Getting Playoff Ready

  [wpfblike] By Carlo Alvarez Playoff Ready The high school football playoff season is upon us. Most team have played ten regular season games and are preparing to play another four to five games in their journey to the State Championship game. For those of you who coach or train high school football teams, I’m sure you understand how difficult a full season can be for an athlete. But, if you have made it this far, I assume that you have done some things right and your hard work has paid off. My goal in writing this article is to.. More »

Sell ’em what they want, give them what they need!

[wpfblike] by Ryan Ketchum The more and more business coaching that I do for IYCA members, mastermind members, and franchisees the more I realize that our training philosophies and mindset sometimes get in the way of us running a great business. I am prepared to be tarred and feathered, put in the stockades and any other form of medieval punishment that the loyal IYCA readers are going to put me through for delivering the message that I am about to write. Before you jump to conclusions and go into a tizzy about long term athletic development.. More »

Playoff Ready

  [wpfblike] by Carlo Alvarez Playoff Season  The high school football playoff season is upon us. Most team have played ten regular season games and are preparing to play another four to five games in their journey to the State Championship game. For those of you who coach or train high school football teams, I’m sure you understand how difficult a full season can be for an athlete. But, if you have made it this far, I assume that you have done some things right and your hard work has paid off. My goal in writing this article is to.. More »

Young Athlete | Expanding Your Vision

  [wpfblike] by Kirk Ream Young Athlete As coaches, it’s not uncommon for us to dream of attracting new members, expanding our facility or even opening additional locations.  This desire to become bigger and reach more people is normal in fitness professionals; it’s just what happens when you combine a love of people, exercise and entrepreneurship.  In fact, if you aren’t dreaming big, I’d encourage you to take some time and let your imagination run wild for a bit.  Start dreaming big and making plans to make those dreams a reality.   But as important as our own expansion plans.. More »

Creating a Training System That Works

[wpfblike] by Wil Fleming I remember vividly 3 years ago at this time Ryan and I were working our tails off to get ready for our grand opening that was only a couple weeks away. It was a really exciting time for us. We were assembling all the equipment we ordered. We were trying to figure out how to lay 1500 square feet of turf. We were holding free workouts in our PARKING LOT to gain momentum. We knew what we wanted our business to be, and we had a plan to make.. More »

Is Your Training Program Complete?

[wpfblike] by Wil Fleming The other day a track coach that I really respect called me to discuss an athlete that we both work with and right away I knew he was excited. I could hear in his voice that he was just fired up. I asked him what was going on and he responded, "Coach Flem I have to tell you the coolest thing, Anthony has gotten 3 feet faster just training with you this summer and fall. (meaning his long jump approach had to be moved back 3 feet on the same number of approach.. More »

Youth Strength and Conditioning: Systems, not just Sets and Reps

  [wpfblike] By: Eric Cressey Youth Strength Back in November of 2010, a good buddy of mine who is a very accomplished college strength coach came up to Boston for a seminar we were holding at Cressey Performance.  The seminar was on a Sunday, but he actually flew up Friday night so that he could observe on Saturday while we trained our clients – which was a nice blend of high school, college, and professional athletes, plus our adult clientele.  All told, I’d say that high school athletes are 70% of our clientele. That Tuesday morning, I woke up to.. More »

Deliver Your Best Youth Training Session Ever

Youth Athletic Development: Deliver Your Best Youth Training Session Ever In this video, IYCA expert Dave Gleason reminds us to meet our young athletes where they are to develop a physical culture and encourage youth athletic development. Find out how Dave facilitated one of his best youth training sessions ever.

Developing Relationships with Sports Coaches and Athletes

  [wpfblike] by Ryan Ketchum Sports Coaches and Athletes     In the past 6 years of coaching athletes and running a youth fitness business there is one obstacle that always presents itself when working with older athletes. How do I get in with the coach? This is a question that I get frequently when helping our Athletic Revolution franchisees and other business coaching clients that have youth fitness programs. It is something that I deal with on a daily basis in my own business attempting to make contacts, grow our current network and increase our membership.

Getting Your High School Athletes Faster

[wpfblike] by Wil Fleming The biggest mistake in training athletes to get faster. Both speed and agility are critically important for athletes to be successful on the field. Unfortunately I see plenty of programs or services offered by coaches that are skewed in the wrong direction, they promise to "decrease your 40 time" or "drop your home to first time". While both of these things are important in the recruitment of athletes, they are not critically important to the performance of athletes. Training speed and agility in some cases, verges on running some sprints and.. More »

Goal Setting for Young Athletes

[wpfblike] by Dave Gleason Setting short, medium and long term goals is the foundation for any action plan. Creating and attaining any goal is a process. In the context of Goal Setting for young athletes, often a trainer or coach will direct the question of desired goal(s) by giving away the answers. A typical pre-exercise questionnaire will ask the young athlete (and/or parent) to choose from a list of goals ranging from speed, agility, strength and flexibility to injury resistance and more confidence. This is a terrific start but we need to reach beyond this for.. More »

Impact Training: The key to youth fitness and performance success

[wpfblike] by Ryan Ketchum The title of this blog might be a little misleading. I am not going to talk about ground contacts, high impact training exercises, or anything related to movements or programming. I want to discuss the impact that we have on the youth that we work with and the effect it has on your business and, more importantly, their lives. I always tell our staff that we have a profound impact on the perception of this entire field every time that we work with a client or athlete. This is something that I.. More »

Sports Skill Acquisition – 5 Tips for Young Athletes

by Dr. Toby Brooks Sports Skill Acquisition   As a lover of all things sport since a child, my entire life has been shaped by decisions motivated primarily by how I might continue to play or be involved in competitive athletics.  It might come as little surprise, then, that my most recent (and with any luck final) professional relocation to work at Texas Tech University was at least partially motivated by a desire to provide additional athletic opportunities for my children should they choose to play sports, too.  Compared to my family’s previous home, west Texas provides significantly better opportunities,.. More »

Coaching Young Athletes – the Power of a Coach

[wpfblike] Recently a very humbling thing happened to me that reminded me of the role coaches can play in young people’s lives. If you didn’t know, earlier in my ‘professional life’ I was a Head Baseball Coach and Strength & Conditioning Coach at a small state University in Ohio. A few days ago I was speaking with one of my former players (Ted) who is now the Head Coach at the University I coached at and he told me that in the Spring they would be hosting the Pat Rigsby Invitational Tournament – something that.. More »

Periodization for the Young Athlete

Young Athlete by Toby Brooks, PhD, ATC, CSCS, PES, YFS3 Originally developed by Romanian exercise scientist Tudor Bompa for a number of Eastern Bloc countries in the early sixties, periodization involves the breakdown of the annual conditioning plan into specific training phases intended to maximize training effectiveness and sport-specific strength and skill acquisition. In practice, a periodized conditioning program might involve a strength phase followed by a power phase, then the power phase followed by an endurance phase. The model has been widely researched and the consistent positive benefits of periodized training programs are largely credited for the rise.. More »

My Thoughts on Youth Training

[wpfblike] by IYCA Board of Experts member Mike Robertson of Robertson Training Systems As many of you already know, a huge section of our clientele at IFAST is young athletes. With kids as young as 11, up to those finishing off their high school career, I can say without reservation the most enjoyable part of my day as a coach is working with these kids. Let me tell you a little bit about my background as an athlete, before we go any further – My Sporting Background Growing up, I lived in the country and.. More »

Injury Rates in Early Sport Specialization Athletes

Why do so many young athletes get injured? Is it the athlete development training they are doing or the specialization of sports training and the high demands on young athletes? Find out in this article.