This article will describe a basic jump training program with an emphasis on the sport of basketball and volleyball to help those that are coaches and players improve in the area of jumping higher. Even though it is designed specifically for those athletes that play sports such as basketball and volleyball, coaches of other sports that require jumping can also use the information as well.
Very few athletic measurements evoke awe-inspiring glances as a forty-inch vertical jump. While incredibly important when dunking a basketball or spiking a volleyball, the vertical jump test is a standard measurement of one's explosive power; that is, the amount of force one is able to generate in a specific, in this case immediate, amount of time. A high vertical jump requires the athlete to coordinate a whole body movement to drive a downward force onto the ground sufficient to propel the body against the force of gravity and into the air.
Many athletes attempt to improve their vertical jump through gimmicks such as the strength shoes that are marketed on the Internet or in catalog magazines; however, the only true way to increase one’s vertical is through the traditional strength training that is done in the gym through Olympic lifts and jump training exercises.
Jump training is very individual and must be tailored to the specific athlete it is intended for. Every athlete has different concerns and needs. Additionally, injury can result from the incorrect use of it.
Jumping is a complex multi-joint movement that requires muscle coordination best improved by specific skill development. Traditional strength training, explosive types of weight training, jump training and Olympic lifting can be effective for increasing the vertical jump. Before embarking in a jump training regiment, athletes and coaches must consider the athlete’s goal. In addition, they must determine the relative strength and weakness the athlete has at the start of designing a program.
Some program considerations.
As discussed in previous articles, the principle of specificity must govern the training regimen. What this means is the exercises selected for the program must simulate basketball movements in speed, biomechanics and resistance. Train athletes so that they are able to transfer what is being taught into their sport. (This is the reason for them coming to me in the first place.)
Safety and proper progression must be at the forefront of the program. It is better to under-prescribe then to over-prescribe.
Advanced exercises must be reserved for only advanced athletes.
Beginners always want to progress faster than they are capable of. It is the coach’s job to explain, and insist on, proper progression.
Although beginning jump training programs may be performed by most people, to participate safely in an aggressive jump training program many authors suggest that the athlete should be able to squat 1.5 times body weight. Therefore, a considerable strength base becomes imperative when embarking on a challenging jump training program. For most athletes, 8-12 weeks of periodized, resistance training should be sufficient to bring strength levels to adequate levels.
A proper warm up and cool down can not be emphasized enough. The warm-up must proceed from general (e.g. jogging or skipping rope) to specific preparatory exercises (e.g. dynamic stretches similar to exercises being performed). The cool down should focus on flexibility via static stretches and allow the gradual return to a pre-exercises state.
The correct amount of jump training must be provided. High intensity must govern the jump training training session. Quality, not quantity, is the cornerstone of jump training training – all exercises are to be performed at maximal effort. When training, emphasis should be on the athlete training in game time speed so that the muscles train in the manner needed when they are actually in the competition.
However, there must be a balanced relationship between stress and rest. Insufficient rest is the most common cause of injury in jump trainings.
Let me repeat that statement again. Insufficient rest is the most common case of injury in jump training. Too much, too soon.
Athletes should rest 1-3 minutes between sets and 3-5 minutes between exercises within a single training session. Recovery between sessions becomes more complex due to the many variables to consider (e.g. practice schedules, strength training volume, level of athletic development, etc.). It is here where the experience of a trained professional becomes paramount.
Finally, individual program design must be part of the final process. Although a general program can be designed for a team. The coach must “tweak” each program to deal with the specifics of the individual athlete. Adjustments to fit the athlete’s characteristics are always made. Because of individual variations, cookie-cutter jump training programs are a sure way to hurt athletes. Medical history, training age, muscle imbalances, sport and position played are some of the variables that will dictate the specific design of the program. For the sake for simplicity there are three basic categories of jump training exercises.
Jumps, hops and bounds.
Jumps are exercises where you land with both feet (e.g. long jump). The take off can be performed with one foot or two feet. Jumps can be done in place (e.g. jumping jacks) or for distance (e.g. multiple long jumps).
Hops are exercises where you take off one foot and land on the same foot (e.g. single leg hopping). Hops can also be done in place (e.g. stationary single leg ankle hops) or for distance (e.g. multiple single leg hops). Since hops are a single leg exercise, they require much more strength than jumps.
Bounding exercises are exercises where one takes off on one foot and lands on the other foot (e.g. alternate leg bounding). Bounds are usually done for distance. Bounds can be the most challenging of the jump training exercises. However, there is over lap between the categories. For example, a very advance jump exercise can be more demanding than a beginning bound exercise.
Athletes should make sure they seek the advice of a professional who is trained and experienced in this method of training before you embark on a serious jump training routine. A good program put together by a professional strength coach can aid an athlete and improve the athlete's speed, quickness and jumping ability, and these gains may transform the player's playing career.
Charlotte Strength and Speed Coach
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
What Every Speed Program Should Have
One of the most sought after athletic attributes is speed, unfortunately it is also one of the most difficult areas to improve. One of the biggest mistakes made when training for speed is focusing mainly on running mechanics and speed and agility drills. Minor improvements in speed may be seen by improving running mechanics, however real speed is not attainable without good core strength, leg strength, and efficient movement. Here are a few areas that athletes need to address when improving their performance in any sport.
1. Core stability. For an athlete to reach his or her full strength and power potential there must be a specific focus on core stability and strength. Any speed program should originate from or through the core. A well-developed core allows for improved force output, increased neuromuscular efficiency and decreased chance of injury. Core strength training provides the athlete with a solid base around which all athletic movement occurs. The center of all power and strength in the human body used to make explosive athletic movements originate in the core of the body. The core is the center that coordinates all human movements. The more quality training performed with the core, the more potential the athlete has to transfer the training to their specific sport and enhance performance.
2. Agility. Athletic movements are often quick, ballistic and powerful. Athletes are required to start, stop and change directions in an instant. Agility is the ability to change directions quickly and explosively on command or in reaction to a stimulus. Agility is the process of accelerating then decelerating to a quick stop and then accelerating to top speed. Agility drills are an effective way to increase and athlete’s quickness and reaction time.
3. Flexibility. Flexibility training is perhaps the most undervalued component of speed training. While recent and ongoing debates question its role in injury prevention, athletes can still gain much from a stretching regime. Flexibility may reduce injury and increase range of motion ROM. A more flexible athlete equals a more mobile athlete. A good flexibility regiment enhances movement on the court and field and causes athletes to have a greater ease of movement as well as increases the body’s awareness and promotes relaxation.
4. Balance and coordination. Balance and the ability to react to auditory and visual cues are all important elements of coordination. Balance training helps the athlete develop good coordination through a series of balance exercises that progress from simple static poses to more dynamic drills. With more advanced exercises the athlete is challenged to maintain balance at increased speeds and in constantly changing environments. Training the athletes to have control of their bodies in space is the main focal point.
5. Strength training. The stronger the athlete is, the faster they will be able to run. Performance enhanced strength training, especially in the off-season, is the initial basis for improved performance in the next season. By getting stronger, athletes are able to work longer and harder in developing our skills in practice. It can help to create more power in each of their sprint / running strokes and therefore increase their speed output.
Regardless of the sport the athlete competes in, these 5 main components are the focal points that should be address when training to improve the playing speed of an athlete in their sport.
Speed and Strength Coach in Charlotte NC
1. Core stability. For an athlete to reach his or her full strength and power potential there must be a specific focus on core stability and strength. Any speed program should originate from or through the core. A well-developed core allows for improved force output, increased neuromuscular efficiency and decreased chance of injury. Core strength training provides the athlete with a solid base around which all athletic movement occurs. The center of all power and strength in the human body used to make explosive athletic movements originate in the core of the body. The core is the center that coordinates all human movements. The more quality training performed with the core, the more potential the athlete has to transfer the training to their specific sport and enhance performance.
2. Agility. Athletic movements are often quick, ballistic and powerful. Athletes are required to start, stop and change directions in an instant. Agility is the ability to change directions quickly and explosively on command or in reaction to a stimulus. Agility is the process of accelerating then decelerating to a quick stop and then accelerating to top speed. Agility drills are an effective way to increase and athlete’s quickness and reaction time.
3. Flexibility. Flexibility training is perhaps the most undervalued component of speed training. While recent and ongoing debates question its role in injury prevention, athletes can still gain much from a stretching regime. Flexibility may reduce injury and increase range of motion ROM. A more flexible athlete equals a more mobile athlete. A good flexibility regiment enhances movement on the court and field and causes athletes to have a greater ease of movement as well as increases the body’s awareness and promotes relaxation.
4. Balance and coordination. Balance and the ability to react to auditory and visual cues are all important elements of coordination. Balance training helps the athlete develop good coordination through a series of balance exercises that progress from simple static poses to more dynamic drills. With more advanced exercises the athlete is challenged to maintain balance at increased speeds and in constantly changing environments. Training the athletes to have control of their bodies in space is the main focal point.
5. Strength training. The stronger the athlete is, the faster they will be able to run. Performance enhanced strength training, especially in the off-season, is the initial basis for improved performance in the next season. By getting stronger, athletes are able to work longer and harder in developing our skills in practice. It can help to create more power in each of their sprint / running strokes and therefore increase their speed output.
Regardless of the sport the athlete competes in, these 5 main components are the focal points that should be address when training to improve the playing speed of an athlete in their sport.
Speed and Strength Coach in Charlotte NC
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Top Speed Training Myths Revealed
As a speed coach, I receive questions about training speed. So I've taken those questions that I hear the most and answered them in a slightly different format.
1. Static stretching prepares you to compete/practice
Static stretching actually reduces power output. The best type of stretching that an athlete should utilize before practice is dynamic stretching which warms up the body and prepares and mimics the movement that the athlete’s body will be engaged in doing. The progression of movement should start off from basic, low intensity movements to faster, more explosive movements as the muscles loosen up.
2. Stretch and then do a warm up
You should never stretch a cold muscle because you can cause more harm than good to the muscle belly while the muscle is cold. Instead, athletes should do some small warm up to increase the body temperature so that the muscle is warm and plausible to stretch. Think of the muscle as a rubber band. Would you stretch a cold rubber band that has been in the freezer for days?
3. Strength training makes females too bulky
This is a popular mindset with many female athletes that we have worked with. However, this as far fetched of a myth than any of the ones that I have to debunk. Strength training not only is of injury prevention because it assists with building the muscles, tendons, and ligaments to withstand the stress of the sports. In addition, we know that the female population is more susceptible to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than their male counterparts. Fatigued lower limb muscles can inhibit the ability to control dynamic sports landing movements, increasing the risk of non-contact injury to the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), particularly among females. Prevention and prehabilitation is always better the rehabilitation. Strength training will improve performance and reduce injury if done correctly. If you look at Mia Hamm, Venus and Serna Williams, these athletes train with weights and have a great physique on and off the court.
4. You can’t train speed
For some reason it is a popular belief that you are born with a certain amount of ‘speed’ and you can’t improve it. If that’s the case than the Olympians that participate every four years waste their time throughout training to get better because they have nature born speed that will just come on when the touch foot on the track. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Speed is a skill that can be learned and the problem that I see with most young athletes is they are so physically weak and mechanically out of tune that significant improvements in speed can be made often just by working on technique and form. Athletes at any age and any level can improve speed when implementing a complete speed training program designed to improve and develop the entire athlete.
5. Training slow makes you fast
I don’t think coaches directly believe this way, but their training implies otherwise. I think they understand this when it comes to practicing for their sport for they know that in order for the athletes to get a true feel and understanding of what is required when in competition, the athlete must be put in ‘game speed’ situations so that their bodies are able to react. The same is true for speed training, in order for an athlete to be able to get faster, they must train their fast twitch muscle fibers consistently and properly so that they will be able to translate their training to the competition. Athletes must train how they play or train the way their sports demands of them. For example in sports that involve a higher aerobic element such as soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc. I see kids out running mileage and doing long slow intervals of several minutes of continuous running. If their goal is to get faster for the season and want to improve their overall speed and first step quickness to the ball, they must train their muscles to fire and work in the same manner that the demand will be placed on them for the sport. If you want athletes to improve their acceleration and top speed so they can get to the ball faster or get back on defense, then you have to train by running at full speed in practice.
6. You can train hard every day
Most coaches and parents understand this concept when it comes to strength training with training the same body part over and over. However, when it comes to speed training this concept gets thrown out the window for some reason. The workout itself is only a piece of the training puzzle. Just as with strength training, athlete’s muscles aren’t built in the weight room but during the recovery period, so is true with speed training. It is the time between intense workouts, the recovery, where athletes make their improvements. And generally it takes 36-48 hours to recover from high intensity training. If athletes are doing too much, too often they become over trained. Coaches can expect to see an increase in injuries, athletes complaining that they are sore more often, decreased performance, higher levels of fatigue earlier in games, and the BIG ONE—burnout. It’s always better to under train an athlete than over train. Err on the side of caution to get maximal results.
7. Strength training will stunt a young athlete’s growth
This is another myth held over from a different time. With parents having their kids participate in year round sports, strength training can assist with preventing some of the injuries that these athletes may be susceptible to with year round participation. These loads on the body can have a much greater physical impact than a well designed strength training program. Though I don’t usually begin training with weights with pre pubescent athletes, they can benefit from body weight exercises such as push ups, full body squats, pull ups, crunches, sit ups, etc. This will increase muscular efficiency, speed up recovery, improve coordination and overall speed.
8. The harder the workout, the better the result
Some athletes (and coaches) have this mentality that if a workout doesn’t reduce them to complete exhaustion and/or make them vomit, that it wasn’t an effective workout. I hated coaches that thought like this and now that I am a speed/ performance coach, I still hate it. The reasoning behind the vomiting is that the body is trying to buffer the blood due to it being too acidic and the lack of oxygen left for the muscles to use during the workout. Now that young athletes are dying due to myocarditis and other abnormal heart conditions, ‘old school’ coaches that have this mentality need not apply with working with youth athletes period. Also those who have this mentality probably see a lot of injuries and frustrating performances. The purpose of a workout is to stimulate an adaptation by the body. If the body is forced to do too much work in a given time period, it will break down. The skill in coaching is to stimulate the adaptation in the body, without reaching a point of diminishing returns.
9. Interval training is the same as speed training
Running repeat 100s, 200s, etc will not improve top speeds. Even running
repeat 40s with short recovery will not improve acceleration and top speeds. I wish someone had explained this myth and concept to my college coaches when they had us doing repeated 100s and 200s in the hot summer heat to improve our speed! Speed work is defined at 2-8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means at least 2 minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This
goes against the experience of some coaches, but simply put, is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they do not recover properly from each interval, they will not be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can not improve.
10. Flexibility won’t help you get faster
Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training and conditioning that they often forget a fundamental component of success: flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. Now is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. I see this often in the hips and hip flexors where athletes’ stride length appears conspicuously short. Most often I see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work. Hey I have been guilty of this one myself throughout the years of my high school and collegiate career.
11. Lift your knees
I hear so many parents and coaches yelling to their kids when they want them to run faster or when they are beginning to fatigue, “Lift your knees, Get your knees up”.
This is one of the most backwards cues you can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the more force you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give
back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of the glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed? Second, we’re cueing them and teaching a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age 7, to lift their knees when they need a burst of speed, that improper cue will be hardwired into their brain. To unlearn that as a teen and try to do the opposite and drive down, that athlete will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backwards. That’s why it is critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground, with the foot landing underneath the hip.
Speed/ Performance Coach and Speed Camps in Charlotte, NC
1. Static stretching prepares you to compete/practice
Static stretching actually reduces power output. The best type of stretching that an athlete should utilize before practice is dynamic stretching which warms up the body and prepares and mimics the movement that the athlete’s body will be engaged in doing. The progression of movement should start off from basic, low intensity movements to faster, more explosive movements as the muscles loosen up.
2. Stretch and then do a warm up
You should never stretch a cold muscle because you can cause more harm than good to the muscle belly while the muscle is cold. Instead, athletes should do some small warm up to increase the body temperature so that the muscle is warm and plausible to stretch. Think of the muscle as a rubber band. Would you stretch a cold rubber band that has been in the freezer for days?
3. Strength training makes females too bulky
This is a popular mindset with many female athletes that we have worked with. However, this as far fetched of a myth than any of the ones that I have to debunk. Strength training not only is of injury prevention because it assists with building the muscles, tendons, and ligaments to withstand the stress of the sports. In addition, we know that the female population is more susceptible to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than their male counterparts. Fatigued lower limb muscles can inhibit the ability to control dynamic sports landing movements, increasing the risk of non-contact injury to the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), particularly among females. Prevention and prehabilitation is always better the rehabilitation. Strength training will improve performance and reduce injury if done correctly. If you look at Mia Hamm, Venus and Serna Williams, these athletes train with weights and have a great physique on and off the court.
4. You can’t train speed
For some reason it is a popular belief that you are born with a certain amount of ‘speed’ and you can’t improve it. If that’s the case than the Olympians that participate every four years waste their time throughout training to get better because they have nature born speed that will just come on when the touch foot on the track. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Speed is a skill that can be learned and the problem that I see with most young athletes is they are so physically weak and mechanically out of tune that significant improvements in speed can be made often just by working on technique and form. Athletes at any age and any level can improve speed when implementing a complete speed training program designed to improve and develop the entire athlete.
5. Training slow makes you fast
I don’t think coaches directly believe this way, but their training implies otherwise. I think they understand this when it comes to practicing for their sport for they know that in order for the athletes to get a true feel and understanding of what is required when in competition, the athlete must be put in ‘game speed’ situations so that their bodies are able to react. The same is true for speed training, in order for an athlete to be able to get faster, they must train their fast twitch muscle fibers consistently and properly so that they will be able to translate their training to the competition. Athletes must train how they play or train the way their sports demands of them. For example in sports that involve a higher aerobic element such as soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc. I see kids out running mileage and doing long slow intervals of several minutes of continuous running. If their goal is to get faster for the season and want to improve their overall speed and first step quickness to the ball, they must train their muscles to fire and work in the same manner that the demand will be placed on them for the sport. If you want athletes to improve their acceleration and top speed so they can get to the ball faster or get back on defense, then you have to train by running at full speed in practice.
6. You can train hard every day
Most coaches and parents understand this concept when it comes to strength training with training the same body part over and over. However, when it comes to speed training this concept gets thrown out the window for some reason. The workout itself is only a piece of the training puzzle. Just as with strength training, athlete’s muscles aren’t built in the weight room but during the recovery period, so is true with speed training. It is the time between intense workouts, the recovery, where athletes make their improvements. And generally it takes 36-48 hours to recover from high intensity training. If athletes are doing too much, too often they become over trained. Coaches can expect to see an increase in injuries, athletes complaining that they are sore more often, decreased performance, higher levels of fatigue earlier in games, and the BIG ONE—burnout. It’s always better to under train an athlete than over train. Err on the side of caution to get maximal results.
7. Strength training will stunt a young athlete’s growth
This is another myth held over from a different time. With parents having their kids participate in year round sports, strength training can assist with preventing some of the injuries that these athletes may be susceptible to with year round participation. These loads on the body can have a much greater physical impact than a well designed strength training program. Though I don’t usually begin training with weights with pre pubescent athletes, they can benefit from body weight exercises such as push ups, full body squats, pull ups, crunches, sit ups, etc. This will increase muscular efficiency, speed up recovery, improve coordination and overall speed.
8. The harder the workout, the better the result
Some athletes (and coaches) have this mentality that if a workout doesn’t reduce them to complete exhaustion and/or make them vomit, that it wasn’t an effective workout. I hated coaches that thought like this and now that I am a speed/ performance coach, I still hate it. The reasoning behind the vomiting is that the body is trying to buffer the blood due to it being too acidic and the lack of oxygen left for the muscles to use during the workout. Now that young athletes are dying due to myocarditis and other abnormal heart conditions, ‘old school’ coaches that have this mentality need not apply with working with youth athletes period. Also those who have this mentality probably see a lot of injuries and frustrating performances. The purpose of a workout is to stimulate an adaptation by the body. If the body is forced to do too much work in a given time period, it will break down. The skill in coaching is to stimulate the adaptation in the body, without reaching a point of diminishing returns.
9. Interval training is the same as speed training
Running repeat 100s, 200s, etc will not improve top speeds. Even running
repeat 40s with short recovery will not improve acceleration and top speeds. I wish someone had explained this myth and concept to my college coaches when they had us doing repeated 100s and 200s in the hot summer heat to improve our speed! Speed work is defined at 2-8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means at least 2 minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This
goes against the experience of some coaches, but simply put, is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they do not recover properly from each interval, they will not be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can not improve.
10. Flexibility won’t help you get faster
Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training and conditioning that they often forget a fundamental component of success: flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. Now is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. I see this often in the hips and hip flexors where athletes’ stride length appears conspicuously short. Most often I see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work. Hey I have been guilty of this one myself throughout the years of my high school and collegiate career.
11. Lift your knees
I hear so many parents and coaches yelling to their kids when they want them to run faster or when they are beginning to fatigue, “Lift your knees, Get your knees up”.
This is one of the most backwards cues you can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the more force you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give
back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of the glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed? Second, we’re cueing them and teaching a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age 7, to lift their knees when they need a burst of speed, that improper cue will be hardwired into their brain. To unlearn that as a teen and try to do the opposite and drive down, that athlete will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backwards. That’s why it is critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground, with the foot landing underneath the hip.
Speed/ Performance Coach and Speed Camps in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Dear Mr. Obama: Help our kids play
I thought since we all have been glued to the news rather you voted for the new President or not this past election, this blog post was appropriate for the occasion. It was taken from ESPN.com on my blackberry and it's an open letter to President Barack Obama. I hope you enjoy it.
Dear Mr. President:
Every 50 years or so since the rise of the U.S. as an industrial power, someone with your impending job title takes a hard look at the athletic activity of children.
He finds neglect and opportunity.
He takes action.
He leaves the nation -- and, ultimately, the sports nation -- in a better place.
Just over a century ago, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Ascending to the presidency at a time when America was about to make its play as leader of the free world, he didn't like what he saw happening with teenage boys. Roosevelt grew up an asthmatic, a sickly boy from polluted New York who made his body strong by embracing a life of vigorous exercise. He wrestled and lifted weights, and he boxed even after moving into the White House. He worried that the comforts of urban life had rendered middle- and upper-class boys soft and effeminate, raised, as many of them were, by their mothers. They hardly seemed fit, the way he saw it, to take over the businesses that their more manly fathers were hard at work creating. At the same time, the nation needed dependable laborers to pave the expansion into new markets. Sports, and team sports specifically, became seen as a way to indoctrinate immigrant boys into the ways of American capitalism. "Only aggressive sports can create the brawn, the spirit, the self-confidence, and quickness of men essential for the existence of a strong nation," Roosevelt roared.
Stirred, TR's contemporaries introduced organized sports to school systems in Gotham and other large cities. And they built thousands of playgrounds, green spaces where kids could get off the streets and get into games like baseball.
A half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower was fighting a Cold War that seemed as if it might turn hot on a moment's notice. As a former general, he knew that half of all men who had shown up at draft boards around the nation were considered physically unfit. And a study presented at the American Medical Association had shown that U.S. children were far more out of shape than their European peers. Over there, kids still walked or rode bikes to school and chopped wood for home heating. In the new suburban America, boys and girls were being driven everywhere. Home chores consisted of making their beds. As for school sports, they were focused on interscholastic competition, the province of the certified jock.
An alarmed Ike created in 1956 what ultimately became known as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which promoted physical education classes as early as first grade. Intramurals exploded, giving the less athletically gifted kid a chance to compete. Also, the groundwork was laid for passage a few years later of a federal program to help fund the construction or renovation of 40,000 parks and recreation centers in just about every county in the country. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with an exercise ethos, were the chief beneficiaries of these investments.
Your turn, No. 44.
I know you have a lot on your plate, between fixing the economy and smoking out bin Laden. But you've got a big brain, so let me introduce you to another mounting crisis that will require your leadership to solve: That of our sport system at its base. Maybe as you're trying to modernize our schools and mend our health care system, you can think about building in reforms to the opportunities our children have for physical activity.
From the top down, the system looks pretty good. Our pro leagues are thriving, as are the owners of their franchises. Our athletes are worldwide brands -- Kobe; A-Rod; Peyton Manning; the Williams sisters; and, especially, Tiger. From the window of an airplane, our mega-stadiums sparkle like 10-carat diamonds amid urban and college-town landscapes.
But viewed from the bottom up, the setup looks a lot more like the Wall Street we have come to know of late: a system compromised by greed and ignorance, in which the haves increasingly get rewarded at the expense of the have-nots, with the support of government.
To understand where the priorities lie today, start in America's largest burg. Last week, officials for the city and the New York Yankees were hauled before a state assembly committee to justify the most expensive stadium project in U.S. history. The $1.5 billion ballpark is being built on one of those historic playgrounds built a century ago, Macombs Dam Park, whose fields over the years have served countless youth and school teams in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. The city effectively gave a 22-acre parcel to the richest team in baseball, then allegedly jacked up the estimated value of the land to gain access to $940 million in federal tax-exempt bonds. Now the Yankees have been granted another $370 million in such bonds -- just weeks after signing Mark Teixeira and two other free agents for a combined $423 million.
The city promises to build a series of smaller replacement parks elsewhere. But some won't be ready for years, one will be on top of a parking garage, and another is in an industrial area far from the neighborhood. And we'll see what residents really get once the economy wreaks full havoc on city budgets.
"In New York City, 70 percent of kids are kicked to the curb at the end of the school day," said Al Bevilacqua, a wrestling coach whose nonprofit organization, Beat the Streets, is trying to reintroduce that sport to public schools using private funding. In the city that pioneered the uniquely American tradition of school sports, the options for many students are very limited. As an undergraduate at Columbia, you lived in New York long enough to get a sense of the experiential gap between that of a large public high school there and an elite private school such as the one you attended in Honolulu. Well, it's grown. Intramurals and quality P.E. classes are scarce, and only so many kids can make varsity basketball. Do you know how many U.S. Olympians the Big Apple sent to Beijing? Just eight. Four fencers, one boxer, one judoka, one riflewoman and one table tennis player originally trained in China.
Australia, which draws from a population only some two and a half times the size of New York City, won 46 medals.
Just about everywhere in America, inner-city kids struggle to find athletic opportunities. That's true even in places like Miami, with its reputation for producing elite football players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School won the mythical national championship in 2007 with a team that sent more than a dozen seniors to D-I programs, yet the school profile shows most students at the school couldn't pass the annual fitness exam. So is Northwestern a jock factory -- or a fitness flunkie?
You'd never know it from watching pro sports, in which African-American presence has grown, but black teenagers play sports less often than they did decades ago. In 1980, no ethnic group had a higher participation rate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. Not anymore. In fact, since then, no group has lost more participants. The obesity crisis is a national problem, but especially in black and Hispanic communities.
Those at the top of the sports pyramid aren't unaware of deficits at the bottom. Perhaps no league does more than the NFL, which has created an endowment that spends $25 million a year on refurbishing community football fields in distressed areas, according to a league spokesman. But such gifts are table scraps in the all-you-can-eat feast that is pro sports, where growth has been fueled by billions in public subsidies and tax advantages.
"They're more or less P.R. campaigns," says Scott Lancaster, who ran the NFL's youth programs for 12 years until 2007.
The NFL recently stopped funding one of its main youth programs. Junior Player Development, created by Lancaster, had helped repopularize football in poor urban areas by introducing the game to hundreds of thousands of kids through trained coaches. Many went on to play in college. Now the well-regarded program has been shut down, likely for good. The NFL cites the economy. Lancaster suspects it had more to do with posturing for negotiations with the players' union, a desire to plead poverty where none exists. "They've put youth in the middle and made it a victim," he says.
In tough times, sports funding for kids is always an easy cut. Even in the 'burbs now, school districts are talking about eliminating teams -- or even entire athletic programs. "You're going to see decisions made in the next two years that we've never seen made," one Connecticut high school athletic director told me. Youth sports in these communities will become further privatized, the realm of parents who can afford to sign their kids up for an endless slate of organized activities, from sport-specific camps to private lessons to travel teams with paid coaches.
It's hard to get your mind around how much the sports activity of children has changed since we were boys. As recently as the mid-1990s, the average age at which kids began to play organized sports was 8. Now, many start slipping on uniforms by 5, and after that you rarely see kids playing games without one. When my daughter was in second grade, there were girls on her rec league soccer team who were in their ninth season of soccer, having been signed up each fall, winter and spring since kindergarten (three seasons a year).
By third grade, in some sports, elite travel teams are being formed that stand apart from the in-town rec leagues that historically have provided opportunities for all kids. Ghettoized, the rec leagues begin to wither, while the travel kids go on to dominate varsity rosters. We're effectively holding high school tryouts now in grade school, sorting the weak from the strong before kids even hit puberty.
You seem like a man who can appreciate that youth sport is the most important institution in all of sports, because that's where the magic begins. It's where we learn to love these games, picking up fitness habits and rooting interests that can last a lifetime. But many kids start falling away from sports around age 11 now. The system has become less accessible to the late bloomer, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other: the clinically obese.
We also risk burning out the "winners" of this premature struggle. It's worth keeping in mind the modern cautionary tale of Elena Delle Donne, the 2008 national high school player of the year in girls basketball. Soon after arriving at UConn with a full ride, she quit the game, later explaining that she had stopped enjoying hoops back in middle school. All those AAU national championships, all those sessions with the personal trainer her parents had hired for her since second grade, led to no return on investment. She chose to walk on instead with a volleyball team at the University of Delaware, closer to home and friends.
Government policies have shaped this landscape. It's tempting to point to Title IX for the spread of scholarship mania among parents, as the amount of athletic aid handed out by NCAA programs has quadrupled since the early 1990s, to $1.5 billion annually. But that law also has been the greatest tool for growing participation since, well, the advent of organized youth sports, by forcing high schools and middle schools to create opportunities for girls.
It's clear that you, Barack, get that.
"I am the father of two young girls who are growing up playing sports and who are the beneficiaries of the doors Title IX opened," you said last year, signaling your intention to strengthen enforcement of the law down to the "pre-kindergarten" level.
Far more problematic is the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which charters the U.S. Olympic Committee and makes requirements of the national governing bodies of individual sports. The law asks that the USOC coordinate amateur sports activity in the country, but it's an unfunded mandate, a real bridge to nowhere (which was a specialty of its author, former Senator Ted Stevens). The USOC has focused its limited resources on the elite of the elite, making little effort to push coaches' education down to the youth level. In Europe, coaches are certified and trained in athlete development; here, the scene is dominated by millions of parent volunteers, well-meaning but winging it.
Attrition drops when coaches are trained in working with kids. It's been proven.
You are no doubt looking for ways to cut, not add to, the federal budget. But look at it this way: The economic consequences of Americans' physical inactivity are huge, costing more than $76 billion a year in direct medical costs alone, according to one academic study. Health care is a major priority of yours, with an emphasis on prevention. There's no better preventative care than finding a sport for life, like those weekly pickup hoop games you'll soon bring to the White House, Cabinet members in tow.
A bunch of your advisers got game, from education secretary nominee Arne Duncan (former Harvard co-captain) to attorney general nominee Eric Holder (former Columbia player) to brother-in-law Craig Robinson (current Oregon State men's coach). So get them in a huddle and come up with a new model for grassroots sports, built from the bottom up with a simple premise: sport as a human right, just like education. Here's how to do it:
• Offer incentives for schools to create more teams, not fewer, which is what is happening in the era of No Child Left Behind, with its strictly academic focus. The least that schools can do is modernize P.E. by connecting teens with local clubs that sponsor lesser-known sports in which they might find success. "You have to connect the national governing bodies with the schools," says Judy Young, a top expert on school-based sports. "Schools just can't teach the full array of 45 sports seen in the Olympics."
• Restore funding for urban parks and rec centers that have been gutted in recent years. Perhaps you can pay for it with a tax on the pro leagues that do business in these cities and whose empires have been built on the public dime.
• Rewrite the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act so that Job 1 for the USOC is tending to the base of the participation pyramid. While you're at it, enlist Larry Probst, its new chairman, who comes from the video game industry, to share what he knows about creating games that engage today's children. "A lot needs to be learned about making sports a contemporary experience for kids," says Lancaster, who while at the NFL experimented with hybrid games that married hand-held video with real play. "We're still asking them to play games the way their dads did a generation ago."
The key is getting progressive, not sentimental, about youth sports. Parents just aren't going to let their kid ride a bike halfway across town anymore to play sandlot ball, unsupervised. The murder of Adam Walsh changed all that.
And now, you can change it again, for the better. Imagine a Chicago Olympics in 2016 -- the first truly "Sport for All" Olympics, as you can pitch it when the host city is selected in October 2009, deploying an ideal celebrated by the IOC. An Olympics in which national governing bodies like U.S. Swimming and U.S. Badminton already are making new efforts to go into the inner city and get kids involved. An Olympics with a legacy of facilities that will benefit regular athletes, not just elites. An Olympics measured by growth in the number of Chicago kids who play sports into their teenage years and beyond. An Olympics that can cap your eight-year run as a president known for fresh ideas, with a statement in your adopted hometown about the possibilities of American sport.
The moment is there for the taking, Mr. Obama. It's one Teddy and Ike would surely seize.
Hope that gets you thinking.
Sincerely,
Tom Farrey
Tom Farrey is the author of "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," an exploration of the culture of modern youth sports. The book, his first, was recently named the 2008 Sports Education Book of the Year by the Institute of International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com
Youth Fitness Professional in Charlotte, NC
Dear Mr. President:
Every 50 years or so since the rise of the U.S. as an industrial power, someone with your impending job title takes a hard look at the athletic activity of children.
He finds neglect and opportunity.
He takes action.
He leaves the nation -- and, ultimately, the sports nation -- in a better place.
Just over a century ago, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Ascending to the presidency at a time when America was about to make its play as leader of the free world, he didn't like what he saw happening with teenage boys. Roosevelt grew up an asthmatic, a sickly boy from polluted New York who made his body strong by embracing a life of vigorous exercise. He wrestled and lifted weights, and he boxed even after moving into the White House. He worried that the comforts of urban life had rendered middle- and upper-class boys soft and effeminate, raised, as many of them were, by their mothers. They hardly seemed fit, the way he saw it, to take over the businesses that their more manly fathers were hard at work creating. At the same time, the nation needed dependable laborers to pave the expansion into new markets. Sports, and team sports specifically, became seen as a way to indoctrinate immigrant boys into the ways of American capitalism. "Only aggressive sports can create the brawn, the spirit, the self-confidence, and quickness of men essential for the existence of a strong nation," Roosevelt roared.
Stirred, TR's contemporaries introduced organized sports to school systems in Gotham and other large cities. And they built thousands of playgrounds, green spaces where kids could get off the streets and get into games like baseball.
A half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower was fighting a Cold War that seemed as if it might turn hot on a moment's notice. As a former general, he knew that half of all men who had shown up at draft boards around the nation were considered physically unfit. And a study presented at the American Medical Association had shown that U.S. children were far more out of shape than their European peers. Over there, kids still walked or rode bikes to school and chopped wood for home heating. In the new suburban America, boys and girls were being driven everywhere. Home chores consisted of making their beds. As for school sports, they were focused on interscholastic competition, the province of the certified jock.
An alarmed Ike created in 1956 what ultimately became known as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which promoted physical education classes as early as first grade. Intramurals exploded, giving the less athletically gifted kid a chance to compete. Also, the groundwork was laid for passage a few years later of a federal program to help fund the construction or renovation of 40,000 parks and recreation centers in just about every county in the country. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with an exercise ethos, were the chief beneficiaries of these investments.
Your turn, No. 44.
I know you have a lot on your plate, between fixing the economy and smoking out bin Laden. But you've got a big brain, so let me introduce you to another mounting crisis that will require your leadership to solve: That of our sport system at its base. Maybe as you're trying to modernize our schools and mend our health care system, you can think about building in reforms to the opportunities our children have for physical activity.
From the top down, the system looks pretty good. Our pro leagues are thriving, as are the owners of their franchises. Our athletes are worldwide brands -- Kobe; A-Rod; Peyton Manning; the Williams sisters; and, especially, Tiger. From the window of an airplane, our mega-stadiums sparkle like 10-carat diamonds amid urban and college-town landscapes.
But viewed from the bottom up, the setup looks a lot more like the Wall Street we have come to know of late: a system compromised by greed and ignorance, in which the haves increasingly get rewarded at the expense of the have-nots, with the support of government.
To understand where the priorities lie today, start in America's largest burg. Last week, officials for the city and the New York Yankees were hauled before a state assembly committee to justify the most expensive stadium project in U.S. history. The $1.5 billion ballpark is being built on one of those historic playgrounds built a century ago, Macombs Dam Park, whose fields over the years have served countless youth and school teams in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. The city effectively gave a 22-acre parcel to the richest team in baseball, then allegedly jacked up the estimated value of the land to gain access to $940 million in federal tax-exempt bonds. Now the Yankees have been granted another $370 million in such bonds -- just weeks after signing Mark Teixeira and two other free agents for a combined $423 million.
The city promises to build a series of smaller replacement parks elsewhere. But some won't be ready for years, one will be on top of a parking garage, and another is in an industrial area far from the neighborhood. And we'll see what residents really get once the economy wreaks full havoc on city budgets.
"In New York City, 70 percent of kids are kicked to the curb at the end of the school day," said Al Bevilacqua, a wrestling coach whose nonprofit organization, Beat the Streets, is trying to reintroduce that sport to public schools using private funding. In the city that pioneered the uniquely American tradition of school sports, the options for many students are very limited. As an undergraduate at Columbia, you lived in New York long enough to get a sense of the experiential gap between that of a large public high school there and an elite private school such as the one you attended in Honolulu. Well, it's grown. Intramurals and quality P.E. classes are scarce, and only so many kids can make varsity basketball. Do you know how many U.S. Olympians the Big Apple sent to Beijing? Just eight. Four fencers, one boxer, one judoka, one riflewoman and one table tennis player originally trained in China.
Australia, which draws from a population only some two and a half times the size of New York City, won 46 medals.
Just about everywhere in America, inner-city kids struggle to find athletic opportunities. That's true even in places like Miami, with its reputation for producing elite football players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School won the mythical national championship in 2007 with a team that sent more than a dozen seniors to D-I programs, yet the school profile shows most students at the school couldn't pass the annual fitness exam. So is Northwestern a jock factory -- or a fitness flunkie?
You'd never know it from watching pro sports, in which African-American presence has grown, but black teenagers play sports less often than they did decades ago. In 1980, no ethnic group had a higher participation rate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. Not anymore. In fact, since then, no group has lost more participants. The obesity crisis is a national problem, but especially in black and Hispanic communities.
Those at the top of the sports pyramid aren't unaware of deficits at the bottom. Perhaps no league does more than the NFL, which has created an endowment that spends $25 million a year on refurbishing community football fields in distressed areas, according to a league spokesman. But such gifts are table scraps in the all-you-can-eat feast that is pro sports, where growth has been fueled by billions in public subsidies and tax advantages.
"They're more or less P.R. campaigns," says Scott Lancaster, who ran the NFL's youth programs for 12 years until 2007.
The NFL recently stopped funding one of its main youth programs. Junior Player Development, created by Lancaster, had helped repopularize football in poor urban areas by introducing the game to hundreds of thousands of kids through trained coaches. Many went on to play in college. Now the well-regarded program has been shut down, likely for good. The NFL cites the economy. Lancaster suspects it had more to do with posturing for negotiations with the players' union, a desire to plead poverty where none exists. "They've put youth in the middle and made it a victim," he says.
In tough times, sports funding for kids is always an easy cut. Even in the 'burbs now, school districts are talking about eliminating teams -- or even entire athletic programs. "You're going to see decisions made in the next two years that we've never seen made," one Connecticut high school athletic director told me. Youth sports in these communities will become further privatized, the realm of parents who can afford to sign their kids up for an endless slate of organized activities, from sport-specific camps to private lessons to travel teams with paid coaches.
It's hard to get your mind around how much the sports activity of children has changed since we were boys. As recently as the mid-1990s, the average age at which kids began to play organized sports was 8. Now, many start slipping on uniforms by 5, and after that you rarely see kids playing games without one. When my daughter was in second grade, there were girls on her rec league soccer team who were in their ninth season of soccer, having been signed up each fall, winter and spring since kindergarten (three seasons a year).
By third grade, in some sports, elite travel teams are being formed that stand apart from the in-town rec leagues that historically have provided opportunities for all kids. Ghettoized, the rec leagues begin to wither, while the travel kids go on to dominate varsity rosters. We're effectively holding high school tryouts now in grade school, sorting the weak from the strong before kids even hit puberty.
You seem like a man who can appreciate that youth sport is the most important institution in all of sports, because that's where the magic begins. It's where we learn to love these games, picking up fitness habits and rooting interests that can last a lifetime. But many kids start falling away from sports around age 11 now. The system has become less accessible to the late bloomer, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other: the clinically obese.
We also risk burning out the "winners" of this premature struggle. It's worth keeping in mind the modern cautionary tale of Elena Delle Donne, the 2008 national high school player of the year in girls basketball. Soon after arriving at UConn with a full ride, she quit the game, later explaining that she had stopped enjoying hoops back in middle school. All those AAU national championships, all those sessions with the personal trainer her parents had hired for her since second grade, led to no return on investment. She chose to walk on instead with a volleyball team at the University of Delaware, closer to home and friends.
Government policies have shaped this landscape. It's tempting to point to Title IX for the spread of scholarship mania among parents, as the amount of athletic aid handed out by NCAA programs has quadrupled since the early 1990s, to $1.5 billion annually. But that law also has been the greatest tool for growing participation since, well, the advent of organized youth sports, by forcing high schools and middle schools to create opportunities for girls.
It's clear that you, Barack, get that.
"I am the father of two young girls who are growing up playing sports and who are the beneficiaries of the doors Title IX opened," you said last year, signaling your intention to strengthen enforcement of the law down to the "pre-kindergarten" level.
Far more problematic is the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which charters the U.S. Olympic Committee and makes requirements of the national governing bodies of individual sports. The law asks that the USOC coordinate amateur sports activity in the country, but it's an unfunded mandate, a real bridge to nowhere (which was a specialty of its author, former Senator Ted Stevens). The USOC has focused its limited resources on the elite of the elite, making little effort to push coaches' education down to the youth level. In Europe, coaches are certified and trained in athlete development; here, the scene is dominated by millions of parent volunteers, well-meaning but winging it.
Attrition drops when coaches are trained in working with kids. It's been proven.
You are no doubt looking for ways to cut, not add to, the federal budget. But look at it this way: The economic consequences of Americans' physical inactivity are huge, costing more than $76 billion a year in direct medical costs alone, according to one academic study. Health care is a major priority of yours, with an emphasis on prevention. There's no better preventative care than finding a sport for life, like those weekly pickup hoop games you'll soon bring to the White House, Cabinet members in tow.
A bunch of your advisers got game, from education secretary nominee Arne Duncan (former Harvard co-captain) to attorney general nominee Eric Holder (former Columbia player) to brother-in-law Craig Robinson (current Oregon State men's coach). So get them in a huddle and come up with a new model for grassroots sports, built from the bottom up with a simple premise: sport as a human right, just like education. Here's how to do it:
• Offer incentives for schools to create more teams, not fewer, which is what is happening in the era of No Child Left Behind, with its strictly academic focus. The least that schools can do is modernize P.E. by connecting teens with local clubs that sponsor lesser-known sports in which they might find success. "You have to connect the national governing bodies with the schools," says Judy Young, a top expert on school-based sports. "Schools just can't teach the full array of 45 sports seen in the Olympics."
• Restore funding for urban parks and rec centers that have been gutted in recent years. Perhaps you can pay for it with a tax on the pro leagues that do business in these cities and whose empires have been built on the public dime.
• Rewrite the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act so that Job 1 for the USOC is tending to the base of the participation pyramid. While you're at it, enlist Larry Probst, its new chairman, who comes from the video game industry, to share what he knows about creating games that engage today's children. "A lot needs to be learned about making sports a contemporary experience for kids," says Lancaster, who while at the NFL experimented with hybrid games that married hand-held video with real play. "We're still asking them to play games the way their dads did a generation ago."
The key is getting progressive, not sentimental, about youth sports. Parents just aren't going to let their kid ride a bike halfway across town anymore to play sandlot ball, unsupervised. The murder of Adam Walsh changed all that.
And now, you can change it again, for the better. Imagine a Chicago Olympics in 2016 -- the first truly "Sport for All" Olympics, as you can pitch it when the host city is selected in October 2009, deploying an ideal celebrated by the IOC. An Olympics in which national governing bodies like U.S. Swimming and U.S. Badminton already are making new efforts to go into the inner city and get kids involved. An Olympics with a legacy of facilities that will benefit regular athletes, not just elites. An Olympics measured by growth in the number of Chicago kids who play sports into their teenage years and beyond. An Olympics that can cap your eight-year run as a president known for fresh ideas, with a statement in your adopted hometown about the possibilities of American sport.
The moment is there for the taking, Mr. Obama. It's one Teddy and Ike would surely seize.
Hope that gets you thinking.
Sincerely,
Tom Farrey
Tom Farrey is the author of "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," an exploration of the culture of modern youth sports. The book, his first, was recently named the 2008 Sports Education Book of the Year by the Institute of International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com
Youth Fitness Professional in Charlotte, NC
Monday, January 5, 2009
Women And Sports: The Building Blocks Of A Positive, Confident Person
She isn't the only female that I have noticed this correlation of sports and confidence with either. My little sister has played numerous of sports while growing up. She started with basketball in middle school, then transitioned over to soccer and tennis in high school. She went to college as a walk-on in tennis and later was awarded a tennis scholarship the following year.
There are many benefits that females receive from participating in athletics. In this blog today we will briefly go over some of them as to encourage those that are reading that may be on the fence to participate or to allow their daughters to participate in athletics.
Benefits of Females In Sport
Not long ago, being serious about sports was considered appropriate only for men and boys". Throughout the 20th century, women's increasing participation in sports has challenged our conception of womanhood. In the post-Title IX era, female participation in sport has skyrocketed. In 1970, one in every twenty-seven girls played high school varsity sports; compared to one in three today. Overall, women currently outnumber men as active sports/fitness participants. Sports have many more positive effects on women than are recognized in our everyday lives. Sports are not only positive physically, but they are also very important for the psychological and social well-being of women in today's world.
Studies have shown that sports participation for girls has significant health implications:
• Sports and other exercise helps to lay down bone mass. Therefore sports can be an influence over the prevention of osteoporosis.
• Girls that participate in as little as two hours a week of exercise can reduce her risk of breast cancer.
• High school girls who participate in sports are less likely to experience unwanted pregnancy and more likely to graduate
• They have a higher self esteem and a higher level of confidence and lower levels of depression
• They have a more positive self image and experience higher states of psychological well-being than those that don't participate in sports
Girls and Women Need Encouragement and Aspirational Role Models
Many people think that girls are not as interested in sport as boys. Women's Sports Foundation research shows that boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 9 -- and their parents -- are equally interested in sports participation. However, by the age of 14, girls drop out of sport at a rate that is six times greater than boys. Girls and women simply do not receive the same positive reinforcement about their sports participation. Boys receive balls, gloves and sports equipment by the age of two. They see their images on television as sportsmen, they see their photos in the sports section and know from their parents and friends that they are expected to play sports.
So what must be done to alleviate this problem?
We must do a better job of supporting our daughters' sports participation. For Christmas and birthdays, we must find books about girls in sports, give gifts of sports equipment and sports lessons. We need to take our sons and daughters to see women playing sports so they grow up appreciating and respecting the sports skills of women and so our daughters see images of themselves excelling in sports -- because she is not going to see those images on television or in the newspapers. It's no accident that girls' sports participation in Olympic sports increases significantly following the Olympic Games, one of the few times that coverage of women's sports is equal to that of men's sports. Aspirational role models drive youth demand for sports. This top to bottom synergy has not yet become commonplace in women's sports because of limited college and professional sports opportunities and television coverage.
However, the trend is clear: the increased participation and success of female athletes equates to a healthier more productive female in society. Not only will she be a force on the playing field/ court, but once she takes the sneakers, cleats, etc. off she will also be able to contribute and be a force in our community. I think with the raise in female coverage and participation "We ain't seen nothin' yet! Bust that ceiling open.-Girl Power"
Reference:
Women's Sports Foundation. http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Top 5 Sports Every Child Should Play
When I work with youth athletes the main stories that usually have me cringe and run for cover deal with the adults (coaches and parents).
The first scenario deals with the over-zealous, poorly educated coach that prides his program or team on how many wins or league championships that he has taken then to thus robbing the kid of a great experience and potentially being one of the factors that cause the kid to drop out early in that particular sport never to play again. Instead, less focus should be placed on the outcomes of the sports (though we do want our athletes to develop that drive to be the best that they possibly can be without developing a quitter's attitude), and more focus should be placed on teaching and instructing the proper way to play the sport and building a firm foundation not only physically but mentally by addressing the motor skills needed at that particular age.
Coaches are so often limited in their knowledge about the necessary building blocks needed for physical success for the age group that they are coaching. In many cases, they are just volunteers, who may have had some experience with sports because they either played or watched the game and have been asked by the head of the organization to coach the team because no one else is proficient enough to take on the task. Less time is spent on building a foundation of motor skill development and addressing the bio-mechanical needs of the group, while more time is spent on drilling the kids with age-inappropriate drills that usually predispose the child to learning the technique wrong (in which most cases an expert has to re-teach the drill correctly) or predispose the child to injury.
The second most common scene is the parents who are way too invested in the success of their kid. They either themselves are constantly training their kid, or the kid is participating year round in sport. Many children today start specializing in one sport way too early -- playing year-round, joining competitive club or travel teams and participating in specialized training programs -- believing they'll put themselves on the fast track to college scholarships or maybe even a pro sports career.
But for too many of these kids, that fast track leads straight to injuries, sometimes serious ones. More concentration should be on allowing the kid to participate in as many different sports as possible so that it exposes them to a variety of motor skills and different presentations/ situations for those motor skills.
A story was once told to me about a parent who had their kid participating in baseball. This kid played pitcher. The parents were so invested in wanting their kid to be the best in town that they had enrolled him into three different leagues simultaneously in three different towns that were in close proximity with one another. The kid would play the first game, hop in the car drive over to the next town and pitch in second game. Once the second game was over, he would participate as the starting pitcher in the final game one town over. When the story was presented to me, the storyteller posed the question should this be considered a form of 'child abuse'? Of course, this story is extreme but my point is that year round training exactly stunts the growth of the athlete in the long run because it can predispose them to detrimental outcomes (1) burn out/ early drop out which could result in being turned off to fitness altogether and (2) overuse injuries i.e. Little Leaguer's Elbow.
Youth sports have become big business in this country. If you don't believe me, then turn on your television, you can find some type of sporting event sponsored by some big corporation promoting the youth event. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer that sports are one of the best tutors to nurture and develop kids into becoming great leaders and possessing great skills sets that can be utilized over a lifetime; however, the emphasis should not be placed on the wins and loses. The emphasis should be on developing a 'global' athlete and preparing them for the next phase in their athletic career.
My athletic career is similar to the above. I loved to play football. I couldn't get enough of it. Even though, some of my best experience during the years was learned playing football, I truly felt as if I was underdeveloped as an athlete skill wise when transitioning from one competitive level to the next. It was seen when I moved from Pop Warner to high school football. I had to learn twice as hard as my teammates because I couldn’t comprehend and demonstrate the necessary skill sets needed to play on the high school level. While playing Pop Warner, the coaches' main focus was outcome driven- going to the next bowl game or trying to have a perfect season. Less time was spent on the fundamentals of football i.e. receiving a hand off properly from the line of scrimmage or switching the ball from one hand to the other properly. I just couldn't do it. So, I had to practice and teach myself the fundamentals during the off-season or after practice so that I could compete and keep up with my teammates. Likewise, the same happened when I transitioned from high school to college (which I was constantly reminded daily by my college defensive back coach). There were areas that my college coaches were amazed (and usually frustrated with me) because I couldn't perform. As you know, on this stage the stakes are the highest and usually patience for error is at a all time low. The end result cost me playing time and even scholarship money. I always felt like the kid that had to "catch up" with learning the skills needed to excel not only in the sport but excel at the position that I was playing. This is the reason why when I train youth today, the majority of my coaching style is based upon teaching the fundamentals needed to not only excel with performance at the current level, but be a ‘global’ athlete with a strong foundation of motor skills.
So what sports should a young athlete start off participating in?
Here are the top 5 sports that a young athlete should play early on:
5. Martial arts-not for the brutal or self defense component, but to stimulate their mind and teach self discipline (which is important in sport and life), balance, spatial awareness, coordination development, as well as overall fitness.
Here is a mock annual calendar for the youth athlete:
Summer-Dance/gymnastics
Fall-Soccer
Winter-Indoor Swimming
Spring-Martial Arts/ Tennis
Parents should seek out a programs, performance coaches/trainers, and/or coaches that expose their child to a wide variety of components in motor skill development. They should enroll their children in seasonal sports instead of year-round programs geared towards one sport. If parents keep to a schedule as the above then they will alleviate a lot of the risk discussed in this article (1) their athlete will stay stimulated and engaged because of the constant change in activity. (2) injury due to overuse injuries is minimized. (3) the child is able to develop the motor skills needed to become a 'global' athlete which spells FUTURE SUCCESS.
Until next time, keep playing and keep active.
Reference: Brian Grasso http://www.DevelopingAthletics.com
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Recruiting Process: How to Protect and Help Your Athlete
This article was taken from FamilyResource.com and was written by Brent Elsasser and Gerald Masterson, Ph.D.
Highly visible sought-after recruits receive heavy attention from college coaches, the media, boosters, and others that can make the recruiting process very straining on the recruit, their family, and even the high school coach. Recruiting blunders are a common occurrence as the need to win mentality in Division I college athletics is prevalent. As the high school coach of a recruit, there are steps that can be taken to help alleviate some of the pressures placed on your athlete.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has rules and you as a high school coach should be aware of these rules. First, the NCAA defines a recruited prospective student-athlete as a student who has started classes for the ninth grade or has received contact by a coach offering any financial assistance or other benefits before the ninth grade. The student officially becomes a recruited prospective student-athlete when contacted by a college coaching staff on more than one occasion for the purpose of recruitment.
Contacts
The NCAA limits contact during the year and specifies recruiting and non-recruiting periods. There are four periods specified by the NCAA: the contact, evaluation, quiet, and dead periods. The amount of face-to-face encounters and dialogue the coach is allowed with a recruit differs with each period. The contact period is the only time when coaches may visit the recruit's home and talk with the athlete and his or her parents. In the evaluation period, coaches can visit the recruit's school to observe the athlete at practice or a game and converse with high school coaches and guidance counselors. However, the coach cannot have dialogue with the recruit. The only in-person contact allowed during the quiet period is on the college campus during a visit. No face-to-face contact is allowed during the dead period. Telephone calls are permitted during all periods, with limitations on how often the coach may call. To view the dates for each recruiting period, visit the NCAA's website.
College Visits
A recruit can visit a college campus, either officially or unofficially, during the recruiting process. An official visit is paid for by the interested school and consists of transportation to and from the college, room and meals during the visit, and reasonable entertainment expenses such as a home athletics contest for the recruit and his or her parents. Before an official visit can take place, the recruit must provide a copy of their high school transcripts and ACT or SAT scores. The recruit is limited to five official visits, which can take place during the contact, evaluation, or quiet periods. An unofficial visit is paid for by the recruit and their family, except for complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest the school may provide. The recruit can talk to the coaches on any unofficial visit except during the dead period. A recruit can take as many unofficial visits as desired.
Signing Day
Verbal Commitment
Until a recruit signs a NLI, which binds them to an institution, a prospect can only verbally commit to a school until they are able to sign. When a prospect verbally commits to a school, it is no more than a promise to the coaches he or she will sign. The athlete can break a verbal commitment, and many times coaches will continue to recruit committed prospects of other schools. Negative recruiting (supposedly against the rules), a practice in which coaches from a school will talk badly about another school in an attempt to gain a recruit's commitment, is common in the recruiting world. An important note here is that an athlete does not have to sign a NLI to attend a college.
NCAA Clearinghouse
For a high school athlete to be eligible to play at the NCAA level, the individual must register and be certified by the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse. The student's academic background, including grade-point averages for core-curriculum courses and scores from an ACT or SAT, are evaluated to determine eligibility. It is a good idea for prospective college athletes to register with the Clearinghouse after their junior year, but before their senior year, so any academic deficiencies can be addressed during the senior year. A new requirement is that prospective Division I and II athletes must send their ACT or SAT scores directly to the Clearinghouse from the testing agencies.
Many college basketball and football programs generate 20 to 30 million dollars annually in revenue (Fulks, 2000, as cited in Letawsky, 2003). Between 1985 and 2005, the average budget for NCAA Division I-A football teams more than tripled and men's basketball budgets more then quadrupled (Wolverton & Lipka, 2007). Success on the field can bring recognition, visibility and increased revenue to the school and the head coach.
Only 5.7% of high school football players and 3% of basketball players will compete at the college level, and less than 0.1% advance to the professional ranks (NCAA). The pool from which coaches select is very small, leading to intense battles for players. Winning on the field or court starts with winning on the recruiting trail. This means the recruiting battle for the highly sought-after blue chip prospects can be extremely competitive and dirty.
Fans and boosters also follow the process intensely, as the perception is attracting the best athletes to a school equates to winning. The media now covers recruiting as part of their regular reporting of college sports, and websites dedicated to recruiting have popped up all over the Internet, with fans paying to read which recruits their favorite school is pursuing. Recruiting websites receive millions of visitors monthly and rank players with a star system (1-5, with five being the highest). These websites try to stay in constant contact with recruits and tend to call prospects without parental permission. Since college coaches are not allowed to comment on a prospective student-athlete until he or she signs a NLI, these websites have numerous journalists collecting information and conducting interviews that are then relayed to their subscribers. Many journalists can be unprofessional and biased, and have been known to misconstrue quotes made by recruits. As a coach you need to encourage your athlete to limit interviews with these websites and have parents become involved by setting boundaries. One easy solution to avoiding these journalists is to not give out cell phone numbers. If you have to give them a number, only give out a home phone number where parents can help protect the recruit.
Another reason not to give out cell phone information is the escalation in frequency of text messaging. Since the NCAA limits the number of phone calls coaches can make to recruits, coaches had been sending excessive amounts of text messages to recruits. However, the NCAA recently addressed this problem by eliminating coach-to-recruit text messaging effective August 1, 2007.
The early signing period currently in place in basketball is beneficial for recruits who know their college destination and want to end the recruiting process. However you should not push your athlete into making a decision if they are not ready or if they are trying to avoid the pressure. When an early signing period is not available and your athlete has made a verbal commitment, hold them to that decision. Let the athlete know that once they've given a school their word, it should be binding. This also means that when other colleges call to inquire about the recruit, they must be told to move on and to stop recruiting the individual.
As a coach, you must stay neutral and guide your athlete along through the recruiting cycle. Offer suggestions and support, but do not pressure the player to choose a certain school. Set limits for college coaches in contacting your player, and do not let the athlete be persuaded by negativity. Help the athlete make a list of pros and cons regarding each school to help them make the decision. The decision may become easier when everything is laid out in front of them.
The NCAA has a detailed compilation of rules and regulations regarding recruiting practices. It offers information to recruits to help them know their rights and for coaches to clarify boundaries and help them follow the rules. To become better acquainted with the NCAA's policies, visit their website at www.ncaa.org and click on "Legislation and Governance" then "Eligibility and Recruiting."
References
* Wolverton, B., & Lipka, S. (2007). Knight commission to fight high salaries and recruiting pressures. Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 No. 22, p. 28.
* Judson, K.M., James, J.D., & Aurand, T.W. (2004). Marketing the university to student-athletes: understanding university selection criteria. Journal of Marketing for Higher Educations, Vol. 14 Issue 1, pp. 23-40.
* Letawsky, N.R., Schneider, R.G., Pederson, P.M., & Palmer, C.J. (2003). Factors influencing the college selection process of student-athletes: are their factors similar to non-athletes? College Student Journal, Vol. 37 Issue 4, pp. 604-610.
* Lipka, S. (2006). Hot-button recruiting. Chronicle of Higher Educations, Vol. 53 Issue 7, p. 37.
* Carey, J. (2007, January 29). Legal woes big challenge in recruiting. USA Today, Sports p. 3.
* Carey, J. (2007, January 23). Commission told of big changes in recruiting. USA Today, Sports p. 5c.
* Sperber, M. (2004). Sex and booze: two steps to winning football. Chronicle of Higher Educations, Vol. 50 Issue 27, p. 24.
* Jacobson, J. (2004). Rolling up the red carpet for recruits. Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 51 Issue 6, pp. 37-39.
* National Collegiate Athletic Association, www.ncaa.org.
* Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, www.knightcommission.org.
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Highly visible sought-after recruits receive heavy attention from college coaches, the media, boosters, and others that can make the recruiting process very straining on the recruit, their family, and even the high school coach. Recruiting blunders are a common occurrence as the need to win mentality in Division I college athletics is prevalent. As the high school coach of a recruit, there are steps that can be taken to help alleviate some of the pressures placed on your athlete.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has rules and you as a high school coach should be aware of these rules. First, the NCAA defines a recruited prospective student-athlete as a student who has started classes for the ninth grade or has received contact by a coach offering any financial assistance or other benefits before the ninth grade. The student officially becomes a recruited prospective student-athlete when contacted by a college coaching staff on more than one occasion for the purpose of recruitment.
Contacts
The NCAA limits contact during the year and specifies recruiting and non-recruiting periods. There are four periods specified by the NCAA: the contact, evaluation, quiet, and dead periods. The amount of face-to-face encounters and dialogue the coach is allowed with a recruit differs with each period. The contact period is the only time when coaches may visit the recruit's home and talk with the athlete and his or her parents. In the evaluation period, coaches can visit the recruit's school to observe the athlete at practice or a game and converse with high school coaches and guidance counselors. However, the coach cannot have dialogue with the recruit. The only in-person contact allowed during the quiet period is on the college campus during a visit. No face-to-face contact is allowed during the dead period. Telephone calls are permitted during all periods, with limitations on how often the coach may call. To view the dates for each recruiting period, visit the NCAA's website.
College Visits
A recruit can visit a college campus, either officially or unofficially, during the recruiting process. An official visit is paid for by the interested school and consists of transportation to and from the college, room and meals during the visit, and reasonable entertainment expenses such as a home athletics contest for the recruit and his or her parents. Before an official visit can take place, the recruit must provide a copy of their high school transcripts and ACT or SAT scores. The recruit is limited to five official visits, which can take place during the contact, evaluation, or quiet periods. An unofficial visit is paid for by the recruit and their family, except for complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest the school may provide. The recruit can talk to the coaches on any unofficial visit except during the dead period. A recruit can take as many unofficial visits as desired.
Signing Day
Verbal Commitment
Until a recruit signs a NLI, which binds them to an institution, a prospect can only verbally commit to a school until they are able to sign. When a prospect verbally commits to a school, it is no more than a promise to the coaches he or she will sign. The athlete can break a verbal commitment, and many times coaches will continue to recruit committed prospects of other schools. Negative recruiting (supposedly against the rules), a practice in which coaches from a school will talk badly about another school in an attempt to gain a recruit's commitment, is common in the recruiting world. An important note here is that an athlete does not have to sign a NLI to attend a college.
NCAA Clearinghouse
For a high school athlete to be eligible to play at the NCAA level, the individual must register and be certified by the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse. The student's academic background, including grade-point averages for core-curriculum courses and scores from an ACT or SAT, are evaluated to determine eligibility. It is a good idea for prospective college athletes to register with the Clearinghouse after their junior year, but before their senior year, so any academic deficiencies can be addressed during the senior year. A new requirement is that prospective Division I and II athletes must send their ACT or SAT scores directly to the Clearinghouse from the testing agencies.
Many college basketball and football programs generate 20 to 30 million dollars annually in revenue (Fulks, 2000, as cited in Letawsky, 2003). Between 1985 and 2005, the average budget for NCAA Division I-A football teams more than tripled and men's basketball budgets more then quadrupled (Wolverton & Lipka, 2007). Success on the field can bring recognition, visibility and increased revenue to the school and the head coach.
Only 5.7% of high school football players and 3% of basketball players will compete at the college level, and less than 0.1% advance to the professional ranks (NCAA). The pool from which coaches select is very small, leading to intense battles for players. Winning on the field or court starts with winning on the recruiting trail. This means the recruiting battle for the highly sought-after blue chip prospects can be extremely competitive and dirty.
Fans and boosters also follow the process intensely, as the perception is attracting the best athletes to a school equates to winning. The media now covers recruiting as part of their regular reporting of college sports, and websites dedicated to recruiting have popped up all over the Internet, with fans paying to read which recruits their favorite school is pursuing. Recruiting websites receive millions of visitors monthly and rank players with a star system (1-5, with five being the highest). These websites try to stay in constant contact with recruits and tend to call prospects without parental permission. Since college coaches are not allowed to comment on a prospective student-athlete until he or she signs a NLI, these websites have numerous journalists collecting information and conducting interviews that are then relayed to their subscribers. Many journalists can be unprofessional and biased, and have been known to misconstrue quotes made by recruits. As a coach you need to encourage your athlete to limit interviews with these websites and have parents become involved by setting boundaries. One easy solution to avoiding these journalists is to not give out cell phone numbers. If you have to give them a number, only give out a home phone number where parents can help protect the recruit.
Another reason not to give out cell phone information is the escalation in frequency of text messaging. Since the NCAA limits the number of phone calls coaches can make to recruits, coaches had been sending excessive amounts of text messages to recruits. However, the NCAA recently addressed this problem by eliminating coach-to-recruit text messaging effective August 1, 2007.
The early signing period currently in place in basketball is beneficial for recruits who know their college destination and want to end the recruiting process. However you should not push your athlete into making a decision if they are not ready or if they are trying to avoid the pressure. When an early signing period is not available and your athlete has made a verbal commitment, hold them to that decision. Let the athlete know that once they've given a school their word, it should be binding. This also means that when other colleges call to inquire about the recruit, they must be told to move on and to stop recruiting the individual.
As a coach, you must stay neutral and guide your athlete along through the recruiting cycle. Offer suggestions and support, but do not pressure the player to choose a certain school. Set limits for college coaches in contacting your player, and do not let the athlete be persuaded by negativity. Help the athlete make a list of pros and cons regarding each school to help them make the decision. The decision may become easier when everything is laid out in front of them.
The NCAA has a detailed compilation of rules and regulations regarding recruiting practices. It offers information to recruits to help them know their rights and for coaches to clarify boundaries and help them follow the rules. To become better acquainted with the NCAA's policies, visit their website at www.ncaa.org and click on "Legislation and Governance" then "Eligibility and Recruiting."
References
* Wolverton, B., & Lipka, S. (2007). Knight commission to fight high salaries and recruiting pressures. Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 No. 22, p. 28.
* Judson, K.M., James, J.D., & Aurand, T.W. (2004). Marketing the university to student-athletes: understanding university selection criteria. Journal of Marketing for Higher Educations, Vol. 14 Issue 1, pp. 23-40.
* Letawsky, N.R., Schneider, R.G., Pederson, P.M., & Palmer, C.J. (2003). Factors influencing the college selection process of student-athletes: are their factors similar to non-athletes? College Student Journal, Vol. 37 Issue 4, pp. 604-610.
* Lipka, S. (2006). Hot-button recruiting. Chronicle of Higher Educations, Vol. 53 Issue 7, p. 37.
* Carey, J. (2007, January 29). Legal woes big challenge in recruiting. USA Today, Sports p. 3.
* Carey, J. (2007, January 23). Commission told of big changes in recruiting. USA Today, Sports p. 5c.
* Sperber, M. (2004). Sex and booze: two steps to winning football. Chronicle of Higher Educations, Vol. 50 Issue 27, p. 24.
* Jacobson, J. (2004). Rolling up the red carpet for recruits. Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 51 Issue 6, pp. 37-39.
* National Collegiate Athletic Association, www.ncaa.org.
* Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, www.knightcommission.org.
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sportsmanship: Teaching Kids How to Lose Gracefully and Healthy Part II
"No fair!"
"You cheated!"
"It wasn't my fault we lost!"
Have you ever played on a team with somebody who hated to lose? Or maybe you have a tough time if you lose anything — even a game of ping pong. Such omnipresent multimedia messages combined with a "winning is everything" philosophy embraced by increasing numbers of parents and coaches - makes it harder than ever for adults to teach kids that it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game that's important. Some kids find it extra-hard to lose, but everyone needs to learn how to do it. Learning to lose without losing your cool is a skill, like learning to ride a bike. You might not be able to do it at first, but over time it will get easier. And when you can handle losing, people will call you a good sport.
Why Learn to Lose Gracefully?
Everyone wants to win. But any time two teams or kids are facing each other in a game or contest, someone will lose (unless it's a tie). Kids lose in small ways, like in a game of checkers, but they also might face losing in bigger ways, like when their team loses a championship game. Losing is disappointing, so it's not surprising that kids don't like it. Adults don't like it either.
I can remember just four years ago how competitive and caught up in my flag football games I would get. I got so caught up that many of the female team members (it was a coed team) stated that they didn't want to play on the same team as I ever again or they didn't want to play anymore altogether because of my conduct when we would lose. I never was able to (until recently) grasp and learn to lose without losing my cool. Everyone can learn to control how they react to a loss. In other words, what should you do when you lose?
In addition, it's not surprising that the rise in bad sportsmanship -- and outrageous behavior in professional sports has resulted in a parallel increase of poor sportsmanship (e.g., trash-talking, violence) in youth sports. Regardless of whether we caution our kids to NOT idolize professional athletes who behave badly, kids will continue to be influenced by the behavior of the pros.
How can you instill in your child the importance of good sportsmanship and offset the "win at all costs" philosophy? Both parents and coaches can start by focusing on these issues:
Tips for Parents
# Be Your Child's Role Model. Offer praise and encouraging words for all athletes, including your child's opponents. Never openly berate, tease, or demean any child athlete, coach, or referee while attending a sporting event. When attending athletic events or watching them on TV with your child, refrain from criticizing or condemning athletes' performances.
# Do You Have A Hidden Agenda? Be honest with yourself about why you want your child to play organized sports. What do you want them to gain from the experience? Are your intentions based on providing them with pleasurable, social activities that develop a better sense of self-worth, skills, and sportsmanship? Or do you harbor dreams of them turning their topspin forehand into a collegiate scholarship, or riches and fame? A child's participation in sports and the importance attached to it should not be driven by a parent's desire to use their child's sports accomplishments for ulterior purposes.
# You Set the Rules. It's ultimately your responsibility to teach your children good sportsmanship, both as a participant and as a spectator. If you observe your child engaged in poor sportsmanship, regardless of whether their coach corrects them or not, you must discuss your child's misbehavior and insensitivity with them after the game. If a coach is ignoring, allowing, or encouraging poor sportsmanship, you need to make your objections known to the coach in a private discussion.
# Watching and Learning. Whether you're watching the Olympics on TV or attending a high-school sporting event, you can always find "teachable moments" regarding sportsmanship. Ask your child their opinions of: players who showboat and taunt their opponents; the costs to the team of a technical foul, or being ejected from a game for unsportsman-like conduct; and the appropriate behavior of opposing players toward one another after a game. During these "teachable moments" ask them open-ended questions and listen more than you talk or lecture.
Tips for Coaches
Coaches nurture good sportsmanship. They should embody parents' values regarding good sportsmanship. A coach must model good sportsmanship at every level and make it a core goal of his work with kids.
I recommend that every youth sports coach engage their players in a detailed discussion of good sportsmanship as soon as they forms their team. A written contract, perhaps titled The Good Sportsmanship Code, should be given to every child and parent to sign. The contract should spell out what the coach expects from each player in terms of good sportsmanship, including the following areas:
* Cheating
* Losing one's temper
* Negative criticism of teammates, coaches, referees, and opposing players
* Blaming teammates for mistakes or a poor team performance
* "Trash talk" and taunting opponents
* Showboating
* Arguing referees' calls and judgments
* The need to congratulate one's opponents after a game
Coaching children is an honor and a privilege that carries with it a moral responsibility to contribute to the healthy character development of young players. Coaches who equate "trying your best" as the definition of success -- and who value, expect, and demand good sportsmanship from their players -- help shape the moral, ethical, and spiritual character of children.
Communicate often with your child's coach to make sure they takes this responsibility seriously.
Here are some ways that your child can show others what good sportsmanship is all about:
1. Be polite to everyone you're playing with and against. No trash talk — which means saying mean things while you're in the middle of a game.
2. Don't show off. Just play your best. If you're good, people will notice.
3. Tell your opponents "good game!" whether you've won or you've lost.
4. Learn the rules of the game. Show up for practices and games on time — even if you're the star of the team.
5. Listen to your coaches and follow their directions about playing.
6. Don't argue with an official if you don't agree with his or her call. If you don't understand a certain call, wait until after the game to ask your coach or the official to explain it to you.
7. Don't make up excuses or blame a teammate when you lose. Try to learn from what happened.
8. Be willing to sit out so other team members can get in the game — even if you think you're a better player.
9. Play fair and don't cheat.
10. Cheer for your teammates even if the score is 1,000 to 1! You could inspire a big comeback!
Reference: FamilyEducation.com
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Motivating Female Athletes
Is there a possibly that there should be a different approach when coaching females? Or should females athletes be coached the same as male athletes? I asked two females for their perspective on the matter. One was an current athlete and another was a former athlete.
My findings showed that female athletes compete for different reasons than boys and require different kinds of stimuli to achieve. WITH THE POPULARITY of women's basketball at an all-time high, hundreds of young female athletes are beginning to dream of playing professional basketball. I can remember when my little sister started put pick up the sport and how excited she was with wanting to become the best possible athlete she could be. Many times females are being coached by individuals who do not understand the many factors involved in motivating and coaching female athletes, and this can lead to much frustration and misunderstanding.
camaraderie among the players and between coaches and athletes,
a positive self-perception,
and the realization that female athletes compete for different reasons than males and require different kinds of stimuli to achieve.
The girls' coach must also understand that males look for an action oriented environment for competition, while females prefer a more meditative ambiance which explains why the two coaches approaches were totally different and one gets through to the female athletes and another is received with resistance. They want to be addressed in a friendly and respectful manner and are turned off by yelling, screaming, and the throwing of objects.
Overbearing displays of emotion create a hostile environment that could cause sensitive athletes to drop out.
Coaches who believe in yelling should do it only sparingly and should direct it at the group rather than the individual.
It's possible that winning for winning's sake is less important for the average female and that she is more goal-oriented than the average male. Likewise, girls are also different from boys in their need for nurturing a family-like camaraderie with teammates and coaches which explains the head coach talking about how the girls get excited about buying each other gifts for special occasions. It is important for them to feel comfortable with their teammates and coaches, and they have to be motivated to achieve.
Where male teams predicate enjoyment largely on playing time and winning, the most enjoyable kind of team for a female coach is a group of girls who get along well both on and off the court. The teams who have the best camaraderie are almost always the ones who are the most successful in terms of team unity and seasonal improvement.
Team Chemistry
The role of team chemistry has different shadings in female and male sports. Whereas it is an essential prerequisite for optimal performance in female sports, it is more a by-product of optimal performance among male teams.
Many female athletes tend to have lower levels of confidence than men. Their confidence depends on three things:
1. nature of the task
2. need for clear and positive feedback
3. social acceptance.
To enhance a girl's sell-perception, coaches must make certain she is comfortable with the nature of her task. The sport she is competing in must be gender-role appropriate. She must feel comfortable in it, just as a boy would be comfortable playing football, but feel at ease playing on team.
Feedback
Females also need clear and positive feedback. Ambiguous, negative criticism will likely impair their self-perception. They are much more likely than boys to be disturbed by negative comments. They respond very well to positive feedback as well as praise and encouragement. John Wooden believes that coaches should seek out private opportunities to praise athletes who need it. Too many coaches are too willing to criticize and too reluctant to dole out much-needed compliments (quick to criticize and slow to commend). Many coaches contend that such verbal reinforcement is the key to success in coaching women.
Personal Trainer and Sports Psychology Consultant in Charlotte, NC
Friday, December 12, 2008
Sudden Death: Young Athletes Dying In Sports part II
WINSTON-SALEM – The state medical examiner has determined that the high school basketball player who died after collapsing during his team's first game died from an uncommon heart condition.
"It is the result of viruses that are directed at the heart," Dr. Vinay Thohan, Wake Forest University associate professor of cardiology, said. "In the process of the body healing, or killing off the viruses, it starts to attack the heart also, and when it attacks the heart, it makes the heart weak."
Thohan, who did not treat Prince, said the condition is seen in young athletes but is not common. About 5 to 9 percent of young athletes who die suddenly suffer from myocarditis, he said.
And it can develop at any time."The challenge is this can occur after a routine physical," Thohan said. "So an individual may have had a perfectly normal, routine physical, develop myocarditis two months into their season and have an unusual course."
And since it can develop even after a physical, he said people should know the symptoms.
"If two weeks ago you were able to run five miles without getting short of breath and now you can't run a mile without feeling short of breath or having palpatations or feeling like you're going to pass out, that is a clear change in the way you are feeling," he said. "And that should be evaluated by a physician."
Students and staff at Parkland High School are mourning the loss of the freshman starting point guard, who collapsed after a basketball game Dec. 2. He passed away at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Parkland Principal Tim Lee said Monday that Prince was cleared to play both basketball and football for the school.
So what causes myocarditis and what are the symptoms?
Myocarditis is an uncommon disorder. In children it is usually caused by viral infections that reach the heart, such as the influenza (flu) virus, Coxsackie virus, and adenovirus. However, it may also occur during or after other viral or bacterial infections such as polio, rubella, Lyme disease, and others.
When you have an infection, your body's immune system produces special cells that release certain chemicals to fight off disease. If the infection affects your heart, the disease-fighting cells enter the heart. However, the chemicals they produce can damage the heart muscle, causing it to become thick and swollen. This leads to symptoms of heart failure. In addition, the virus or bacteria damage the heart muscle.Symptoms may be mild at first and difficult to detect.
Possible symptoms include palpitations (heart racing or "skipping" heart beats), low energy levels, and low exercise tolerance. Symptoms of congestive heart failure also include rapid breathing, clammy sweating, poor appetite, poor weight gain in young children, and swelling around the eyes, hand, and feet (more common in older children and young adults).
Symptoms in children over age 2 may also include:
* Belly area pain and nausea
* Chest pain
* Cough
* Fatigue
* Swelling (edema) in the legs, feet, and face
How can one be treated with myocarditis?
There is no cure for myocarditis, although the heart muscle inflammation usually goes away on its own in time.
The goal of treatment is to support heart function and treat the underlying cause of the myocarditis. Most children with this condition are admitted to a hospital. Activity can strain the heart and therefore is often limited.
Treatment may include:
* Antibiotics to fight infection
* Anti-inflammatory medicines called steroids to control inflammation
* Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a medicine made of the substances that your body produces to fight infection, to control the inflammatory process
* Medicines called diuretics to remove excess water from the body
* Medicines to treat heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Taken from news14.com and www.drugs.com/enc/myocarditis-pediatric and www.med.umich.edu/mott/chc/patient_acq_myo.html
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
How to Deal with Pre-Game Anxiety: 'The Jitters' part I
That depiction of his pre-game routine was accurate with how athletes' mental preparation is key to how well or poorly they perform during the actual game. I had a similar situation when I was a red-shirted sophomore in college playing football. I got so nervous before the game that my performance was horrible. I was on the traveling team, but I wasn't expecting to start for another three weeks. However, the first string safety had gotten hurt during the week and they made an adjustment to start me hours before the kick off at pre-game meetings. I was extremely nervous. I remember going back to the dorm to get the rest of my stuff after pregame meal and feeling like my whole world was turning upside down. I couldn't think straight for nothing. From the time that I went to my dorm until the time I was on the field everything seemed to be going fast. I can remember later thinking how the time felt like it did when I was in a car wreck, how things seemed to speed up after the impact. All the information that I had practiced was gone. It was like I had never played or started football ever in my life. I had been a starter in every facet of my career up until that point (little league to high school). Needless to say, my actual performance was horrific. It was so horrible that my coach pulled me and they put the third string safety in to play the entire game.
No matter how good you are, sometimes you’re going to choke.
So what was the problem?
What I was going through was what sports psychologist and mental coaches refer to as pre-competition anxiety. Commonly known as the jitters or butterflies, accept in my case, and in Willie's case, we were experiencing it at the highest level possible to the point that our performance suffered dramatically.
Pre-competitive anxiety is a state of arousal that is unpleasant or negative and occurs during the 24 hour span prior to competition. The worry that is associated with PCA is not just experienced with our heads, but with our entire body. Our bodies provide us with numerous cues such as muscle tension, butterflies, desire to urinate and cotton mouth that suggests that we are
out of control. Our thoughts become self-focused, self defeating and negative. Most of us will have a combination of these responses during the pre-competitive period. However, the degree to which they influence our performance is largely dependent upon the interaction of our own uniqueness and the competitive situation.
WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF PCA?
Research has demonstrated that at least five factors underlie PCA:
1. physical complaints—digestive disturbances, shaking and yawning;
2. fear of failure—losing, choking, living up to expectations, and making mistakes;
3. feelings of inadequacy—unprepared, poor conditioning, low skill/ability,and feelings that something is wrong;
4. loss of control—being jinxed, bad luck, poor officiating, and inclement weather; and
5. guilt—concerns about hurting an opponent, playing dirty, and cheating. Whether or not you experience PCA is dependent upon several factors, such as skill level, experience, and your general level of arousal in daily activities.
HOW CAN PCA AFFECT PERFORMANCE?
There are two primary ways that PCA can affect your performance.
First, a high state of physical arousal may be counterproductive to your particular sport activity. For sports requiring endurance, power, or both, PCA can be very draining on an athlete's energy level. In sports where calmness is critical (e.g., golf, archery, free-throw shooting), PCA can significantly interfere with your ability to stay calm. A high state of physical arousal can also interfere with sports requiring a focused channeling of power. The increased tension usually interferes with this channeling. Examples of such sports include hitting in baseball, karate, and field events such as javelin, discus, and shot put.
Second, research has demonstrated that anxiety can significantly interfere with your ability to think clearly. When you are anxious, your thoughts generally turn inward to focus on yourself, which may result in an inappropriate focusing of attention. Actions that were once automatic require constant thought, which further interferes with your ability to adjust to make quick, on-the-spot decisions. In addition, these thoughts may be negative and result in preoccupation with what you can't do, rather than what you can do.
DOES NERVOUSNESS ALWAYS LEAD TO BAD PERFORMANCES?
Definitely not. Whenever you anticipate an event that is important to you, it is normal to feel some nervousness. In fact, it is a sign of readiness. This type of readiness is known as positive arousal and is usually referring to many of the physical cues you experience. Elite athletes channel this energy to work for them rather than against them. Answers to the following
questions may help you distinguish between positive arousal and negative anxiety:
1. How much does my sport require me lobe 'pumped' as I enter the competition? Some sports may require a higher state of arousal (e.g., weight lifting) than others (e.g., golf).
2. Do I often have thoughts of self-doubt about my ability?
3. Do I often have thoughts about factors that are beyond my control? Answering "Yes" to the last two questions are indication that you are moving from positive arousal to negative anxiety. If you find yourself nervous but still confident in your ability, that is a sign of readiness. However, worrying about your ability to perform at levels that you normally are able to perform with ease, or worrying about factors over which you have no control may interfere with your ability to enter a competition mentally ready.
Tomorrow we will go over strategies that both players and coaches can utilize to help deal with overcoming pre-competition anxiety.
Until then keep moving.
Personal Trainer and Sports Psychologist Consultant in Charlotte NC
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