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Help With Young Athlete

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First of all I must say thank you to all the thread contributers on this board and particularly within this section on training young kids. Lots of good info. I was just wondering if anyone who has had the experience can point me the right direction in helping develop my young son (8 years old) and improve his overall athletic ability and speed. He plays a few different sports year round and I currently coach his flag football team in the falls. He takes to baseball and football the most. I have found lots of info all over the web and here in these forums, however I am looking to really set up a plan or program that I can help him with a couple times a week, not to mention something I could implement with our football team as well. Or is 8 years old to young to think this way? Not looking to turn my kid into a training "machine" either, rather just help improve his overall athletic ability at a good pace. Thanks in advance to anyone offering to lend their insight, I really appreciate it!!!

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First of all I must say thank you to all the thread contributers on this board and particularly within this section on training young kids. Lots of good info. I was just wondering if anyone who has had the experience can point me the right direction in helping develop my young son (8 years old) and improve his overall athletic ability and speed. He plays a few different sports year round and I currently coach his flag football team in the falls. He takes to baseball and football the most. I have found lots of info all over the web and here in these forums, however I am looking to really set up a plan or program that I can help him with a couple times a week, not to mention something I could implement with our football team as well. Or is 8 years old to young to think this way? Not looking to turn my kid into a training "machine" either, rather just help improve his overall athletic ability at a good pace. Thanks in advance to anyone offering to lend their insight, I really appreciate it!!!

I know this topic is quite old, but I would like to get the same kind of information requested above if anybody has it to offer...

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First of all I must say thank you to all the thread contributers on this board and particularly within this section on training young kids. Lots of good info. I was just wondering if anyone who has had the experience can point me the right direction in helping develop my young son (8 years old) and improve his overall athletic ability and speed. He plays a few different sports year round and I currently coach his flag football team in the falls. He takes to baseball and football the most. I have found lots of info all over the web and here in these forums, however I am looking to really set up a plan or program that I can help him with a couple times a week, not to mention something I could implement with our football team as well. Or is 8 years old to young to think this way? Not looking to turn my kid into a training "machine" either, rather just help improve his overall athletic ability at a good pace. Thanks in advance to anyone offering to lend their insight, I really appreciate it!!!

I know this topic is quite old, but I would like to get the same kind of information requested above if anybody has it to offer...

There are a lot of things you could do. I'll give you some general advice and then be more specific.

Get your kid involved with lots of different sports all during the year. Individual sports, team sports, running, catching, hitting, shooting, everything. Don't overload him, but vary the sports during the year. Any kind of training you do, make it fun! I cannot emphasize that enough. Work with his motivation, different kids will be motivated by different things. If you know what makes him tick, you can really get a lot more out of him.

OK, more specifically this is what I do with my son (10). You have to really understand that each kid has different motivation levels, desires, abilities, so I don't think there is one size fits all. Last year he played flag football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring and now he's on a swim team and playing golf. Throughout the year he and I ran in about 3 5k races. He doesn't train for the running except that he's always on the run in his sports. I run with him the entire race, pacing him at a speed he can handle. During each season he and I will practice in the front yard with whatever sport we're playing. My son is very competitive so he's easy to train. During basketball I had him dribbling and shooting every day. During baseball he'd practice in the front yard, hitting and throwing. During the summer he swims every day and I always challenge him on his diving or strokes or whatever. You get the idea, nothing fancy, just good old fashioned practice. He is motivated by his performance because he is super competitive. I praise, praise, praise him but can offer corrections or things to work on because he wants to improve. Our practices are usually not boring or long, but fun and games, like a game or horse or whiffle ball or see who can swim under water without taking a breath longer. I'll have him take 100 free throws and we'll play catch too but I'm there with him, shagging rebounds, etc.

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First of all I must say thank you to all the thread contributers on this board and particularly within this section on training young kids. Lots of good info. I was just wondering if anyone who has had the experience can point me the right direction in helping develop my young son (8 years old) and improve his overall athletic ability and speed. He plays a few different sports year round and I currently coach his flag football team in the falls. He takes to baseball and football the most. I have found lots of info all over the web and here in these forums, however I am looking to really set up a plan or program that I can help him with a couple times a week, not to mention something I could implement with our football team as well. Or is 8 years old to young to think this way? Not looking to turn my kid into a training "machine" either, rather just help improve his overall athletic ability at a good pace. Thanks in advance to anyone offering to lend their insight, I really appreciate it!!!

I know this topic is quite old, but I would like to get the same kind of information requested above if anybody has it to offer...

There are a lot of things you could do. I'll give you some general advice and then be more specific.

Get your kid involved with lots of different sports all during the year. Individual sports, team sports, running, catching, hitting, shooting, everything. Don't overload him, but vary the sports during the year. Any kind of training you do, make it fun! I cannot emphasize that enough. Work with his motivation, different kids will be motivated by different things. If you know what makes him tick, you can really get a lot more out of him.

OK, more specifically this is what I do with my son (10). You have to really understand that each kid has different motivation levels, desires, abilities, so I don't think there is one size fits all. Last year he played flag football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring and now he's on a swim team and playing golf. Throughout the year he and I ran in about 3 5k races. He doesn't train for the running except that he's always on the run in his sports. I run with him the entire race, pacing him at a speed he can handle. During each season he and I will practice in the front yard with whatever sport we're playing. My son is very competitive so he's easy to train. During basketball I had him dribbling and shooting every day. During baseball he'd practice in the front yard, hitting and throwing. During the summer he swims every day and I always challenge him on his diving or strokes or whatever. You get the idea, nothing fancy, just good old fashioned practice. He is motivated by his performance because he is super competitive. I praise, praise, praise him but can offer corrections or things to work on because he wants to improve. Our practices are usually not boring or long, but fun and games, like a game or horse or whiffle ball or see who can swim under water without taking a breath longer. I'll have him take 100 free throws and we'll play catch too but I'm there with him, shagging rebounds, etc.

Thanks Orange. I realize differentiation is important to overall development of young athletes, but I guess what I'm really looking for are specific drills and such to improve speed and agility. I am still relatively new to coaching, so I've bought a book on speed and agility drills that I am now sifting through to gather things to use in my sons development. I am trying to help my son improve his speed, mostly through running form and mechanics improvements, but also through basic exercises to strengthen his legs (and the rest of his body too). It seems to me that to learn to run fast you have to run fast and work on getting even faster, so we have been working on running sprints and improving his form during takeoff and throughout the whole run. Is there more to it than that? What kinds of things can we do to maximize our results at his age (9)? What kinds of speed gains can we expect? I know you might not have the answers to all of these (maybe a pro speed coach does), but those are the kinds of questions I have.

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The best way to start to increase speed for an athlete is to correct the running form. It's very important the athlete runs on the ball of the feet and make sure to have correct arm swing. Raise thighs high and to push off the ground fast and quick.

For agility. the four square drill, ladder drills and jump rope will help on footwork and learning to be light on their feet. Running around cones and creating drills specific to the sport will help on athleticism.

One good way is to improve on leg strength. Split squats and single leg squats will help (but make sure on proper form)

Hope this helped

http://www.softballperformance.com/blog/so...-to-run-faster/

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