Training Young Athletes: exactly what the IYCA is all about.
Specifically related to our Concepts when training young athletes long-term development.
There are certain core values as it relates to training young athletes and people that we disclose within our ‘Youth Fitness Specialist – Level 1’ certification course, and you either need to hear them or hear them again…
These centralized principles extend to the entire litany of IYCA material, at large.
(1) Concept vs Cool
We are not about prescribing exercises that are ‘neat’, ‘new’ or ‘nifty’ just for the sake of doing so. Central to the theme of our “Long-Term Development Model” is the reality that the organism in front of you is vastly more important than the degree of exercise difficulty you opt to stimulate that organism with.
We are not trying to be ‘cool’.
We will not flood your sightlines with the latest gimmick or circus trick that you can/should perform on a BOSU Ball.
And we will never deviate from the human growth and development realities that govern what type of exercise stimulus is required or when that requirement exists.
a) Guided Discovery (6 – 9)
- Outcome-Based coaching must be central. Do not criticize for improper attempts or cajole to make them more mechanically accurate. The purpose of this phase of developmental fitness is to DISCOVER. Children who are over-coached through this time frame will not develop the requisite, self-created skill sets to amass higher levels of athletic proficiency later in life.
- In conjunction with the above point, think of classes, sessions or lessons within this age group as both experimental and experiential. Create a game, demonstrate the skill set of how to execute and then let them play; allowing them to experiment with auto-correction and experience the movement art of performing things incorrectly. Thus the term “Outcome-Based” – the fact the kids are moving and following your loose instructions is enough.
- Neural warehousing is the critical reality. In addition to experimental and experiential, exercise stimulus within this time period must be fun and incredibly diverse. Imagine what kind of student you’d have if you removed English, Art, History and Geography from an academic calendar in order to concentrate solely on Mathematics. In the short term, math skills and adherence would soar; in the long term, the lack of warehoused, general intelligence would be prohibitive in a given student developing advanced proficiency in math. In development fitness, just like academics, all things are progressive and incredibly congruous.
- Exercise stimulus = Run, Jump, Skip, March, Hop, Crawl, Climb, Throw, Kick
Come back tomorrow and read about how to train High School Athletes…
P.S. – The Foundation Principles of the IYCA have been created for a reason.
You can read more about them here: http://iyca.org/products/yfs1