Posts in Youth Sports

Youth Hockey Training: Periodization

Youth Hockey Training: Periodization

Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten a lot of questions about training phase length and sequencing for youth hockey players. This image is of the periodization template I put together for a youth organization I worked with in the past. For that organization, we divided the teams into 3 groups by age: Group A: […]

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The Impact of Youth Training

The Impact of Youth Training

Properly designed training programs should increase performance AND decrease injury risk in athletes. A couple more quotes from research papers looking into this topic. Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit. To your success, Kevin NeeldSpeedTrainingforHockey.comHockeyTransformation.comOptimizingAdaptation.com P.S. Interested in age-specific year-round hockey training […]

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Early Sport Specialization

Early Sport Specialization

Early specialization and year-round participation in a single sport are both strategies implemented to help speed up an athlete’s development. The reality is this “short-term” athletic development comes at a cost – significantly increased risk of injury, burnout, and quitting. The first step in finding a solution is agreeing we have a problem. Feel free […]

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Youth Training Goals

Youth Training Goals

The youth training process should serve two primary purposes: 1) Facilitate long-term development – Start with basic training strategies that lead to consistent, incremental progress. Save advanced training methods for when the athlete has several years of training experience AND the basics stop working. 2) Maximize durability – Break the cycle of constant sport participation, […]

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Long-Term Athletic Development

Long-Term Athletic Development

Long-term athletic development models describe themes of training (i.e.,emphasis on fun vs. winning), and phases of accelerated development of specific physical qualities based on stages of development. This model by Ford et al. (2011), is the most comprehensive I’ve come across, and is particularly valuable because it shows that the stages will be variable dependent […]

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