A Coach's Diary: March 2019

Anytime that I work with/train kids, I always try to spend the 1st 10-15 minutes working on movement, agility, speed and overall athleticism. No matter the sport, the better the athlete that you are, the higher your ceiling. Plus, at some point the organized games and schedules stop and I want my young athletes to know how to maintain healthy lives as they grow older.

Speed guru Lee Taft, when asked how he would structure a 1 hour speed session of 8-11 years, gave the following response:

"Warm up with light fun games to make them move and solve. Then do reactive tier 1 acceleration with deceleration at the end of acceleration run and give them points for how well they do when decelerating. I would teach with small bites for them to chew on while they move. At the end pick one area to do some simple corrections for a few minutes and close it down with something competitive again."

I would do something very similar for sport training:

1 - Dynamic warm-up that breaks down proper movement mechanics - like shuffles, high knees, lunges, squats, etc.

2 - Light, fun movement game
3 - Skill work

4 - 1 on 1

5 - Purposeful play

6 - Grit conditioning activity

Movement games are a great and fun way to start a workout. Some kind of game/race where you are incorporating movement - linear, lateral, and reverse and incorporating stopping and starting, accelerating and decelerating is great to get the body going, get the energy up, and to work on becoming a better athletes. Below are a few movement games that I have found on YouTube that can really help improve the start of your workouts, whether you are working with youth athletes, competitive high school/college/pro athletes that need a boost or something new, or with you adult friends trying to stay or get back into shape!

Builders and Bulldozers: - https://youtu.be/iTmzuki4bQM