7/23/2019 Youth Conditioning eBook.pdf http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/youth-conditioning-ebookpdf 1/12 www.connachtfitnessandperformance.com Youth Physical Preparation & Conditioning Dear Parent/Coach Congratulations on your commitment to the optimal development of the young athlete by reading this eBook. It explains my philosophy of coaching young, still-developing athletes from age 5+, regardless of their favourite sport or physical attributes. Hopefully it will provide you with some food for thought. If you would like further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the below resources Regards, Shane Fitzgibbon, B.Sc.,HDAP, NCSC, YFS http://www.facebook.com/shanefitzgibbonBSc http://www.connachtfitnessandperformance.com http://www.trainingandoptimalhealth.com Introduction Youth conditioning and fitness is such a broad subject, that it’s difficult to do decide what to cover in a n introductory eBook. When you really look at it though, young people in sports today generally need attention in six areas: 1. general movement skills 2. core stability 3. strength & power 4. speed & agility 5. mobility 6. Nutrition
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Congratulations on your commitment to the optimal development of the young athlete by reading this
eBook. It explains my philosophy of coaching young, still-developing athletes from age 5+, regardless of their favourite sport or physical attributes. Hopefully it will provide you with some food for thought. If you
would like further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the below resources
Regards,
Shane Fitzgibbon, B.Sc.,HDAP, NCSC, YFS
http://www.facebook.com/shanefitzgibbonBSc
http://www.connachtfitnessandperformance.com
http://www.trainingandoptimalhealth.com
Introduction
Youth conditioning and fitness is such a broad subject, that it’s difficult to do decide what to cover in a n
introductory eBook. When you really look at it though, young people in sports today generally need attention
Of course, the focus on each of these will vary depending on
the specific needs of the athlete and the age. Age seems a good
place to start. Youth athletes can be categorised as follows:
Movement Foundations (2-5), Guided Discovery (6-9),
Learning Exploration (10-13), Train with Application (14+).
Before we explore the training methods, let’s identify some
important obstacles to progress and excellence in Youth Sports,
namely:
● Early Sports Specialisation (ESS) versus General Sports
Skills
● Results-Now versus Long-term Athletic Development
(LTAD)
Early Sports Specialisation (ESS) versusGeneral Sports Skills
There are many studies suggesting that young children should engage in a variety of physical activities in order
to maximally develop fundamental movements and fine motor skills. The challenge arises when a child
demonstrates a natural aptitude for a particular sport and is then pigeonholed in that sport, where all other
sports are discarded. The ideal situation, for a child, is to participate in at least three different sports until
teenage years. This allows the child the opportunity to develop a wide range of movement experience and sets
him/her up for future success. Parents and coaches must be educated to realise that narrowing a child’s
experience will limit athletic potential in the long run.
“Total Training for Young Champions,” by Bompa describes a study done with two groups of young athletes,
of age 9-12 years old where one group participated in only one sport and the other group in a variety of sports:
The results are startling:
Results-Now versus Long-term Athletic Development (LTAD)
Youth sports are getting increasingly popular. As a result of this they are getting better funded, but along with
that goes pressure to succeed in competition. The downfall is that pressure to succeed NOW, hamstrings future
progress of the young athlete. The opposite of the “improvement now” philosophy is that of Long-term Athletic
Development (LTAD). The primary mantra of LTAD is continual improvement over immediate performance.
I firmly believe that in many team sports, athletes with great long-term potential are discarded all-too-easily
for want of current ability. If these young people, were allowed the time to mature and develop naturally, many
could become the hub of a team. But early exclusion can be de-motivating and ultimately lead to drop-out. If
children are encouraged to improve rather than perform – that changes the long-term outlook for any club.
After all, the under-12’s of today are the seniors of tomorrow.These are major obstacles that must be overcome to allow optimal development of youth athletes.
Chronological DevelopmentChildren develop specific characteristics and abilities at certain ages, although there may be variations from
child to child. The International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA) refers to the development windows
as follows:
Movement Foundations (2-5)
This age group should ideally be learning how to run, hop on one leg, bounding and jumping and similar locomotive skills. A variety of games can aid in children discovering new motor skills. I, personally, believe
that children this young should learn as many movements as possible in a fun and interactive way, independent
of any particular sport.
Guided Discovery (6-9)
It is predominantly at this age range that children enter organised sports activities. Toward the younger ages,
sport-specific skill work should be minimised with an emphasis on developing primitive bodyweight
movements, e.g. press-ups, squats, lunges. Balanced core stability can be taught using planks, side planks and
glute bridges. Working games into this type of training is ideal. E.g. One exercise I use is getting a child to
maintain a high plank (press-up variation) while his/her partner crawls underneath. Then the child lowers to aregular plank while partner jumps over the back and repeats the exercise. Perform the desired number of
repetitions. Balance exercises/games are useful, e.g. playing tag while hopping on one leg.
Learning Exploration (10-13)
It is essential that as children mature towards puberty, coaches are alert that differences in physical capability
may become more pronounced. Children who are proficient at low-level plyometrics e.g. hopping & bounding
may be progressed to more advanced progressions. Children may join a sport late and may lag in fundamental
motor skills. It is imperative that they are not rushed into learning too many sport-specific skills too soon, but
are given a chance to catch up in terms of co-ordination and other abilities. This will serve them best in the
long term. Mobility, core stability, and mastering body weight continues to increase in importance, as childrenedge towards adolescence, and are developing more skills in their chosen sports. Many children will be exposed
to strength training with external weight in their coming teen years, so they need a solid foundation of mobility,
stability, and strength to be adequately prepared.
Train with Application (14+)
“Youth physical development takes many
years to promote and training progression
levels cannot be skipped in order to promote
success in the short-term,” (Essentials of
Youth Conditioning and Fitness, Brooks &Stodden, 2012, Chaplain Publishing). As
adolescents continue to mature, their
training will become increasingly geared
towards physicality, strength and power.
However, like building a brick wall, if any
foundation levels are neglected, the whole
lot can come tumbling down. Athletes with
an appropriate training age and appropriate
foundation will make consistent progress
with applied coaching. Boys, especially, will
develop a more muscular physique due to
increasing testosterone levels. Teenage girls
may see an increase in relative body fat which can to be managed through nutritional and training strategies.
It is important to realise that many adult injuries can be traced back to poor training habits in teenage years.
Building a healthy, resilient, powerful, skilful player, who is less prone to injuries, can be likened to building
a wall. Look at the diagram below.
You can see that each layer of the wall represents an athletic trait. Players love to master the skills of their
game, but when you really examine a wall, which row of bricks is the most important? The top one or the
bottom one? It should be clear that we have to build layers from the bottom-up to finish with a solid wall, or
a complete athlete. Therefore, with this in mind, my work with athletes, of all ages, involves ensuring that
adequate foundations are in place before moving anything other than body weight is considered.
The coach’s job is partly to make the athlete Stronger, Faster, more Powerful - in other words, a better mover,
regardless of the sport. All trainers will vary to some extent in methodology and style. However, when startingout with a new athlete or team, it is crucial, in my opinion, to ascertain their training age and current condition.
This is done by movement screening: the process of assessing the ability to perform primitive bodyweight
movements like squatting, lunging, etc... By analysing these movements, we can identify asymmetries between
left and right side, muscular imbalances, and mobility and stability issues. If these remain hidden, then the
athletes are only trying to build strength on dysfunction and are doomed to either plateau, get injured or both.
By screening the athlete, the coach knows which layers of the “wall” are solid and which are weak. Something
as simple as bad posture is dysfunction. It messes up the alignment of the body. Imagine the body is a car: how
good would it be for the car to be driven at 100kph with the handbrake on and all the wheels out of alignment?
The first night I work with a team or athlete, we perform simple movement drills designed to show up
compensation patterns. By identifying mobility issues in the ankles, hips, shoulders, etc... it provides us witha roadmap of where each person’s training must begin and the direction we need to take.
Mobility and Stability
I will deal with mobility and stability together,
because they are intrinsically linked. The joint-
by-joint approach used by Gray Cook and
Michael Boyle best illustrates this: In my book
“Training and Optimal Health for Sports”, I
explain the kinetic chain and how everything isconnected to everything else. Cook and Boyle
As a coach in Ireland, I have observed over the last twenty years that children coming into my sessions are,
on average, displaying less flexibility, less cardiovascular fitness, less strength and less favourable body
composition than previously. This, I believe, is partly due to the advent of the games console, the now
restricted level of physical activity in first-level schools and nutrition changes in society. Coaches and parents
have a responsibility to try to turn this around, and I believe structured resistance training for children can
play a key part in this. There is some concern about the safety of children undertaking strength training, butstudies have shown that there are far more injuries from playing actual sports than from following an
appropriate and properly supervised training programme. Fear of injury need not be a preventative factor in
juniors doing resistance training once internationally recognised recommendations are adhered to. Some of
the confirmed benefits of strength training for children are:
●
● Sizeable strength gains, beyond those of normal growth
● Reduced risk of injury in sporting activities
● ncreased performance
● Improved recovery from normal sports injuries
● Improved bone mineral density
● Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and/or obesity
● Improved psychological health e.g. self-esteem
With all these benefits, it seems surprising that there aren’t more structured resistance training programs
available. Perhaps it is because of circulating myths about strength training:
● It has been said that strength training can stunt the growth of children – in actual fact, it has been shown
that as long as professional recommendations of exercise and nutrition are followed, resistance training
may have beneficial growth results and will NOT negatively affect the height a child would naturally
develop. (Zatisiorsky and W. Kraemer, 2006)1
●
There are fears that there is potential risk of damage to growth plates – According to Paul Gamble2 thereis no documented evidence of this. As previously mentioned, growth can be enhanced as long as the
resistance is kept appropriate (See below).
● That there are injury risks involved – it seems universally accepted amongst experts that the most frequent
causes of injuries in resistance training for children are the same as those of adults, namely: incorrect
Agility is generally considered the ability to decelerate, change direction and rapidly accelerate in the new
direction. Agility is a keystone athletic trait in ball sports such as GAA, rugby, soccer, basketball, etc...
Both of these abilities are made up of two aspects – physical ability, and biomechanical training. Both aspects
demand attention and are trainable with the appropriate drills. Remembering that this blog is in relation to
youth conditioning, it is essential that we consider the sensitive training ages for speed & agility. According
to Drabik6, the sensitive ages for developing speed are from age seven to nine for both boys and girls, with a
further period of age ten to eleven for girls. He also states that boys’ speed may keep improving until the age
of eighteen, whereas girls may peak by age 15.
Physical Ability:
Some qualities that need to be developed, particularly for multi-directional speed, are:
● Balance
● Co-ordination
● Mobility
● Strength
The latter two have been covered already in this article, but not balance and co-ordination. While there are
simple exercises that can be done with young children to develop balance, I find I get the best results by doing
it through gameplay. For example, single-leg exercises (which are great for children to develop independent
leg strength and stability) can be easily incorporated in to races, etc... I sometimes like to give children an
object, e.g. a book, to balance on their heads while performing a task. It promotes good posture – essential for
balance and speed & agility. Partnering up the children to compete in push-pull games while standing on one
leg, with a view to knocking the partner off balance is brilliant for improving spatial awareness, ankle mobility
and balance.
A child’s level of co-ordination is directly linked to the ability to develop new motor patterns quickly. If coaches
consider it important for a child to pick up new skills quickly, then I strongly recommend incorporating
co-ordination exercises into the warm-up routines. The challenge of figuring out where the arms and legs need
to go in space will, over time, yield motor learning improvements.
Technical Ability
There are a number of technical aspects to linear speed, multi-directional speed and agility that can have great
bearing on how effectively an athlete moves on the field. Like any other form of programming, a coach must
decide at what ages, and in what order, to implement these skills. In line with Newton’s First Law of Motion,
more force is required to stop an object in motion than to overcome inertia and initiate motion. Therefore, I
tend to focus much early speed work on deceleration. This, also, conveniently compliments the eccentric phase
I emphasise in strength work. Plus deceleration is an unavoidable component of changing direction. Some
skills to consider are:
1. Forward deceleration
2. Lateral deceleration
3. Forward Acceleration
4. Lateral shuffle
5. Breaking right/left
Forward deceleration: Used when running forward and player has to decelerate in order to back-pedal or movelaterally. Planting one foot forward while shifting the body weight back is typical. Ankles should be dorsiflexed,
knees and hips flexed, with chest up. For back-pedalling the front foot is immaterial. However, if decelerating
for lateral shuffling, plant the right foot forward to shuffle left, and lead with the left foot.
decelerate, when the athlete needs to be accelerating. Arm mechanics are essential – elbows should be bent
approximately 90 degrees and should swing freely from the shoulder. Avoid raising the shoulders. Avoid the
arms crossing the midline of the body (coronal plane) – they should only move in the sagittal plane. Movementof the body should be horizontal, not vertical. Avoid the hips moving up and down.
Lateral shuffle: This is a relatively easy movement to master. The athlete should be careful to maintain an
athletic stance, low with knees and hips flexed. Feet approximately shoulder width apart. Movement side-to-side
is performed by leading with the leg nearest the intended direction.
Breaking right/left: This involves an opponent turning to run 90 degrees from the current facing, when a lateral
shuffle wouldn’t be appropriate. The athlete should lead with the leg nearest the intended direction while truing
the hips in this direction. The second step should now be from the back leg and the athlete is in a normal
running gait.
References6. Science and Practice of Strength Training. 2nd Edition, (Human Kinetics 2006), by V. Zatisiorsky and W.
Kraemer, pages 166
7. Peak Performance Resistance Special report, Chapter “Women and Young Athletes,”, by Paul Gamble,
page 65
8. Science and Practice of Strength Training. 2nd Edition, (Human Kinetics 2006), by V. Zatisiorsky and W.
Kraemer, pages 201, 208
9. Kids’ Load Limits, by J.E. Krumm (1988) study quoted in Science of Sports Training, by Tom Kurz, page
165
10. Children and Sports Training, by Józef Drabik (1996), page 13611. Children and Sports Training, by Józef Drabik (1996),
BiographyShane Fitzgibbon has been coaching in Sports for over twenty years. A certified Strength & Conditioning
coach and Gym Instructor, Shane is one of the most experienced coaches in Ireland. While he works with many
adults on both an individual and team basis, Shane has a real passion for developing young athletes. In 2012
he authored the highly acclaimed book, “Training and Optimal Health for Sports,” which is available in Easons
and the official website, www.trainingandoptimalhealth.com
Some of his accolades include:
● National Certificate in Strength & Conditioning (distinction)