Dynamic Warm Up Game: blend technique, fitness and injury prevention in 10 minutes
Looking for a fun way to add variety to your warm up? Try this dynamic warm up from Fit2Finish. Keep players moving with the ball. Condition their dribble, introduce them to plyometrics, and work on their technique, timing and field sense, all in a small space. Here’s the video on the Fit2Finish Youtube channel. Be […]
Parenting Gone Mad: We Give Kids Everything and they Come Away with Nothing
A mind is a terrible thing to lose, but I think we are are on our way to lost here in Virginia. I say this after watching a woman check out at the Container Store. She has hoisted her cart full of items up to be scanned for payment while her son and daughter contentedly […]
New book from Fit2Finish, competitive fitness without the injuries. Look inside…
Fit2Finish: Keeping Your Soccer Players in the Game Introduction: Fit for the Game Kids and Fitness: What Does the Game Require? Sport Anatomy and Physiology: What Makes the Body Work Fitness Prescription for Sports: Meeting the Demands Fitting Fitness into the Practice Plan Flexibility, Stretching and Recovery Fueling the Athlete for Performance Beating Injuries to Keep […]
Movement is Natural for Healthy Children
The toddler was bee-bopping in the seat of that BJs shopping cart, perfectly in rhythm with the music piped quietly, unobtrusively, barely perceptibly through the speakers into our shopping experience. And the young mom was dancing along as they cruised down the aisle of canned goods. “Amazing how they arrive with rhythm, isn’t it?” I […]
Playing Up: Is developing their skills worth giving up our win?
Cat was her name; she was the ringer on my daughter’s U9 travel team. It was the spring season and they had been a miserable failure (in soccer terms) in the fall. When Cat joined the team mid-year, things had started looking up. This girl was small but fast. And was she ever good. She […]
Diving to draw the foul is cheating: cheating yourself out of developing skills that would make you a better player
Let me see if I am getting this right: keep your footing – no foul hit the floor – foul There are so many bodies and so many moving parts, how can any stripe-shirted, whistle-toting human being know for sure whether “illegal contact” was made? Why not help him out? Writhe on the ground, grabbing […]
World Cup Competition: Do You Believe?
How can competition bring out the absolute worst in some and the best in others? One head butts for a red card. The other heads it in for a winner. One crumples untouched to draw the foul. The other stands his ground in spite of the mugging. One bites and… What’s going on? There’s no […]
Pick Up Soccer Alive and Well in Vienna, VA
I remember how excited I was as a kid when our team got to play the night game under the lights. Those big light standards hummed in the night sky, focusing all their energy on us, the stars of the show. It actually made it hard to see anyone in the stands, which probably was […]
How to Show Well in the Soccer Showcase: here’s what coaches are looking for
Showcase…just the word puts you on guard. You’re the center of things. On the big field, the feature field, the stadium field, the special turf. Coaches come from far and wide to watch you play. You know who they are, even behind their shades, because they are standing there with their clipboards and game sheets, […]
What does an ACL really cost? The financial and intangible costs to players and families
Author note: Part I of 2 part article. Next Up — Balancing the Books: Effective ACL Prevention Is the Job of Every Coach I cautioned Katherine about the incidence of ACL injuries in athletic girls whose knees tended to fold inwards when they jumped and landed as hers did. The 8th grade basketball and lacrosse phenom […]