Athletic Development – Defining the Field
Addressing Physical Illiteracy
There is no question that in today's world of athletic performance that we are at a crisis state. Injuries are off the scale. We have athletes at the elite level who are extremely proficient in th...
Athlete Empowerment and Ownership
I just came across again the other day when I looking through some files on coaching. I first saw this in a presentation by the coach of the Australian Women’s Field Hockey team Ric Charlesworth in 19...
The Right Stuff
You can do stuff in training or you can do the right stuff. Doing stuff is easy. Doing the right stuff is not so easy but it is what will make you better. Sometimes the right stuff is less demanding o...
Going Through the Motions
Nothing bothers me more than to see athletes going through the motions in a training session. Just doing work, mindlessly going from exercise to exercise with one goal – get the workout over with is n...
Being an Athlete
This is not about being a champion; it is about the process of being an athlete, the things that it takes to get into the game. Over the past few weeks I have been going through files and looking at o...
Coaching the Athletically Gifted
When you start coaching everyone’s dream is to coach great athletes, those athletes who are athletically gifted. I know that was my mindset. I had my dream come true in my first year coaching. The bes...
The Volume Trap
Volume used judiciously can be a powerful stimulus for adaptation. But in many ways it is a double-edged sword. It is so easy to get caught in the volume trap. It is a trap that can cause a downward s...
Windows of Adaptation
In the beginning stages of an athlete’s career the window of adaptation is huge. Virtually anything you with the athlete at this stage in the developmental process will result in gains in performance....
You have numbers now what?
You have collected mounds of data. So you have numbers. You have complied the numbers into colorful and intricate graphs. But do you have information that I the coach can use? Numbers are one-dimensio...