Who is watching the children?
When Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva took the ice for her free skate were you holding your breath? rooting for her? booing her? Did you look away or leave the venue, as it’s reported the USA skating team did? Or did you stand agape like I did, watching a 15 year old child who bore […]
4 Key Elements for a Healthy Return to Play
We’re all excited about returning to play. To keep players healthy, follow these gradual steps to progress back to full fitness for sport.
Prevention Programs Reduce ACL Injuries by > 50%
Neuromuscular injury prevention training programs have been shown to reduce non-contact and indirect-contact ACL injuries by more than 50%. This percentage jumps to as high as 88% for comprehensive programs designed for the highest risk populations — young female athletes who participate in jumping and cutting sports. Recent meta-analyses of various injury prevention programs identified […]
16 Action Items for Healthy Sport, Fitness and Life
The world’s leaders in exercise science and sports medicine met in Minneapolis at the 65th annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. The result: BIG news and reliable, evidence-based recommendations for physical activity, health and the reduction of injury. Here are my top 16 headlines with news you can use. Knee Injury Prevention ACL injury […]
It’s not Conditioning It’s Training, as long as…
It’s not conditioning it’s training, and not even training, if we are not teaching. Conditioning is Pavlovian. That is, every time I do this, they do that. That’s not training. It’s brain-washing, manipulating, mechanizing, automacizing. Is that what we are really after when we hold practice to prepare them for the upcoming contest? Training is […]
The Most Powerful Advice I Ever Received: “Just because it failed doesn’t mean you’re a failure”
Just because it failed, doesn’t mean you’re a failure. I heard this for the first time when I was in my early 20’s. Having completed an arduous laboratory experiment which required many repetitions over weeks of work, I could draw a conclusion about my hypothesis: it was wrong. Trial after trial proved my result: negative. […]
5 Potential Danger Zones in the Young Athlete
Kids need a challenge but they also need special handling. Most people think, why? My kids are flexible, resilient, and young. They bounce back from anything thrown at them. Let’s throw it all at them! They can handle it. Not so fast. Why? Because they’re growing, and growing presents special challenges and unique demands. They’re not mini-adults […]
How to Develop the Volleyball Athlete: Focus Changes with Age and Stage
Editors’s note: Please welcome Niel Curley from 101volleyballdrills.com here to discuss developing the volleyball athlete. He brings a ton of experience coaching and training youth players and some important perspective on the approach which has best served his youth players. While it can be tempting to identify young athlete’s potential to specialize in certain positions on […]
Three Ways to Defeat Cell Phone Slump and Text Neck
Our moms were right when they told us to “sit up straight and eat our dinner,” because poor posture is lazy and disrespectful to the others at the table. It gives the wrong impression, so sit up and eat your dinner, Junior! Mom probably didn’t have core strength in mind. Nowadays, with family dinners on the decline and […]
The Pygmalion Effect: Believing in them can help them succeed
It’s not just myth. Expecting them to succeed can increase the chances they will. It’s called the Pygmalion effect and it’s real. Here’s how it played out for me. *** “Wish me luck! I’m headed out to play nine,” I call to Penny, the assistant golf pro, as I turn toward the door. The day […]