Planning an Effective, Age-appropriate Training Session

This topic is diverse because a youth coach has to consider different factors to plan and execute an age appropriate training session. When equipped with the knowledge on how to plan an effective and age-appropriate training session, coaches can not only avoid any mishaps during trainings but ensure a productive training. From a broader perspective, having the consistency in providing developmentally appropriate training throughout a youth’s growth with guidelines like the Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model, yields massive benefits. It will nurture physically literate youth under a suitable and safe training environment that are likely to continue sports professionally or for leisure in the long run.

Implications for poor planning of training

• Risks associated with early specialisation

• Increased burn out

• Overuse injuries

• Decrease performance

• Youth dropping out of sports

• Injuries due to mishap

Tips to consider as a youth coach when planning a single programme (Crisfield, Cabral & Carpenter, 2003)

• Group children according to ability, physical and emotional age

• And not the chronological age

• Adapt the rules and use modified equipment when appropriate

• Kids use lighter and softer volleyballs, smaller tennis rackets, softer tennis balls, shorter hockey sticks etc.

• Small playing area for soccer like a futsal court to allow more touches per child, lower nets, smaller courts and fields etc.

• Keep competition in perspective

• Teaches them to learn how to lose graciously

• Avoid contact and collision sessions especially for kids who are in pre-adolescents. If done so, ensure it is in a safe and protected environment

• Keep coaching sessions short and simple

• Concentrate on learning skills instead of fitness

• Ensure there are clear and effective lines of communication

• Try to avoid a selection process until they specialise

Tips for youth coaches on youth long term development

• Reference to LTAD model

• Get children to sample a wide range of sports

• Helps to develop the movement, emotional and cognitive skills.

• It also develops physical competencies that are transferable from one sport to another as well as provide social benefits.

• For instance, 4-time Olympic gold medalist Laura Trott participated in sports like trampoline and swimming before decide to specialise in cycling at 14. (Rudd & Cronin, 2016)

• Adjustments to their diet, environment, habitual lifestyle and socio-cultural beliefs

• For instance, Kenyan runners are deemed superior partly because of a Paleolithic diet which has vegetables, white meat, milk, carbohydrates, etc., which is a right guideline for running and just what their body would require.

• They train in favourable environment by living and training in higher altitude

• Having psychological edge over their opponents as they feel confident from previous successes (Kiguru, 2016)

• Find out why youth want to take part in sport

• Is it because they want to have fun? To make more friends? To win?

• Consider the different stages of growth when planning skill practices

• Children who are younger and physically less mature can work on simpler task with lower workload

• For instance, teaching children a volleyball serve using underhand method and a lighter ball before progressing till eventually doing an overhand serve with a normal ball

• Adjust physical training programmes accordingly

• For instance, pre-adolescent children should only be exposed to low intensity strength training

• Up till 14, youth should be given the opportunity to engage in multiple sports

• 1 hour per year age per week

• Ensure the youth do not over train by considering the following factors:

• Chronological age, training age (years he/she has been training), physical maturation age (adult features), emotional maturation age (think like a child or adult?), mental maturation age (how well they can process info), peak height velocity (considerations of growth spurt) and injury history (Grant, 2016)

Reference

Crisfield, P., Cabral, P., & Carpenter, F. (2003). The successful coach: guidelines for coaching practice. Leeds: Published on behalf of Sports Coach UK by Coachwise Solutions.

Rudd, J., & Cronin, C. (2017, July 28). Want an Olympic legacy? Get primary school children trying out a range of different sports. Retrieved July 30, 2017, from https://theconversation.com/want-an-olympic-legacy-get-primary-school-children-trying-out-a-range-of-different-sports-64513

Further readings Recommendation that training should be more play instead of formalized training
Example of how the Kenyans understand what it takes to win and using this knowledge on planning training how to win again Recommendation to include multi-sport as part of the planning for youth sport programmes to better develop them and possibly Olympians How to plan and make sports fun again  

Recommended Books “Monitoring training and performance in athlete” by Mike McGuigan