Developing Athletes at Practice

By: Adam Sarancik

Author of: Coaching Champions for Life

"The best athletes have the most potential to be the best players."

Prior to, and possibly including 8th grade, I think all players benefit from playing multiple sports. During and after 8th grade, playing multiple sports in school may or may not be the best option for those athletes who desire to be elite in a given sport. (See, Sport Specialization - A More Holistic and Realistic Perspective - Coachingchampionsforlife.com/Hot Stove Page/April 2022) One of the factors which would definitely assist a player becoming elite in a sport is requiring all coaches in those sports to prioritize athletic development in their practice plans.

I think there are several reasons why some coaches do not do this. Many coaches prioritize winning games and championships and they are currently able to do so without training athleticism. Some coaches do not know why the best athletes have the most potential to be the best players. Those coaches may also lack the ability to look at their players and see the athletes, i.e., to mentally remove the implements out of the player's hand and just recognize the flaws in the movement of the athlete's body. They may not realize that the solution to flaws in the fundamentals of their players may not be in doing more sport skill drills, but may need to be first addressed as an athleticism deficiency in the player's body, i.e., mobility, flexibility, stability, strength, power, speed or agility.

Many youth coaches do not have the education and training to teach the specifics of body movement even if they wanted to do so. Of those who do, most probably do not know how to program such training into their practice plans in a logical, bio-kinetic, and ultimately, a sport-specific manner. Leagues should give them this education and training and should require that they use it on every team and, in every year, in a progressive, league-directed or supervised manner.

Many high school athletes erroneously rely upon the playing of multiple sports year around to exclusively develop their athleticism. Most of the time, these players would improve much more by, for 4-5 months, doing non-traditional sports such as martial arts 2 days per week and training 3 days per week with a nationally certified strength and conditioning coach who is a movement specialist with a proven track record of training players in the athlete's sport.

It is essential that coaches actually teach athleticism every day with the same individual attention to detail, monitoring, and accountability as they do with sport skills. Coaches must train preparation, anticipation, and reaction, as well as, action. When doing these things, coaches and trainers must frequently integrate the use of the ball used in the player's sport into the exercise.

Here are the aspects of athleticism that can and should be trained as a part of every practice:

Body mobility, flexibility, and stability including ab/core development;
Body movement, coordination, and synchronization in all planes of motion with an early and continuous emphasis on running form, agility, and explosiveness. Specifically, from the first year in youth sports, players should be taught to get progressively better at crawling, walking, marching, skipping, running, bounding, sprinting, backpedaling, jumping, hopping, and shuffling.
Strength training to learn how to push, pull, squat, hinge, and carry beginning with body weight exercises and progressing to using bands, kettle bells, med balls, and weighted implements of all types.
Speed, agility, balance, and Plyometrics using speed ladders, discs, cones, hurdles, boxes, jump rope, and Bosu Balls.
The improvement should be individually assessed and periodically objectively verified, e.g., through technology.
Breathing before, during, and after exercise and competition.
Visual acuity and mental focus and toughness

When leagues and coaches prioritize training athletes in every practice in every sport, the quality of play will increase dramatically, as will their goal of winning games and championships.

Adam Sarancik is the author of three Amazon Top 100 Best Selling books: