Physical Education and Young Athletes

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A 90-minute 'Q & A' with some of the biggest names in the sport
training world.

Alwyn Cosgrove

Gray Cook

Juan Carlos Santana

Chuck Wolf

Eric Cressey

Mike Robertson

Dr. Greg Rose

If you don't recognize those names, let me just say that they are
the 'whose who' of sports performance training.

Combined, you're looking at over 100 years of collective
experience.

Multiple Olympic, Professional and Collegiate champions have
been trained by these men.

Endorsed by some of the largest and most well-known sport
organizations in the world:

:: Reebok

:: Nike

:: Titlest

You probably get my point, .

That group of experts sitting in front of a packed house at
the Perform Better conference this past weekend are the
Hollywood equivalents of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Jennifer
Aniston.

And the audience members had an opportunity to ask them ANYTHING
they wanted related to training athletes.

Speed Training.

Strength Training.

Power Training.

Agility Training.

After all, who wouldn't want to ask these industry icons
questions related to working with elite level athletes?

For 90-minutes, the audience asked away.

And what happened during those 90-minutes shocked the living
daylights out of me.

I've been telling you for the better part of 4 years now ,
that 'YOUTH TRAINING' is the wave of the future in this industry.

That it is the fastest growing niche and the one demographic
that every Strength Coach, Personal Trainer and Sports Coach
MUST become well versed in if they want to become successful.

But even I didn't realize how much truth there was in that fact.

For 90-minutes, the panel of experts were asked questions.

And 80% of those questions were related to youth fitness and
sports training.

And my feedback was requested on nearly all of them.

I never imagined that with that star-studded cast of legends on
stage, it would be me and my work in youth sport development
and fitness that would garner the bulk of the attention.

Make no mistake, Dr. Greg Rose, Juan Carlos Santana and Gray
Cook contributed some fantastic answers related to the whole
youth topic, but the fact remains that 'how to train kids under
the age of 18' was by far the dominating line of questioning.

It was validation for me to see that the industry as a whole has
started to recognize the fact that the youth demographic is the
most under-serviced, but important niche in our entire field.

One of the questions was related to Physical Education -

"How do you go about creating quality physical education
programs for kids"

Naturally, the moderator asked me to answer that one.

The reality of physical education is that just like sports
performance training, it has become a watered down mess in our
society.

What used to be about developmental appropriate activities and
creating long-term plans for building a child's physical capacity
over time, has become little more than 10 - 15 minutes of
disorganized chaos in most PE classed the world over.

'Sports Performance Training' has become the new catch phrase in
our lingo.

Young athletes as young as 9 years old are being placed on
high speed treadmills, static strength training machines and
taken through short durations of high intensity work that
lead to quick-lived performance results that have nothing to do
with making them better athletes.

We need to re-capture our understanding of developmental fitness
and become re-associated with how important long, well-planned
physical development is.

I was also asked as a second part to this question, what my top
3 exercises for kids would be if I could only choose 3.

Here was my answer on that one:

A. Bear Crawl
B. Crab Walk
C. Skipping Variations

Bear Crawl is a necessary action for youngsters because it
helps them learn the important aspects of contralateral
(opposite) force production.

It is a tremendous systemic strength builder that trains
everything from torso, upper and lower body strength as well as
mobility and flexibility.

Crab Walk is similar in that fact.

The added benefit of this exercise is that is targets the
glute and hamstring muscles (posterior chain) which are
typically very weak in kids - a fact that accounts for so many
of the injuries we are seeing in youth sports these days.

The Skipping Variations example is simple.

Rhythm development.

Adequate rhythm is necessary for everything from jumping to
running and plays a huge role in the proper development of a
young athlete.

In the absence of rhythm, a young athletes ability to learn and
become proficient at sport specific skills is drastically
reduced.

The fact remains that all of this information is contained in
my Complete Athlete Development System.

How to develop young champions through a systematic and long
term approach to training.

90-minutes will the biggest names in the industry.

And what most people wanted to know is how I develop kids.

They didn't have access to my Complete Athlete Development
System at this particular conference.

But you do.

Maybe it's time you had a look -

Click here to see what's inside my Complete Athlete Development
System

'Till next time,

Brian