TV: A Conditioning Tool? - Part 2

Idea #2: Super Abs (without the fancy machinery)!!

Another very easy game to play is to do abdominal (ab) work during commercials, or even during shows themselves. Your child can watch their favorite show or game while doing some very simple ab work. Let me give you some options:

• Regular situps. This is one that's probably easiest done during commercials. For these, your child can either place their feet under the couch, or even have a parent sit on their feet while they do their traditional situps. However, I'm not really a big fan of traditional situps. I find them very hard on their backs and not really as effective as some of these other approaches.

• Ab Crunches. I like ad crunches over regular sit ups because you can more easily watch TV while you use the medicine balls. Watch the vide below.

• Ab Crunches with Medicine balls. I really like the use of medicine balls because you can easily increase or decrease the weights and the resulting level of effort. See the video below for one of the different ab drills you can do with medicine balls.
  

Best of luck as parents coaching youth!!

Picking a Coach - Part 3 (and Final)

In the earlier two posts, we talked about how important it was to (1) pick a coach who really understood the sport and (2) could communicate effectively with your son or daughter. What we want to cover in this third and final post on this subject is picking a coach who can communicate effectively with you, the parents!

Rule #3: Pick a Coach Who Can Communicate with YOU!!

While at first blush this might appear to be the lesser of the three rules, I've found as a check-writing parent that this is #1 with me. It is very frustrating to have your children get emotionally committed to a coach, only to find out that that coach is not able to leverage you as an extension of your child's training program. Missed appointments, confusion regarding charges, and double-booking lessons fall more on the administrative side of things. While being a PITA (Pain In The Ass), they really don't substantially impact your child all that much.

I'm actually more concerned with a coach who can not (or will not) communicate effectively with the parents the skills and drills they are teaching, and not effectively leverage the parent as an extension of the training program. Let's face it, while your child might spend 1 to 2 hours a week with a particular coach (and even that's quite a bit), they are going to spend 1 to 2 hours a day with you on the topic.

Kids won't improve dramatically by spending more time with the coach learning new skills. Kids will make dramatic progress if they can spend 30 to 60 minutes a day working on their own to perfect the skills that they have been taught. And as a parent, that means knowing enough about the skills and drills to help re-enforce what the coach has been teaching -- becoming an extension of their training and development program.

So let's review some questions that you should ask about the coach:

• Is the coach receptive to questions from the parents? The coach should not only be receptive, but should encourage questions. In fact, I've seen coaches actually get the parents involved directly in the drills. There's no better way for the parents to learn the drills then to do them with the child (physical abilities not withstanding).
  
• Does the coach share any documents or guides with the kids and parents about drills and skills? The more that the coach has documented, the better. And it does not need to be high-quality material. Photocopies of well-worn documents work just fine. You, as a parent, just need enough material so that you can remind your child how to do the drill.
• Does the coach take videos and make them available to the parents? This is very helpful when you want to review specific skills and drills with your child. In fact, I'd argue that no modern coach should be without a video system. How they use it? Well, that's a topic for a separate posting...

Smart coaches understand how to leverage parents as an extension of their programs, and that creates a win-win-win with everyone: the coach gets his point across, the kid learns more, and the parent gets to continue to be a parent. Doesn't get much better than that!!

By the way, if you have any ideas or suggestions for this list, please feel free to reply to this post. That benefits everyone!

Best of luck as parents coaching youth!!

Picking a Coach

I was recently sitting at our local high school baseball field, waiting for my son to get finished with basketball practice in the gym. As I was sitting in the stands reading a book, I started watching a baseball personal "trainer" work with his student (age 9 - 11, I'd guess) on the field. I watched as this personal baseball trainer was teaching some of the finer points of swinging a bat ... stride as the ball comes to the plate to generate more power, swing the bat through the strike zone, hit the ball out in front of your body....

Well, if you know anything about batting, you'd quickly realize that all of this advice is WRONG!! You don't want to stride as the pitch is coming to the plate, instead you want stride (for timing purposes, not power) as the pitcher starts his delivery, then you want to set yourself for a quick, late swing. If you stride as the pitch is approaching home plate, you'll never be able to react to a change-up or a curve ball or an outside and away pitch. While what this trainer was teaching his student may have been conventional thinking at one time, it is totally wrong for what batters are being taught today. And what's even more sad, is that it'll likely take this kid several years to un-learn what he was being taught by his trainer.

Rule #1: Pick a Coach Who Know What The Hell He's Talking About!

The reason I share this horrible, yet true story, is because there are two critical rules that you need to follow when you select a coach for your child. In fact, they are so much more important than any other factors, that we're going to call these Rule #1 and Rule #1. Get it? So let's get started on talking about the first Rule #1.

When working with young kids, it is critical that they get knowledgeable and relevant coaching on the right techniques, methods and mechanics. One knowledgeable coach that I observed once said that it takes 1000 times to overcome every 1 time you've been taught wrong. Remember: it's harder to undue training than it is do it right the first time. And that's especially true for the young athlete. You MUST find a coach who knows what they hell they are doing, and is teaching the right techniques, methods and mechanics. And as a parent, you MUST invest the time to find this coach.

Picking the Right Coach

Below are some guidelines that will help you find the "right" coach:

• Observe them at work. Invest the time to watch them in action. Do they speak from experience? What is their personal experience both playing and coaching? Watch them work with your kid, and then watch them work with other kids. Watch what they teach to younger kids, and and how what they teach to older kids.
  

• Compare the coaches. Have your child work with several coaches before you settle on one. What is the basic teaching philosophy of each of them? What specifically are they teaching? How do they go about teaching (talking versus doing)? What techniques and tricks do they use as part of their training regiment (e.g., use of video taping)? Make a list of what you hear and like about each of the coaches. That will be critical in helping you decide which one is right for your child.

• Verify what they tell you. Ask for references, and talk to the references. Talk to both the kids (they'll tell you how good the coach really was) and ask them if they are still working with that coach (and if not, why). Ask them if they know of any kids who no longer work with that coach, and then contact these folks as well. If you can, actually watch their references in action. How do they perform? Are they doing what was taught by their personal coach?
  

Damn, this is lots of work. But it is critical (remember, there are only two critical choices to make) that you get this one right. Pick the wrong coach, and you'll likely due your young athlete more damage than good.

Best of luck as parents coaching youth!!

Welcome to the Brave New World of Parenting!

There use to be a time, back in the 60's and 70's, when youth sports was actually for the youth. Kids would form their own neighborhood baseball or football or basketball teams, and would travel on their bikes around to other neighborhoods for games. No parental involvement, whatsoever!

Oh, but times have changed. Now parents, maybe even more than their kids, are driving the youth sports explosion. It's not unusual for an adolescent athlete to play on several traveling or "select" sports teams; many playing some of their sports (especially soccer, baseball and basketball) year round. And the pressure to do such just continues to grow. What happens if your kid only plays one sport at a time? How does that impact their ability to play high school varsity sports, or to get a college scholarship, or to make the pros?

The purpose of this site is to share some observations and learnings about how we as the "modern parent" can evolve to also become a "modern coach." And even if we don't coach our kids' teams directly, we must evolve to become a modern coach if our kids are going to have any chance to survive in this adult-crazed youth sports world.

I'm looking forward to having you along for the discussion, but a discussion can only work if you participate. So please feel free to post your feedback and suggested topics for discussions. Besides, it's really not that important. It's only our kids we're talking about...

Best of luck as parents coaching youth!!