been taught and perfected, the young athlete should be placed in constantly changing situations that will demand that the athlete learn to make quick reactive choices and maintain the ability to apply the learned technique in varying conditions. True aptness or perfection of open sensory-motor habits involves making them more plastic. This is a neurological reference that means making these skills more adaptable to a variety of situations.

There are three basic phases in learning a technique:

1. Basic Learning – The learning of a new technique should be done at a slow pace. Especially with younger athletes, coaches must refrain from ‘drilling’ a new technique at ‘normal time’ rates. That is, simply showing or describing an exercise or technique once or twice and then asking young athletes to replicate what they have just learned at a quickened or ‘game speed’ tempo is counterproductive to learning that technique on an optimal level. Remember, when dealing with young athletes QUALITY OF TECHNIQUE is inherently more important than performing a certain number of drills. I try to equate developing a young athlete to progressing through the academic levels of a school system; a teacher simply would not give an example of advanced calculus to a third grade class and expect them to understand it nor be able to solve calculus-based problems. Basic addition, multiplication, subtraction and division is taught at a young age and progressed upon with advanced conceptual understandings of mathematics as the student progresses in both age and intelligence. The same should be promoted with regards to developing a young athlete. In this example of ‘Basic Learning’, Coaches and Trainers should teach new techniques in a controlled manner, making sure that the athlete understands the concepts of body mechanics and angle of force, thereby increasing their awareness of movement economy.
2. Controlled Application – Once the athlete understands the skill and can perform it at an increased pace during isolated practices (i.e., NOT game situations), the Coach should now incorporate ‘opponents’ into the next phase of skill/technique learning. This would entail controlled practices or scrimmages in which the techniques are practiced against another team or competitor. This phase of learning should also be based on quality of repetition, again refraining from ‘drilling’. By drilling, I am referring to the Coach or Trainer who uses the common phrase ‘Do it again!’ at regular intervals during a practice. Remember, learning a technique is a process of which this is phase two. The Coach or Trainer should continue to provide feedback and instruction that supports the athlete in learning and refining this technique to an optimal level.
3. General Application – The Coach has very little influence over this phase during the actual event/game itself. The athlete will react and succeed based largely on how well they were taught. Quality, positive and constructive feedback should still be offered to the athlete either after the game or at the next practice.

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

Why Do You Test Young Athletes?

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.

How to test a group of young athletes has become a popular ‘discussion board’ question recently. I have seen this query raised on several prominent websites and have been asked about it a great deal over the past few months as well. Thus… my desire to touch on this subject.

The common curiosity surrounds how to test absolute strength ability via 1, 4 or 8 RM (rep maximum). The thought process is that once a trainer or coach has a baseline measurement of a given athletes strength capacity, they can deduce two specific things:

The strength gain(s) that an athlete will see following a training program (because inevitably they will re-test the athlete at the conclusion of there 6 or 8 week training cycle).

The percentage of absolute strength the athlete can and should perform their training programs (for example, if a 1RM squat equals 225 pounds, than a ‘training weight’ may be 70% of that, or 158 pounds).

Biomotor improvements (strength, speed, flexibility) are not hard to come by with young athletes and are often just as attributable to their natural adolescent maturation process as they are to any ‘cutting edge’ training program a given trainer or coach will put together. More over, as demonstrated in countless studies, detraining effects will occur in a relatively short period of time once the training program has concluded.

Pursuant to the above point, we must progress away from the ‘value-intensive’ practice of training young athletes in short bursts (6 – 8 weeks) and shift to a more long-term and ‘principal-focused’ approach to working with kids. In that, a given training program would not look to isolate and improve biomotor ability as much as it would act as a teaching agent with a focus on improving transferability to sport.

In this value to principal shift I suggest, we must also look to take pressure off of kids in general. Like it or not, if you adhere to test/re-test training programs of short durations, you are allowing that athlete to think only of the numbers and specific improvement gains. Kids should not be placed in a situation where the efficacy of their training is based on how much more they can squat in week 7 than they did in week 1.

Again, your focus as a trainer or coach should be on technical ability and improvements in this consideration. Create RTA (rate of technical ability) charts that mark how well a child is progressing from a form and function standpoint. Not only is this a more ‘teaching-based’ approach to conditioning, but it also changes the focus and mental stress for the athlete – from performance considerations (i.e. how much weight can they lift) to technical considerations (i.e. how well can they lift it).

One of the more problematic issues I have seen in this debate revolves around why a trainer or coach is testing at all.

The reason to test must be completely based on what you want to glean from the results… and most coaches and trainers don’t seem to see that clearly enough.

For example, one of the questions that was recently posed to me was in reference to a freshman baseball team (14 year old athletes). The coach told me straight out that the kids had little to no experience in terms of strength training, so testing the squat would not be a worthwhile assessment. Instead, the coach wanted to know if leg press or leg extension would be more feasible because they lack technical difficulty.

Points to consider:

If you know that the kids have no lifting expertise, than by nature of that conclusion, your role as a trainer/coach is to teach. Period. There is simply no reason to test strength capacity in a situation where the kids you are working with have no experience at all. That is part of the dogmatic thinking that must change in our youth training culture.

Leg press and leg extension are silly exercises that will do more harm than good to anyone. Specifically, lumbar rounding in the leg press and anterior sheering at the knee joint with leg extension make the risk/reward ratio of these exercises useless. Additionally, and this speaks to my statement above, what is the point of testing strength on an apparatus that you have no intension of using during training? Again, you must first ascertain why you are testing.

The reality is that in the United States, many high schools use a programming model that is based on test/re-test situations right from freshman through varsity. The notion that incoming freshman, with little to no technical ability, are being asked to perform strength assessments from day one is nothing short of ridiculous… oh… and maybe a touch dangerous as well.

Teach… Teach… Teach.

I cannot re-state that enough. Forget about testing biomotor ability and concentrate on actually teaching young athletes the skills they need to excel in sport AND be remain injury free.

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

Flexibility – Are We Hurting Kids?

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.

Flexibility remains a mysterious avenue within the sport industry, cluttered with myths, half-truths and opinion. Questions purvey in many trainers’, coaches’, and parents’ minds as to the type of flexibility training one should perform, when they should perform it, and for how long. Of critical importance to this conundrum is the young athlete and how flexibility training should be applied to this demographic. This article will not answer every question you may have, but it will shed some light on a few key points.

The scope of confusion regarding flexibility can be seen when considering the assessment tools most commonly used to test one’s suppleness. The standard ‘sit & reach’ test is most often incorporated into pre-training assessments as the ‘flexibility test’. In fairness, many coaches and trainers I have worked with cite the fact that the sit & reach is an indirect assessment of flexibility at best, and does not give a truly accurate picture as to the ‘global’ suppleness an athlete may posses considering that flexibility is joint specific. Also, it does not allow us to assess any dynamic qualities, which is important because static flexibility is quite different than dynamic flexibility, and dynamic flexibility is critically more important in sport.

The degree of flexibility a joint exhibits is not entirely determined by the tightness or pliancy of the muscles that act on that joint. While elasticity of the muscle is a key component to flexibility, so is the elasticity of the corresponding ligaments and even the emotional state of the individual. Additionally, the physical length of a muscle can play a very large role in determining the flexibility or ROM of a joint. Muscle length is largely determined by genetics, but can also be positively influenced through strength training. This certainly contradicts a common myth that strength or resistance training INHIBITS flexibility. Furthermore, as the elasticity of a muscle reduces with age (which we generally accept as true), strength training can also positively influence this concern. Yes… Strength training has a positive impact on flexibility and suppleness! In fact, when working with younger athletes, basic static stretching habits can increase the length of a ligament and lead to joint instability. This can lead to poor posture and increased dependence on muscles for joint stability. Strength and flexibility (through full ROM) must work hand-in-hand to ensure optimal development and decreased injury occurrence.

In terms of young athletes, flexibility develops in correspondence with growth. In terms of training, type, frequency and duration also change with age -

Ages 6 – 10:

Hip and shoulder mobility declines, resulting in the need for dynamic ROM exercises within these two joints (multidirectional raises and rotations). Maximum flexibility of the spine is reached by the age of 8 or 9 – increases beyond normal ROM can be made, but is unnecessary and considered potentially harmful.

Within this age group, STATIC STRETCHING SHOULD BE AVOIDED. Excitement within the nervous system is much more pronounced than inhibition, which means that kids this age cannot truly execute a held stretch. They cannot gain the appropriate feedback from their body needed to ensure the safety and optimal effectiveness of the stretch.

Additionally, Isometric stretches (as found in Yoga) should also be avoided completely in this age category. These kinds of stretches may increase the resting tone of a muscle, which can negatively affect movement skill and coordination. Remember – Fitness fads come and go, but the critical science of athletic development and human physiology is what it is. Yoga has its place to be sure (although I know many skeptics who disagree with that), but coordination and movement MUST dominate this age bracket.

Ages 10 – 13:

Children incur gains of body mass at a quicker rate than gains in height at this age, which leads to an increase in strength. Flexibility training should intensify in this age category. Increases in strength and changes in body mass can combine and lead to poor biomechanical habits – most critically in not using full ROM during movement. Ensure that kids incorporate full ROM and dynamic exercises into their training.

Ages 13 – 15:

Height can increase as much as one inch per month during the growth spurt. Muscles and supporting connective tissue do not grow as quickly as bone, which can result in general pain throughout the body. Flexibility training can and should target the areas most prone to pain – this would include quadriceps, hamstrings and muscles of the lumbar spine specifically. Poor posture, reduced movement skill and injury are all potential concerns of rapid growth, but can be limited with appropriate flexibility habits.

Ages 15+:

Now is the time to start adding sport-specific means of flexibility training into an athlete’s routine.

Flexibility, especially with young athletes, is not at all just a matter of ‘stretching out’ before or after practice. Hope this article shed some light on a few things for you!

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

The Machine Myth … Get Kids OFF Those Machines

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.

Whenever I come into contact with a coach or trainer who preaches the virtues of machine-based strength training for young athletes, the same argument is typically offered – machines are safer for kids because they eliminate the dangerous aspects of traditional free weight training. This is simply a dogmatic mindset and not founded on any scientific or functional principles. It is a classic case of blaming the exercise or activity rather than the execution. In fact, having young athletes train on machines for strength development can actually lead to injuries and a whole host of other concerning factors.

All sports are dynamic and require a great deal of systemic strength and stability to perform. More over, the strength/stability interplay needed to perform virtually any sporting activity is based on the body (or its parts) working as a unit, the way nature intended. By isolating certain muscle groups via machine-based training, you are eliminating the body’s natural capacity to provide both mobility and stability in an interrelated manner. This can essentially limit a young athlete’s ability to effectively produce force on the field of play while at the same time providing stability in other crucial areas of the body. By disturbing this innate mobility/stability balance, you are decreasing the ability of the body to protect itself during the dynamic and unscripted movements experienced during a sporting event. Coaches and trainers who incorporate machine-based training into the routines of young athletes in order to promote weight room safety are, in essence, increasing the risk of injury on the field of play. One of the primary goals of a sound strength and conditioning program is to prevent injuries during a sporting event or season – Coaches and trainers who insist on using machines for training purposes are then suggesting that trading sport safety for weight room safety is somehow a good deal.

Here is a look at some of the finer points of machine training –

• Seated vertical pressing machines place a great deal of stress on the lumbar spine – More so than standing vertical pressing exercises. In fact, many young athletes, in an attempt to press as much weight as possible, will actively hyperextend the lower lumbar in order to gain extra leverage.
• Seated leg press machines do not afford backrests that equal the natural curvatures of the spine. Additionally, many young athletes tend to overload seated leg presses with extreme amounts of weight (likely because they perceive the exercise to be ‘safe’). At increased loads during the eccentric or lowering phase of the movement, the lower lumbar will go through a forced flexion. This is a terribly unstable position for one’s lower back to be in and could result in anything from minor to severe injury.
• Hack squat machines can place a great deal of anterior shearing forces on the knee joint. Also, they tend to work primarily the quadriceps muscles and are less effective at training the critical hip extensor muscles of the posterior chain.
• Hip abduction and adduction machines allow minor to excessive spinal rotation during the movement. Here is a perfect example of the mobility/stability interplay factor that I suggested above – as you try to isolate a hip abduction exercise, for example, you will naturally ‘shift’ away from the leg in motion and experience a slight to severe degree of spinal rotation. Due to the body’s natural habits of motion, it is impossible to isolate a movement or muscle without experiencing stabilization dynamics in other parts of the body.
• Smith machines allow for vertical motion only, which is contraindicated in exercises such as the squat (an exercise that many young athletes perform on the Smith machine; again likely due to perceived ‘safety’). In good squatting form, there should be a natural forward lean while the hips are pushing back (do not misinterpret that for me suggesting that young athletes should bend or lean forward during the eccentric or lowering phase of this exercise). This allows one to maintain a sound neutral lumbar spine position and actively generate force from the powerful hip extensor muscles. With Smith machines, this natural and safe motion is eliminated completely and lumbar flexion is promoted.
• In many cases, coaches and trainers use machines in a circuit type fashion and route several young athletes at a time through a machine-to-machine type routine. Whenever young athletes are working on timed events (i.e. the coach allows for 20 – 40 seconds at each station) you can likely be assured that the athlete is attempting to get as many ‘high intensity’ reps out of his/her set as possible; often at the complete disregard of their execution. With machine or free weight strength training, perfect execution is a must – in a sense that makes machines and free weights equal in this argument. Having said that, the very unnatural nature of machines make them even more of a concern from a biomechanical safety perspective with respect to ‘timed’ training sessions or sets.

Functionality in both sport and life is based on healthy movement, certainly not isolation. In that, Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) plays a vital role. Often noted as a type of stretching exercise, PNF is actually a diverse and intensive concept that involves movement-based stimulus following spiral or diagonal motions (to reflect that oblique nature of most muscle orientations), with the primary goal of developing motor learning through precise movements. Having said that, machine-based strength training, with its isolated format, is simply not functionally similar to innate patterns of motion that a young athlete would use on the field of play and is quite disruptive to basic physiological factors of movement such as normal timing (which refers to the naturally occurring timing of the phases of movement during a given motion).

Even with cardiovascular training, it is less than optimally productive to have young athletes use either the stationary bikes or treadmills found in most health clubs. Possessing optimal speed, agility or any other reactive locomotor ability is based largely on hip and trunk flexibility and strength. Both cycling and treadmill running serve to limit hip range of motion and can cause decreases in the dynamic flexibility within the hip complex. Young athletes are better served to incorporate rigorous sprinting or movement-base interval training (such as Fartlek) into their training routines.

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

ACL Injuries and Female Athletes

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

There has been an epidemic of sorts in the past few years regarding ACL injuries and young female athletes. In fact, 50,000 ACL surgeries were performed in the United States in 1982, with the majority of ACL injuries being the non-contact variety – essentially, no direct contact led to the injury itself. That statistic goes right to the heart of my concerns with young athletes. If the majority of ACL injuries are non-contact based, then either biological or mechanical issues are to blame. That is, either the injuries are due to unfortunate, yet genetic structural dysfunctions or the result of improper loading and mechanical faults – which is a matter of poor coaching.

Here is the fact – women have higher incidences of non-contact ACL injuries within the context of sporting events than do men. In fact, according to a 2000 study on this topic ‘recent reports from the National Collegiate Athletic Association institute that female collegiate soccer and basketball players were three to four times more likely to have non-contact injuries than their male counterparts.’ There simply has to be an answer accounting for why this is.

In separate studies, several factual elements of ACL injuries were shown:

1. Non-contact ACL injuries often occur with the knee at modest flexion along with a valgus motion.
2. Quadriceps contraction applies an anterior shear force on the tibia.
3. The above mentioned quadriceps contraction can cause an ACL injury if the knee flexion angle is less than 30 degrees and the hamstring musculature does not supply necessary posterior shear force (when functioning well, the hamstrings provide a counter force which pulls the tibia back from any translation forward).

Given these points and knowing that female athletes are more prone to non-contact ACL injuries, several assumptions can be made –

1. Young female athletes likely do not show as great a degree of knee flexion and yet more valgus motion than do young male athletes during athletic events and/or training.
2. Young female athletes likely have stronger anterior thigh dominance than posterior (i.e. more quadriceps involvement than hamstring involvement) during athletic events or training. This factor, of course, has influence over the anterior versus posterior shearing forces.

If these assumptions are true, and in fact basic biological factors (such as Q-angle) are not entirely to blame for this ACL epidemic, then does poor coaching play a role, at least to some degree, in the female ACL injury syndrome? For instance, referring to point #1, non-contact ACL injuries occur when the knee experiences too modest a degree of flexion and too much valgus during activities such as running, jumping and cutting – are those not mechanical issues that a qualified coach should notice and correct?

Here is what one study found when attempting to decipher these concerns (the findings were based on a observations of running, side-cutting and cross-cutting) –

1. Knee flexion angle for female athletes was lower than that for male athletes.
2. Female athletes’ knees were steadily in a valgus direction (in fact, 11 degrees more valgus than male subjects). This is a definitive problem. According to one study, the load on the ACL due to even a 5 degree motion towards valgus can increase to as much as 6 times of that when the knee is lined up properly in the frontal plane.
3. Especially during running and side cutting, female athletes experienced more dominance of the quadriceps than did male athletes.
4. Especially during running and side cutting, female athletes experienced less dominance of the hamstrings than did male athletes.

The combination of points #3 & 4 indicate a strong concern. While the increased quadriceps activation does not necessarily infer an anterior shear, the combination of an increased quadriceps force coupled with decreased hamstring activation will most certainly increase the likelihood of anterior shearing on the tibia through the patella tendon.

The point is that female athletes tend to incur knee motions during activity that are typical for experiencing non-contact ACL injuries.

Here is where the debate and argument gets heated for me. I have been an outspoken critic for years on the ‘quick fix’, ‘short term’ training approach that many trainers and facilities implement with younger athletes. When you are young and athletic, getting is shape for the upcoming season, improving your vertical jump in 6-weeks, adding 25 pounds to your bench and being able to run at 20 MPH on those high speed treadmills should be distant concerns in contrast to developing fundamental, multi-joint and systemic strength, learning movement economy (or the most efficient means of running, changing direction etc) and perfecting safe and biomechanically sound movement patterns. A study on the ‘jumping & landing techniques in elite women’s volleyball’ concluded brilliantly that ‘concerning technique, athletes who regularly perform landings and are exposed to the concurrent large impact forces should concentrate on performing landings using a toe-heel contact pattern with greater knee flexion.’

What a novel concept! Actually TEACH young athletes the technique of how to run, jump, land and move BEFORE you program endless numbers of drills and exercises.

Therein lies the crux of my concern – far too many trainers and facilities make the erroneous error of trying to maximize the ability of a young athlete as it relates to performance markers (such as vertical jump) rather than advocating for a developmental approach to improvement that is founded on fundamentals and basics. In doing so, these trainers are dampening the potential success a young athlete may achieve down the road, and compounding the problem of injury potential rather than easing it.

Here is an example of how you would teach a squat, for example, to a young female athlete –

Four Step Process –

1. Foot Position – I typically start with feet shoulder width apart and toes pointing straight ahead. Once the athlete is comfortable with the exercise, we can explore other comfortable positions.
2. Lift In-Step – I don’t want this to sound as though I have young athletes ‘remove’ their in-steps completely off the ground, but we instill the notion that they need to be performing the squat exercise by ‘pushing’ through the outside portion of their heels. This accomplishes a couple of things: a) the issue of knee valgus is removed b) hip, knee and ankle alignment is guaranteed.
3. Set Eyes & Head – When the eyes are down, the head and upper torso will follow. This causes a forward motion during the eccentric phase and causes both an anterior force through the knee as well as misalignment of the cervical, thoracic and lumber spine.
4. Push Hips Back – first time squatters and young athletes who were poorly guided will often automatically descend into the squat with an anterior motion (i.e. weight on the toes). By actively pushing the hips back, we are promoting more hip extension during the concentric phase of the squat and therefore higher activation of the hamstrings and glutes with proportionately less quadriceps involvement, consequently reducing anterior shearing forces at the knee joint.

Some, and in many cases all, of the steps in the preceding sequence can be used to teach several lower body exercises including single leg squats, step-ups, lunges and side steps.

One of the most important factors to understand is that squatting, long considered by many to be an ‘unsafe’ exercise, is actually a critically important progressive action that aids in teaching the fundamental movement patterns associated with preventing ACL injuries.

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