5 Tips For Putting Some Structure Back In Your Family’s Day When confined at home with the kids during these challenging times it is important to maintain some type of routine with them. Our family’s weekly schedule of preschool, swimming lessons, kindergym, playgroup, playgrounds and play dates has been swept away to reveal a virtually empty calendar. Drifting through the day…

4 Things That Will Get Children Up And Running The other day I watched my 2 and 4-year-old daughters chasing birds down at a local playing field. Dodging, weaving, changing pace, accelerating, decelerating, running up and down slopes, and across changing surfaces . . . laughing, completely absorbed, and not wanting to stop. It lasted for ages. There was…

Why The Fatigue Factor Is Important In Speed Development Rest is often an overlooked variable in speed development. This was one of the key messages from Dr Mike Young as part of his presentation: “Developing Game Speed” at the 2020 Proformance Child to Champion USA online conference. What is the significance of rest? According to Young, sprinting at an…

5 Tweets From March 2020 That Will Help You Become A Better Coach Of Young Athletes These are the 5 best sports coaching-related tweets that I came across during March 2020. You can progress as a coach by putting these words of wisdom into practise. If any of these tweets resonate with you, I encourage you to click through to follow more of the author’s work. …

3 Great Games That Will Help You Win Your Warm Up The following games are fun, simple, vigorous activities, requiring minimal equipment and set-up. The kids will love them and so will you. 1. Frost & Thaw Overview Frost & Thaw is a very vigorous warm up game during which no one is eliminated. Equipment Halved pool noodles “Gate” markers e.g. Pool noodles on pegs…

Practise Alone Won’t Make Us Perfect “Practice alone won’t make us perfect. Progress happens when we make time for thinking as well as doing.” Bernadette Jiwa Progress occurs when we combine practise with reflection. But how do we find time to properly reflect in this time-compressed world? I can’t emphasise enough the value in setting aside…

100 Things That I Have Learned About Coaching Young Athletes Your athletes don’t expect you to be perfect, just passionate. Passion is a prerequisite for effective coaching. Some of your best coaching ideas come from the kids. Be alert for them. Give your athletes a voice — show them that you are ready to listen and act upon it. Kids…

Coaching Positives, Negatives And Learnings From 2019 Last year, inspired by @JamesClear, I decided to begin sharing my annual coaching review. The review looks back at my coaching over the previous twelve months. I outline positives, negatives and what I learned. I also identify some areas on which I will focus during the coming twelve months. It…

The 25 Best Tips From The ‘Coaching Young Athletes’ Blog During 2019 Below are 25 of the best tips, tricks, thoughts, and ideas that appeared in articles posted on the Coaching Young Athletes blog during 2019. 1. Design Drills That Thrill Too commonly, “drills” see young athletes robotically going through the motions — often repeatedly and sometimes without real intent. A kid’s attention span and motivation is…