Just got back from St. Louis and the Glazer- Kennedy Info-SUMMIT conference. And instead of some long introduction or incidental story about what happened to me this weekend, I’m going to cut straight to the chase and tell you the biggest lesson I learned – What it takes to be ‘Successful’. Lee Milteer, a world-class motivational speaker and success Coach made an absolutely breathtaking speech about ‘How to Succeed in Business and Life’. Here are the two key points I learned from her 60 minute talk: 1. Successful people are over-achievers who are constantly trying.. More »
Programming for Youth
The Youth Sports Mentality: Without a Plan, You Will Be Mediocre at Best The most common problem facing Trainers & Coaches today with respect to developing young athletes over time is the ability to plan long-term. The personal training and coaching professions are most typically based on a session-to-session consideration – clients pay per session most often and Trainers create training programs one session at a time. The same is true for coaching sport – most Coaches script out one practice plan at a time, rather than create a relative flow for an entire month or even season… More »
Complete Athlete Development: No More Guessing
No more guessing. Proven strategies that work every time. Complete Athlete Development: That’s what you get when you follow what is in the DVD An all-inclusive training system for working with young athletes ages 6 – 18. And yes. It’s been internationally field-tested and proven to work. Over 15,000 young athletes worldwide have been exposed to my training system. And I may a lot of mistakes with them along the way. That’s kind of like the built-in guarantee of Complete Athlete Development. I’ve made mistakes and am certainly never afraid to say I was.. More »
How To Group Your Young Athletes
So how do I categorize my young athletes? This is a question I get asked quite frequently. Several factors could be used when determining which training group specific young athletes should be placed into: (A) Training Age How long has the athlete been training? How much exposure do they have to the skills associated with strength, speed or agility training? (B) Biological Age Some mid-teens have the body structures of men and women in their early-20’s. Conversely, many older teens have the physical maturity of kids much younger than they are. (C) Emotional Maturity.. More »
Youth Sports Conditioning Must Include Skill Development
Youth Sports Conditioning Missing Factor. I was horrible today. I stunk out the joint. My timing was off. My movements weren’t crisp. My balance was non-existent. I took 13 days off of training for my fight in April, and boy did I notice a difference. My conditioning was fine. I wasn’t breathing too heavy or feeling out of shape. But my SKILL LEVEL had dropped something awful. The combination of my travel schedule, workload and a cold thrown in there had left me unable to meet up with my Coach for.. More »
Youth Fitness Specialist Can be the Change
Youth Fitness Specialist. Why Is it So Neededd? “You are truly a visionary and a catalyst for precisely the change we need. In watching the presidential debate last night and the discussion about healthcare reform, I couldn’t help but think how very little most Americans “get” the true societal cost savings of upstream preventative healthcare so easily afforded by quality physical education. We need more Brian Grasso’s banging the drum for the sake of our children… I’m voting Brian for Secretary of Activity in the new White House cabinet!!” That was a message posted on the IYCA.. More »
Fitness Training For Youth – Even the Best Don’t Get it Sometimes…
Fitness Training For Youth – what age do you start training someone? How old should your fitness training for youth clients be? How about young athletes? I have to admit to being utterly stunned by the opinions some very esteemed members of our industry shared on this topic on a popular website recently. “No one under the age of 12” “It’s hard to teach kids under the age of 14 proper technique” I am more convinced than ever that the IYCA is 100% necessary in this industry. In the world for that matter… More »
Youth Fitness Certification Conference: My Weekend in New York City
Youth Fitness Certification Seminar In New York. Manhattan is a great place. I just got back from a 3-day jaunt through this fantastic part of the U.S. – I spoke at the Town Sports International annual conference. And as I mentioned to you last week, I was also asked to offer a pre-conference ‘Level 1 – Youth Fitness Certification’ seminar to all interested TSI employees. So this past Friday, Dr. Kwame Brown and myself spent 7 hours teaching 56 eager Fitness Professionals all about the IYCA training system and protocols. And once again, it was to.. More »
Youth Sports Conditioning
Youth Sports Conditioning Coaching Mistakes Proper and developmentally-sound adjunct training in the form of speed, agility, strength, power and mobility work is the silver bullet in terms of building champions in any sport. Done correctly, the collective gains of such training will serve to soundly support your mission as a sports coach to produce elite level competitors. Done incorrectly, as is unfortunately often the case and your young athletes are destined for a life of injuries, missed opportunities and burnout. That being said let me be blunt with my opening words of wisdom to you –.. More »
Youth Fitness-How Much Do You Think?
Youth Fitness- What Is Spent Every Year? 1 million? 3 million? 20 million? These were the guesses that some of the audience members gave me this past weekend when I spoke at the ECW Midwest Mania annual conference in downtown Chicago, {!firstname}. My question was simple. How much money is spent on personal training and coaching youth fitness for kids under the age of 18 in the United States every year. Now if you’ve been reading my blog or newsletter for any duration of time, you know I touch on this issue periodically. .. More »
The IYCA Changes Lives…
ICYA and the role it plays… This world of ours is an amazing place, you know that. When you stop and pay attention, you really see the wondrous nature of everything. I say that because I just got off the phone 2 minutes ago with a brand new IYCA Member. She joined our organization just two weekends ago after hearing my keynote address at the Ryan Lee Boot Camp. She was so moved with what I had to say and so incredibly delighted to see a fitness organization that believed in personal contact and transparency that.. More »
Points to Success as a youth fitness specialist
O.K… So here they are…. Point 1 – As a youth fitness specialist, Follow Principles not Values I take this from the work of Stephen Covey in the 8th Habit. We too often measure our success by the ‘values’ of a situation. How much weight did we lose How much money do we make How many ‘A’ grades did we get on our report card These are the items that most of us chase, but they are superficial and seldom give us depth or a sincere appreciation for life. Rather than.. More »
I Got Beat Up Yesterday…
I had my rear-end handed to me yesterday. Literally. If you don’t already know this, I’ve been involved in various forms of martial arts and combat sports since I was a kid. After retiring from active competition a few years back I recently got the itch to fight again. So at 34 years old, I opted to do something I’ve never done before… … Compete in a Golden Gloves boxing tournament. Now I’ve trained in boxing off and on for a while, but never seriously. It was always an adjunct training system for.. More »
Youth Sports Training-Making Memories
Youth sports training creates long lasting memories. The autumn is a really special time for me. It reminds me of when I was a kid, walking through the fallen leaves on my way to school. Saturday afternoon college football. Saturday night hockey (I grew up in Canada, don’t forget!). But one of the things I like most about this time of year is the high school sports scene. Football in particular. Friday night underneath the lights. A soon-to-be-winter chill in the air. Sipping on some cider or hot chocolate. Being around.. More »
What Are You Missing?
"I can’t get over how much you offer your Members" That’s what Robert Belley said to me yesterday. Robert was one of 300 paid attendees who came to the Ryan Lee Boot Camp this past weekend in Stamford. He was also one of 35 IYCA Members who came to my 3 hour seminar as a special ‘complimentary’ closed door session I offered exclusively to IYCA Members. Other organizations charge you upwards of $600 for their certifications. The IYCA Level 1 – Youth Fitness Specialist is priced at barely over $200. Other organizations charge you.. More »
IYCA Family: Does This Make Sense to You?
IYCA is against everything you are about to hear Because of potential criminal fallout, I’m not allowed to tell you where I saw this. What’s criminal is the fact that this happened at all. And the criminals in this case shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind our legal system. But what can I say? That’s the law I suppose. So, with the details muddled and the offenders protected, let me tell you what happened while I was working out yesterday. A Personal Trainer was conducting a training session with a middle-aged client. That in itself is not a story. The.. More »
Drills for Young Athletes
Drills. Drills for young athletes. How do you create them? Now that’s a question I get asked virtually everyday. Here are three great ones to use with your young athletes – especially if you work with kids between the ages of 6 – 12. (1) Line Jumps Have your athlete(s) stand directly in front of a line either painted or taped on the ground. They should be only a few feet away from the line. On your cue, they will jump and try to land with their toes as close to.. More »
How to Get High School Coaches to Like You
[wpfblike] High School Coaches Do Need You "The Head Football Coach just won’t listen to me… He thinks he knows everything, but his training program is terrible and his team would be so much better if he would just hire me as the Strength Coach…" Do you know how many times I hear that? I get emails about it. People talk with me about it at conferences. It’s a common topic discussed on the IYCA Message Board. And every single time, the follow up question reads something like this – "How can.. More »
The Young Athletes Injury Prevention Lie
[wpfblike] Young Athletes Programming Do Reduce Injuries You can’t build a house on quicksand. You just can’t. When the base isn’t sturdy, the structure is bound to topple. And that’s the only real lesson you need to understand when it comes to injury prevention for young athletes. It’s all in building a foundation. From the ground up. As Trainers and Coaches, our entire obligation when working with younger athletes (6 – 13 years old) is to fill them with as much athletic knowledge as possible. Nothing ‘sport specific’. Nothing ‘position.. More »
Youth Fitness Specialist: Seize the Day
[wpfblike] Youth Fitness Specialist Certification with the IYCA Dead Poets Society is one of my favorite movies of all time. Have you ever seen it? Robin Williams plays a rather eccentric English teacher at a very conservative private school in the Northeastern portion of the United States. And he has a way of ‘sticking out’. The students adore him. He is funny, quick witted and makes the material he is teaching literally jump alive through passion and humor. The faculty see him altogether differently. He is against the norm. Not strict.. More »