Vertical Alignment
Patterning and Developing Movements for K-12th Grade
Much like education, long-term athletic development is built upon a foundation of skills that have been progressed appropriately to prepare a student athlete for their next level of development — youth, middle school, high school, and beyond.
At Performance Course, we have an opportunity to work with every level within long-term athletic development (LTAD); starting as early as kindergarten in some cases and building through the elementary years to middle school on into the high school level.
Now the thought of athletic development with kindergartners could seem a bit silly, but basic foundational movements can be patterned and taught in a fun and inviting way much like learning strategies in the classroom. From there, a more structured program can be introduced as middle schoolers enter the weight room for the first time with each level building upon the last to put them into position to be healthy and successful in competition.
Below is a breakdown of each of our courses and how they develop and progress basic movement patterns from youth through the high school level.
Foundational Course
The Foundational Course is aimed at improving kindergarten through 5th graders coordination and basic movement capabilities. As kids are exposed to a variety of exercises, their movement qualities will expand and lay the foundation for them to build from in the future. This is accomplished through fun, game based activities that place the young athletes in basic movement patterns that can be seen throughout their LTAD.
This approach mirrors many of the same strategies utilized in the classroom. Athletes are placed in an environment of structure and exploration. My five-year-old son is currently learning to spell and read. One of his favorite activities is to scatter out his magnetic letters and begin to place them together to make certain sounds and create words. Sometimes he is on the money and is a future spelling bee champion, while other times he gets very close but may have his vowels mixed up. Regardless, I can clearly see this thought process as he works through the different sounds to create these words. It started with the basic skill of knowing and identifying letters and their sounds; and now he is exploring putting those skills together.
Movement patterns at this age work very similarly. Lets take the squat for example. We may start with a simple animal pattern monkey walk. The animal pattern sparks the interest in the activity and allows us to place the young athletes in a squat pattern to introduce the movement.
From there we may progress to our Squat Levels game where the young athletes work to identify and coordinate the top, middle, and bottom positions of the squat for a prescribed amount of time.
In both exercises, the athlete works through the squat pattern while coordinating these ranges of motion based on individual abilities. This age group provides a wide range of abilities. The goal here is not perfection, but introduction of the patterns while allowing them to explore, play, and foster a love for hard work!
Developmental Course
The Developmental Course is geared towards our middle school aged athletes who are starting to grow their love for sports and training. We will focus on developing essential movement patterns in the weight room, with an emphasis on building strength. This allows the athletes to continue developing the skills learned during the Foundational Course and apply them in a more structured weight room setting.
Again, just like the classroom, this level requires more responsibility, structure, and discipline from the athletes’ perspective. Middle school athletes form a large range of sizes and abilities. Some athletes look fresh out of the Foundational Course while others look ready to jump into high school off-season. Regardless, their training age remains in the infancy stage and should be approached as such.
Keeping with the squat pattern, we will progress from our squat levels in the younger group toward a resisted counter movement pattern. Our first progression will be a Counter-Balance Squat followed by a Goblet Squat, Hands Free Front Squat and finally our Front Squat. Again with a wide range of abilities, athletes will fall all over this spectrum throughout the program and that is OK! We want to train these consistently and work so that athletes show competency before progressing to the next exercise. Time tables will vary and often times athletes may need to regress for short periods of time. As athletes continue to mature, they will have developed proper technique that will allow them to maximize the benefits from strength training later in their career.
High Intensity Course
As the name implies, this course is our highest level and the athletes technique and quality movement skills will remain a priority while an emphasis on strength and power development increases. In the early phases of this course, athletes will review the regressions utilized in previous courses. This is to insure competency in the movements before progressing into higher loads and volume. Another important note to remember, athletes are going through massive growth throughout the Developmental and High Intensity levels. This will cause bio-mechanical changes that effect mobility, coordination, and strength in certain patterns/positions. Keeping this in mind, there is never an issue with regressing an athlete as they work through this. Sometimes it is short-lived and their patterns are enhanced while other times athletes can struggle for longer periods of time. Having these progressions and regressions in place, assures the athlete you will keep them on track.
Our squat pattern during the High Intensity Course has progressed to a full Front Squat or Back Squat movement. At this stage, the foundation has been laid for competent technique which allows programming to shift toward certain adaptations that we want to elicit. Some phases may place more of an emphasis on strength while others are working more on speed/power as we work the entire force-velocity curve. There are also instances where the squat pattern works away from a bilateral emphasis to more of a unilateral emphasis. This does not mean unilateral work hasn’t been implemented already, but the priority of the movement may have shifted upward where we use a greater external load.
While this post has focused on the vertical alignment of the squat pattern in our programs, the same principles are utilized for all of our movements — squat, hinge, push, pull, lunge, crawl, jump, skip, hop, sprint, accelerate, decelerate, change of direction, and work capacity. Every group, every session will display these movement qualities in a variety of ways. Some of which cross over every developmental stage — sharks and minnows is a fan favorite of ALL ages.
The emphasis in the earlier years is on introduction and discovery to lay a great foundation that is then developed during the middle school years with greater structure and teaching. Finally we put these skills to use in the high intensity-high school years where we work to build athletes to meet the demands of their sports.
