02/22/2022
Youth Athletic Development
Building young athletes requires a long- term commitment to athletic performance enhancement. Our approach at Top Performance Strength is to build physical qualities such as movement competency, mobility/ stability, strength, speed, power, and conditioning.
Developing the fundamentals of athletic performance is the foundation of how we approach training young athletes. We strive to teach young athletes the importance of being brilliant at the basics to build athletic performance, keep them healthy, build resiliency, and sustain their athletic playing career by focusing on and supporting their future development.
The most important principle of training young athletes during the foundational stages of athletic development is that of “slow cooking” the training process. “Slow cooking,” means we take the necessary amount of time to build and develop them completely. We’re not rushing them through the process or progressing them to new levels of training without being prepared and learning how to master the athletic skills we teach them.
Building anything good takes time and developing young athletes is no different. We place a premium on teaching young athletes how to move effectively and efficiently. We constantly reinforce the importance of correct movement because we don’t want to put them in a position where they can potentially cause themselves and their body harm.
We want to set them up for future success and we accomplish this by teaching them how to move correctly, grooving athletic movement patterns, and progressing them once they’ve demonstrated they can master and control their own body weight. If we progress too fast without being prepared, we’re only creating a dysfunctional movement pattern that could potentially lead to pain, inflammation, and/or injury now and/or in the future. From a coaching perspective, we base our decisions off future potential outcomes by considering and mitigating risk factors involved so we don’t cause any injury or harm to the youth athletes we work with.
It’s the coach’s responsibility to teach young athletes the importance of bridging the gap between performance and health. Our primary job and goal is to keep every youth athlete we work with healthy and on the playing field. We will not sacrifice health for performance improvements. At no point will we allow them to compromise the health and integrity of their bodies just for the sake of adding physical fitness in the form of strength, power, or speed without being properly progressed and prepared for the demands required to be successful.
This is the basis and our foundational approach to training young athletes. Long- term athletic development is a long- term process that takes time and patience, and commitment to achieve the desired results in performance enhancement. It’s of critical importance to have foresight into their future development. “Slow cooking” the process allows us to take the necessary time and commitment to progress them appropriately, enhance their performance over the long- haul, keep them healthy, build resiliency, and sustain their athletic playing career.
Stay tuned for announcements later this week for our Youth Athletic Developmental Program we will be offering for ages 8-12 years old.
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If you're interested in getting an assessment and performance testing to get the right path toward developing athleticism, health, and building a sustainable playing career, contact us at [email protected] or call 847-542-5213.
