Programming Ideas For Young Athletes By Dave Gleason Without a doubt, the most popular game amongst our youngest athletes (Discovery 6-9 years) is the Pirate Game. Many Athletic Revolution coaches have successfully adopted and modified this multi-purposed game to meet the needs of their young athletes. Coordination, systemic strength, cooperation, object manipulation and FUN are all the required elements of the Athletic Revolution programming templates. All of these elements are layered into the Pirate Game and can be duplicated and or expanded on with any other theme. Themed games or programs are fantastic ways.. More »
Speed and Agility Drills Defined
Learn How To Select The Perfect Speed and Agility Drills For Your Athletes How do you go about selecting speed and agility drills for your athletes daily use and instruction? If you were like me you would choose the ones that you like, equal parts lateral and linear and then write them in the program. You would probably use some progressions from simple to complex. Well that is what I used to do. Recently our speed and agility programming has become systemized in a similar way as our strength training. This has helped our athletes to become much better at.. More »
Giving Your Young Athletes Ownership
Giving Young Athletes Ownership Over Their Fitness Programs By Dave Gleason At times we speak about giving kids ownership over their fitness programs. Self efficacy, self confidence and a vested interest in long term health and wellness are all associated benefits of giving a little control back to the young athletes we coach. With all of the documented and experiential proof of these advantageous rewards, why do we not allow for coaching in this manner on a more consistent basis? Once more, should we be digging deeper into the possibilities we could examine with our young athletes?.. More »
Youth Fitness Resources From The IYCA
Youth Fitness Resources By Wil Fleming I get a lot of questions regarding what IYCA product other coaches should buy. To my inbox, in person, and on facebook the question is always “I am thinking of buying Product X, and also product Y if you had to rank them what would it be?” Continuing education is one of my favorite things to spend money on. I know that there is a big return coming on the money spent on products that help me improve as a coach. So in truth, any information gleaned from a text.. More »
Top 5 Mindset Tips On Speed Training For Young Athletes
Speed Training For Young Athletes Coaching Tips By C.J. Easter One of our jobs as coaches to set the tone, tempo, and intensity for our speed & agility training sessions. This tone needs to be clearly communicated to our team leaders, who then set the expectation for the rest of the team. My belief is that tone should remain consistent, while tempo and intensity can be adjusted. Watch your team as they come in the locker room after school (their posture, their energy level, see how they respond when you greet them). Are they pretty sore from yesterday’s workout? Are.. More »
Speed and Agility Training Program for Youth Football
IYCA expert Dave Gleason shares some speed and agility training program templates that give coaches and parents what they want and athletes what they need.
Designing the Right Speed and Agility Training Program
Developing The Right Speed and Agility Training Programs For Young Athletes Designing a speed and agility training program can be difficult with young athletesWithout a plan in mind of how to train a speed session, what can start as a speed session can crumble into a conditioning workout, with no lasting effects on an athlete’s ability to move quickly. When I am coaching athletes in a youth speed and agility training program I find it necessary to first, break it down into the component parts that I would like to train, and second assess the size.. More »
3 Movements For Young Athletes
Preparing Young Athletes By Wil Fleming Can you recall walking into a weightroom for the first time? I still can, it was my high school weightroom and I was maybe 14 years old. Men, four years older than me were lifting much more than I could imagine, grunting, cursing, and straining their way to be better at their sport. I was told what the workout was and went to it. I remember that first workout. Three sets of 10 on the bench press, back squat, and incline bench press, and five sets of five.. More »
Youth Sports Revolution From Over Zealous Parents and Coaches
Athletic Revolution at Full Throttle Athletics: A Revolution From Over Zealous Parents and Coaches In Youth Sports By Robert D. Blackford There are certain times in your life that give you pause to stop and say: WOW…..ALL I CAN SAY IS WOW! You aren’t sure if you should be mad, embarrassed or ashamed…this is one of those times. Read this article on youth sports from ESPN: http://espn.go.com In short, it’s the misdirected rant, spit, grit and drill sergeant-esq pep talk of a football coach…directed at (WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT) 8 year.. More »
Olympic Lessons For Young Athletes
Olympic Lessons By Wil Fleming Well it should go without saying, as a former athlete in an Olympic sport, there is no greater time than the Olympics. So many sports put on display, so many great athletes, and so many years of hard work finally shown on the world stage, means that there isn’t a better sporting event on the planet. As a coach it is important to relay the messages of the Olympics to the athletes we work with on a daily basis. 1) Hope The opening ceremony demonstrated this to its full.. More »
Understanding Low Back Pain in Adolescents
Low Back Pain in Adolescents By Jake Moore Every one of us has worked with a young athlete with low back pain. In fact, we have all likely have worked with and missed the signs of serious low back pain in our athletes. Looking back at my career so far, I’m sure I have. Of those young athletes with lower back pain, up to 47% have spondylolysis or spondylolisthesis (1). Spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis are injuries to the posterior vertebrae and result from excessive spinal extension loading. Unfortunately too many young athletes are over-trained and exposed to poor.. More »
Youth Conditioning Programs Using Ropes & Tires
IYCA Expert Dave Gleason Explains How To Develop Youth Conditioning Programs Using Unconventional Methods As long as your programming has developmental justification that points pack to the required elements of the IYCA system…everything is in bounds! This includes tires and battle ropes. Many of our AR franchise partners are co branded or are also a Fitness Revolution Franchisee as well. That said, many of our trainers and coaches have experience with large tractor tires and battle ropes. With safety mechanisms in place, very effective and fun activities can be implemented in your youth conditioning programs for 6-9 (Discovery).. More »
Youth Sports Training Program Design Considerations
Youth Sports Training Variables By Art McDermott The purpose of this article to present some of the key variables required for a successfully designed youth sports training and performance program. This topic always seems to produce some VERY strong opinions about what works, what does not and what the latest and greatest techniques may be. Once all the sweating, lifting and marketing are done, sometimes it may be difficult to tell the difference between one sports performance facility and another. With rare exceptions, even a young athlete’s parents do not know the difference between a good.. More »
What Is The Best Youth Speed Training Drill
Youth Speed Training By CJ Easter One of the #1 questions that I get from coaches is “What is your favorite youth speed training drill?” And I always give the answer that everyone hates, “It depends.” But this is not a cop out because it really does depend. Speed is a total body, coordinated skill. So the “best drill” depends on what exact skill that we are trying to develop and the skill level of our athletes to properly perform that drill. “That drill looks cool” should not be the deciding factor when putting together.. More »
Top 4 Alternatives for Olympic Lifts When Training Young Athletes
Training Young Athletes Using Olympic Lift Alternatives As a coach and professional I know that I love the Olympic lifts when training young athletes. For good or bad I think that there is no EQUAL to getting athletes more explosive than the Olympic lifts. Being married to a lift or movement places too many limitations on the program you are able to design and in particular limits the improvements that each individual athlete can make. For the athletes that are exclusively training with me and are physically capable the Olympic lifts are the king of my.. More »
Beat the Heat To Keep Fit
Exercising In The Heat Can Be Beneficial By Phil Hueston Ok. So it’s hot. Really hot. But you still want to get your exercise in. Is it safe? You’re asking “How do I know when to go out and play in the summer sun (and heat)? How do I know when I should stay inside and exercise in the AC? Or should I bag it all and just hit the pool?” There are risks and benefits to exercising in the heat. More risks than benefits, I’m afraid, but we’ll talk about both. First, the benefits… More »
Misuse Of Speed And Agility Training
Speed and Agility Training With Young Athletes A lot of people in this field call themselves Strength & Conditioning Coaches. I don’t have a problem with the “Strength” part of the title, but the “Conditioning” part could use a little work. As a former college S & C Coach, I fully understand the time constraints of the collegiate or high school environment. Running a private facility for athletes, I also understand the limitations of this situation. In both cases, it is very difficult to give every athlete the time and instruction they need. Still, there is one area of our.. More »
Training Young Athletes: Are You Coaching an Entitled Child?
Motivating When Training Young Athletes By Melissa Lambert As coaches you can all think of a time when a parent or young athlete has approached you demanding they start and play the entire game. Whether they deserve that level of recognition or not, in their eyes they will be a professional athlete some day and the expectation is that you cater to their needs. One of the most difficult aspects of coaching can be motivating young athletes to compete at peak performance not only as individuals but as a team. Conversely, when you have young athletes who.. More »
Kettlebell Training: It’s All About Progressions
Kettlebell Training With Young Athletes By Pamela MacElree MS Just like every other training modality, kettlebells also have training and movement progressions. I find it ironic that we often see people approaching kettlebell training far differently than they would barbell training or even the use of a dumbbell. Everything has a progression, always. I’ve talked about it before, you wouldn’t give someone additional weight in a squat if their bodyweight squat has poor form and you especially wouldn’t give them a weight to use in squats if they never squatted before. If this is.. More »
Cueing Athletes
Athletes Respond To Cueing By Wil Fleming Cueing is a big buzz word among fitness and performance coaches right now. Cues are an extremely efficient way to demonstrate some essential piece of technique to assist in the completion of an exercise. A cue could be a set of words that concisely convey the result you would like to see: “brace the core” comes to mind for nearly everything. A cue could also be something more visual, like the imitation of “getting tall”, so often used at Force fitness and Performance when doing ½ kneeling movements. A.. More »