Tag: Youth Training

Introducing Strength Training to Youth Athletes

When first introducing strength training to youth athletes (and everyone else for that matter), it’s important to teach the fundamentals. Basic movements, performed correctly.

One strategy to help speed up the learning process is to slow down the movement. This gives the athlete more time to feel different positions throughout the exercise and the coach more time to recognize opportunities for improvement.

This is a 3-0-2 Tempo DB Goblet Squat we’ve used as a teaching tool for kids in the past. The goal here is to start grooving an optimal squat pattern, so it can be loaded more at the appropriate time.

Typically performed for 2-3 sets of 5-8 reps.

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 Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. If you’re interested in how core training fits into a hockey-specific training program, check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

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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 Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. Interested in age-specific year-round hockey training programs? Check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation

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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 to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. Interested in age-specific year-round hockey training programs? Check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation

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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, and train in a way that improves the athlete’s ability to cope with and adapt to stress (i.e. build in rational exercise progressions, start conservative with training frequency, volume and intensity, avoid provocative movements, etc.).

The injury statistics above are alarming. We need to do better.

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 Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. Interested in age-specific year-round hockey training programs? Check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation

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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 on the individual athlete’s gender, biological age, mental/cognitive development, and emotional development (i.e., not all athletes hit the windows of accelerated development at the exact same age).

In using this information to influence training youth athletes, it’s helpful to understand the underlying mechanisms that are driving these accelerated stages of development.

For example, the first speed window is improved largely through rapid changes in development of the central nervous system – so in addition to performing short sprints with kids at this stage, it’s an optimal time to integrate a diverse range of movement patterns/skills, NOT just hammer the basics. This is similar to the shift toward teaching foreign languages at young ages.

Acknowledging these stages can help performance and sports coaches design training programs and practices that best facilitate development for their specific athletes, while also recognizing that a HUGE part of long-term development is creating an environment for kids to fall in love with the sport.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

A lot of attention has been paid to long-term athletic development and strategies to develop elite performers. The inarguable truth is… it takes time, and a lot of work.

Unfortunately, this fact has led to aggressive training and athlete development strategies being pushed on athletes at younger and younger ages, which is counter-productive.

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 Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. Interested in age-specific year-round hockey training programs? Check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation

Enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Sports Performance and Hockey Training Newsletter!