Jumping for joy; when was the last time you did that? What about Jogging for joy? Hardly sounds the same does it?
I did 11,000 steps today.
I recently heard two people talking about their exercise regime. Everything was counted. They count calories, they count steps, they count miles and they count lengths in a pool.
Their measure of progress was to do more of the same, count it, and then share it on Strava. They can then compare themselves with all the other hamsters.
Were they happy? Sure didn’t
sound it like it, they used phrases like, ‘I
dread it, but feel better afterwards.’ Or, ‘I don’t want to do it, but I think I ought to.’
‘Where do I sign up?’ I didn’t ask.
The daily grind
I am looking forward to getting home and spending time on the treadmill.
Commute, work, commute and then relax by spending time on the treadmill.
Compare that to a dog in the park. Endless energy, running around, chasing balls, leaves, cats and sniffing things. Children do that, without the sniffing. They are playful and happy, if given the chance.
Bastards- let’s stop all that ‘larking about’ as one parent said to me. She wanted her 12 year old daughter to grind out tough strength and conditioning sessions because she was trying to climb up tennis rankings (another pointless measurement).
Let’s drive our children to school and then give them fitbits to measure their steps. Let’s foist our adult insecurities onto our playful children.
Alternatively you could explore the joy of movement with your child or dog:
Go upside down
Go backwards
Climb things
Go over and under things
Skip, jump, hop and leap.
Pick things up and carry them or throw them.
Forget competition and comparison; try to explore what your body can do.
The joy of performing a new skill and trying things out can not be underestimated. Your children won’t get a certificate at our gymnastics sessions, but they might just have fun.
Fun is what seems to be what is missing in life ( I have put some ideas on a YouTube playlist, ‘The Joy of Movement’ have a look.)
If you concentrate on making shapes and changing shapes, you will never have to worry about getting in shape.
Athletic Development is a combination of planned, unplanned, organised and chaotic events that lead to a person’s overall physical and mental abilities to perform a variety of physical tasks, often within sport.
Never too old to develop as an athlete
Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) is a model that highlights different stages from infancy to adulthood and what types of activities are best suited at each stage.
As each human being grows up and develops in different environments, with different experiences and with different adaptations, there is no such thing as ‘The ideal pathway’. There are as many paths to the top as there are peaks.
Athletic Development is a concept that applies to all children, and for many adults who want to continue physical activity.
The ability to throw, catch, evade, slide, dodge, skip, run, jump, climb, duck, hop, roll and balance is often summarised with the term ‘Physical Literacy’.
If a child is physically illiterate, then it is unlikely, but not impossible, that they will be unable to participate in a sport successfully. They may get hurt, injured, be unable to keep up, or bend down to pick up the ball or flinch when a ball is thrown at them.
Physical Literacy can be developed through parenting
I am often asked to provide sessions for young children- 3 year old’s in gymnastics or 6 year old’s in athletics.
If I wanted to be rich, I would organise sessions for these age groups and fill the sessions. Yet, these children do not need organised sessions at these age groups.
They need opportunities to crawl and roll on soft surfaces (sand, grass, carpets) to strengthen their limbs and discover movements themselves. For the budding track stars, I tell the parents to treat their child like a dog. Take them down to the park and throw their child a ball, let them run around maniacally and at their pace. They will set off like a berserker and then rest for a bit. That is what dog walkers do, and with children you don’t have to pick up their mess afterwards.
But, the parent has to put down their smartphone and interact. They have to sack the ipad babysitter. The child needs the opportunity to get dirty, fall over and get up again. They need the chance to play with other children without it being a ‘playdate’.
That is why I asked Willand Parish Council to improve the parks in our village four years ago. I gave them advice on what equipment would benefit children and give them the chance to play. They have been very responsive, taken a punt on my suggestions, and have seen the popularity of the equipment since.
Hanging around in the park
I was frustrated with parents not hanging around long enough for their children to play. So I suggested park benches and picnic tables to encourage families to stay. They have proven popular too, with all sorts of residents enjoying peaceful moments in the fresh air (I have yet to see any National Governing Body put in its ‘Talent Pathway’ plan the incorporation of benches under oak trees in parks). Our Parish Field has become a park that people from outside our village want to visit.
Athletic Development for All
Most things written about Athletic Development come from Sporting NGBs looking to increase medal counts or from academics promoting their model to gain speaking engagements and publication credits.
Little of what they do has any relevance to George who is 6 years old and likes playing football in the playground and climbing onto the park benches. George has no idea what a ‘Talent Pathway’ is.
For him, ‘Long Term’ means waiting until lunchtime to go out and play.
I set up Excelsior Athletic Development Club five years ago. It was in response to my observations of young people who were keen, enthusiastic sports people, but were unable to perform simple tasks well.
Examples being: • A 13 year old boy who was part of a swimming ‘Academy’ but he did not understand how to play piggy in the middle with a bean bag. • Rugby ‘Academy’ players who were given loaded back squats in a Smith machine, but were unable to stand up from a low bench without using their hands. • Track and Field athletes who could not skip sideways. • A 14 year old county cricketer who could not throw overhead.
These children were given specialised activities in their sporting environment, but lacked the underpinning skills and basic movement patterns to help them reach a very high level.
My work with National Governing Bodies and theSport England “South West Talent’ Projectbrought me into contact with a lot of children whose parents ferried them from organised session to organised session, but had little time to play.
The so-called ‘Talented’ athletes were just normal children whose parents had the time or money or both to take them to training sessions.
Since I have been coaching at Excelsior ADC, I have seen first-hand how ordinary children, somewhat clumsy, sometimes tubby and lacking in confidence, can achieve a great deal given time and opportunity.
I am often contacted by parents who tell me things like, ‘My daughter’s got a body in a million’ (can’t make this stuff up) or ‘He’s an extremely talented tennis player and you will be amazed by his physical ability.’ I give the poor kid the benefit of the doubt and welcome them to our club session.
I have yet to see any child come in and be better at the ordinary skills than our top twenty most regular attendees.
Cerys (competitive weight lifter) sharing experiences with 6 of our dedicated youngsters.
Our unsung heroes aren’t county players or internationals (yet), they just come in and get on with the job of learning gymnastics, athletics, strength and co-ordination training.
In short, they are developing as athletes. Our aim is for them to be healthy, happy and participating in physical activity for the rest of their lives.
That is the definition of Athletic Development in my mind.
Why are teachers and coaches still using the plank?
One species takes over
I have no idea when this exercise was introduced but, much like the Grey Squirrel, it has eliminated its predecessors and become the dominant species.
I was coaching my ‘Strength and Co-ordination’ group last night and I asked them if they did the plank at school and how teachers progressed the basic exercise. Archie: “They get us to run laps in between.” Oliver: “They just make us do it for longer.” At some point, these teachers will go on a conference where words like ‘disengaged’ are used.
Progressing Core Training
Lack of core strength is apparent
I never use the plank when coaching, repeat never. I would lose any last shreds of integrity if I asked the children to do a pointless busy work task that I myself would never do. Instead, we do bracing combined with movement.
Last night, the ‘core training session plan looked like this:
A: Discuss plank, why do we use it. What does it look like? B: Show front support, side support, back support as a more challenging task. Ask them why it is more challenging. C: Show heel slides (we use these frequently) and show it relates to the supports. D: Split into pairs, ask them to come up with a similar sequence for squats. Come up with the simple variant, the intermediate variant and the CRAZY variant. E: Get them to show each other and ask when they might use each. E.g. coming back from injury do the simple task.
Moving and bracing examples
They set the sets and reps. What we got from this was: 1: Decision making 2: Interaction with peers, including discussion, demonstration, corrections and feedback (and laughter). 3: Imagination and creativity. 4: Autonomy and leadership. 5: Quite a lot of strength work in a short time, without me having to tell them to ‘work harder.’
Conclusion:
None of this looked ‘perfect’, yet the athletes were doing the work themselves. I gave them hints and a framework, they cracked on with the task. If you are a p.e. teacher or sports coach prescribing the plank, ask yourself “What could I do better?”
If you are interested in learning more about this type of Foundation Strength training, we have 17 spaces left on the GAIN Deep Dive with Vern Gambetta, in Uffculme, Devon in January 2020.
Physical Literacy is a term gaining currency to help promote the need for children to be given the opportunities to move. Physical education has been squeezed out of the school curriculum, competitive sports have taken over and many children are disheartened and therefore disengaged.
“Partly through lack of sufficient activity, some children are awkwardly overgrown while others are fat and flabby so that eventually the desire for movement is lost and they join the ranks of the physically illiterate.”
Ruth Morison (1969) 1.
A physically literate individual “moves with poise, economy and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations” (2).
“Physically challenging” situations could include sporting activity such as tennis, family games such as Twister, or being able to play tag in the playground or copying dance moves from Ciara!
By being physically literate, the child, and then the adult, will have a much better chance of finding something they can do and like and take part in.”If you teach them to move well, you don’t have to tell them to move often.” Rita Parish (3).
Literacy and numeracy are cornerstones of education in the UK and around the world. Children are educated, tested and retested continuously. There are league tables that compare class to class and school to school. There is a relentless pursuit to “improve standards”.
Unfortunately, the same amount of effort is lacking when it comes to physical literacy.
Exploring movement
Moving is Learning
Nearly 50 years ago Morison wrote that “the increasing supply of ready-made entertainment and mechanical means of transport compel many children to quell their natural urge to move, and their inactivity makes them dull and passive.”
This was before iPads, smartphones and when most families were lucky to have one car.
“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” (4).
If children watch tv before school, are driven to school, sit in an assembly for 45 minutes, kept inside at break time, miss p.e. because the hall is in use for the nativity play, driven home, watch tv, go to bed how do they learn to move?
A worrying statistic is that in 1985 the average child played outside for 30 hours per week, in 2005 this was down to 5 hours per week (5).
That means the average 15 year old in 2018 will have 12,250 fewer hours of accumulated free playtime compared to their 1985 counterpart.
For the “sporty” kids today, this means they are in danger of over specialisation and overuse injuries. For the “non-sporty” kids this means they are lacking in basic movement skills and feel inhibited and lack the confidence to try.
Children teach themselves physical literacy
Given the opportunity, children want to move and explore. In an over mechanised society, the last thing children need is to be put on a machine to exercise. The dull repetitive nature of treadmills, adductor leg machines and cross trainers replace the joy of movement and discovery with mind-numbingly boring labour.
There is more to physical literacy than improving simple physiological functions: sitting on an exercise bike will improve your heart and lung function, but it will do nothing for balance, coordination or skill (pretty hard to pull a wheelie on one too).
“The richer the interactions, the more individuals develop their human potential“. Margaret Whitehead (2001). (2).
Without these rich interactions, our children will never reach their full potential. Driving your child to a swimming lesson and watch someone else give them instructions for 20 minutes out of 30 minutes is far from being rich or interacting.
Peppa pig gets it
Instead, these might surprise you as examples:
Jumping in muddy puddles (kids have to be outside and in the wet, and on uneven ground).
Splashing in the bath.
Going down a slide (and climbing up the ladder to get there).
Hanging upside down holding onto parent’s hands.
Wrestling with siblings.
Crawling around the house (not left in a cot or in a car seat during “play dates”.
Walking to school (or skipping, hopping, running, tripping, scootering, cycling, skateboarding).
Playing in the pool with family (emphasis on playing, children need to be comfortable in a strange environment before even beginning to listen to an instruction).
Hopscotch, skipping, jacks, bean bag throws, frisbee, paper aeroplanes, stone skimming and jumping over puddles are all “rich interactions” which should be numerous before even going to an athletics club.
Throwing paper (like in the video below) is fun and will help develop the child’s underlying skills.
Climbing is learning
Apart from going to the swimming pool, all the above are free and therefore should be familiar to all children. However, they require time which is precious and they may seem trivial to adults (who are often looking for the next big thing to post on Facebook).
Summary
The major point being that this unstructured, messy, disorganised PLAY, allows children to make mistakes and adapt to the environment around them. This then gives them a large database of experiences that they can draw upon when needed in the future.
Watching my children’s 73-year-old Gran learn Bollywood style dancing last week for the first time in a workshop was a delight. Her physical literacy gained as a child in the 1950s enabled her to participate and thrive in a new environment.
Will your kids be able to do the same in 60 years time?
Want to learn more?
We are run one-day workshops on Educational Gymnastics and Athletic Development that will give you a framework and practical ideas to help you help children learn to move better.
Structural Integrity is a simple and effective way to help children develop
Young gymnasts show their structural integrity.
In the rush to get results fast young athletes, or their coaches, take shortcuts to “get to the interesting stuff.
The ill-informed teenager might copy an adult programme or that of an “influencer” on TikTok who talks about “hacks” or “Gains” but is not around to pick up the pieces when the young athlete gets broken.
No one would dream of starting to build their house with solar panels and roof gables before ensuring a solid foundation was in place. And yet, this happens all the time in sports.
Most of the athletes I initially encounter have glaring deficiencies in their structure or posture that limit their ability to progress. Loading athletes like this either through volume, intensity or external weight, will lead to breakdowns. S
I explain structural integrity in building terms here:
If you are thinking, “My children are too young to do strength training,”then you are right.
But only if that strength training means copying an adult programme based on hypertrophy (size).
Here’s an example of young gymnasts starting their structural integrity work:
Improving the structural integrity of the youth athlete is essential before moving on to other areas of fitness.
Why do I need to start strength training as a youth athlete?
“The current approach for engaging youth in strength-building activities, sometimes referred to as resistance exercise, has been largely unsuccessful. The WHO recommends that children and adolescents (‘youth’) participate in strength-building activities at least 3 days per week, yet participation rates are falling below recommendations.
Secular trends in muscular strength indicate that today’s youth are weaker than previous generations, and many are ill-prepared for the demands of ‘rough and tumble’ play and competitive sports.
Weaker children become weaker adults, and multifaceted interventions that target strength deficits early in life are needed to alter the current trajectory towards unfitness and poor health (1).”
The good news is that just a few minutes of exercises, that can be incorporated into your normal sports training session, can do a lot to reduce the likelihood of injury (2).
What is Structural Integrity?*
I used to say that Structural Integrity is composed of 4 key components:
Balance: Static and dynamic, upper/ lower body, single limbs.
Stability: Joints are strong and can support body weight when moving and static.
Mobility: How you control limbs over a range of movement.
But, when presenting at the DAASM symposium a few years ago I was challenged on the use of “stability” by Dr Homayun Gharavi MD, PhD, PhD. He suggested that the word “control” is better than stability. Stability has been overused and is vague, the body is designed to move, unlike a table, and so control is more accurate.
This means the new schematic would be this:
You can see all those elements combined in these exercises:
The Foundation of Athletic Development
After an initial musculoskeletal and movement screening, I introduce basic exercises that can be incorporated into a warm-up or as a stand-alone session at home. From there, we expand to add movements that develop coordination, rhythm, timing and spatial awareness.
As sprints coach Vince Anderson says, “The problem is NOT that we athletes that have too great a spatial awareness“.
Only then do we start on our training programmes. The first month of the programme is designed to enhance structural integrity, then we add more exercises to increase the volume and intensity of the programme.
(N.B. This also applies to adults who are returning to training or starting a new fitness programme. When I do ACL rehab with professional footballers I see the same lack of structural integrity as we do in the younger athletes. The good news is that they go back to playing stronger than when they arrived).
*N.B. I thought this was an original term on my part, but then realised that it was inherited from watching too much Star Trek!
“The hull has been breached and is losing its Structural Integrity Cap’n” and so on!
References:
Faigenbaum AD, Stracciolini A, MacDonald JP, et al Socioecological approach for building stronger youth for life British Journal of Sports Medicine Published Online First: 26 May 2023. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2023-106748
Bathe C, Fennen L, Heering T, et al Training interventions to reduce the risk of injury to the lower extremity joints during landing movements in adult athletes: a systematic review and meta-analysis BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 2023;9:e001508. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2022-001508
Kelvin Giles presenting his “Quest for physical literacy” om Exeter on Monday.
The theme was putting precision, variety and progression into the coaching and teaching of young people at every opportunity.
Kelvin gave a great one day workshop which had coaches, parents, teachers, physiotherapists and also 4 junior international athletes attending.
The 3 pillars of athletic development
Kelvin outlined his take on this:
Cardiorespiratory (metabolic) efficiency: the running, swimming, cycling that gets the heart and lungs working.
Nutritional quality: what the athletes put into their mouths and bodies.
Mechanical (movement) efficiency: the focus of the day.
When looking at mechanical efficiency, the load must be determined by the quality of the technique.
That load is either: speed, distance, volume, direction, complexity or the surface upon which it is performed.
When all of this is perfect, only then can you progress. “Function before sports specific skill, force, speed or endurance.“
This is criterion based progression: the athlete must earn the physical right to progress. The adaptation must be permanent and consistent.
(Compare that with the norm which is “no weights until you are 16, now we start with power cleans”, or “you can’t do a body weight squat? Never mind, get in the smith machine and we can add some weight because you are too skinny” James’ rant over).
Kelvin gave examples of this, and we started with a lot of squat variations, followed by physical competency assessments.
I have done this 4 times previously with Kelvin, but always learn something new. Today it was that spending 4 hours in a car leads to tight hamstrings!
The state of the nation
Kelvin spent a good portion of the day outlining the data and research behind our lack of physical ability.
As a coach of young people, or even senior clubs and teams, it is easy to concentrate on “performance outcomes” either in the gym or in the win/ loss column. However, it is important to remember where these athletes are coming from.
It is alright having “medal targets” for Rio and Tokyo Olympics, but the simple fact is that we have a young generation of unfit, overweight kids who struggle to move properly. Kelvin laid this out very well.
It is everyones’ responsibility to help solve this problem. The answer isn’t with p.e “specialists” being put into primary schools and chucking a ball at 30 kids and saying “play a game“.
The answer isn’t with hordes of sports science students being able to recite force/ time relationships or measuring Vo2 max on a treadmill but unable to coach a press up or a squat properly. Let alone sequence those movements into a meaningful, engaging coaching session.
The answer lies with better coaching and teaching:”If you don’t chase precision, you are supporting mediocrity”.
“Kids aren’t afraid of hard work, the’re afraid of boredom”. Wayne Goldsmith
“My butt is killing me”
The last hour of the day was all practical with Kelvin taking the group through some lunge progressions, sway drill variations and single leg squat variants.
“Are we teaching/ coaching them to discover, or to be robotic?” Kelvin put all his theory and experience into practice.
This was a great example of how good coaching and using time and space can create overload, rather than justing adding weight. “The minute you put a bar on someone’s shoulders you slow them down“.
With minimal coaching cues, Kelvin set tasks that their bodies had to solve: linear, lateral, rotational, squatting, bracing, hinging. So much variation and fun, with just the body.
As Steve Myrland says “Complex equipment tends to yield simplistic results, simple equipment tends to yield complex results
Summary and the way ahead
Exeter school provided the venue and it was great to see their teaching and coaching staff making the most of this opportunity.
They have recently opened their Athletic Development Gym and have implemented some great programming ideas.
Thanks to everyone who took part, and especially to Kelvin for once again delivering a great workshop (following on from his session at Willand School, I have been helping them further implement the ideas).
Contact me if you would like a similar course run near you
“Are you making athletes better or tired or more predisposed to injury?”
This was one of the key questions we were asked on the GAIN 2011 conference in Houston, Texas in June.
It is easy to make Athletes tired, it is easy to do STUFF, but making them better and knowing why you are doing things is difficult.
This is the 1st of 5 blogs that will review some of the things covered over the 5 day conference. It is a summation of my reflections and thoughts since then: hence the delay.
The conference was held over 5 days, with practical sessions starting at 0630 and seminars finishing at 2100. There were about 60 people attending, from several different countries (mostly USA) with a variety of backgrounds: Physiotherapists, track and field coaches, cricket coaches, Physical Education specialists (not Games teachers) Strength and Conditioning Coaches and Athletic Trainers.
This varied gene pool led to interesting points of view and was a welcome change from spending a weekend with tubby S&C coaches carrying fat shakes around.
Principles of Athletic Development
This was the subject of the first afternoon, led by Vern Gambetta. Here we looked at what our role is as a Coach.
If you have not read his book on Athletic Development, then I recommend it. The principle is that the body is a whole and we must remember why we are training at all times.
The Stuff we do must connect: training sessions, body parts, exercises with what happens in competition.
As a Coach we have to “ Design and implement an effective practical training or rehab programme that produces measurable and visible results in the required time frame.”
Physical Literacy in the 21st Century
Kelvin Giles looked at the current state of “athletes” now. If you do some of the S&C courses out there at the moment, you would think that every one walks into a gym ready to back squat twice their body weight, and snatch body weight: and that is all they need to succeed. However, the current young person is so physically deconditioned due to lifestyle, the lack of P.E in schools and too much sport specific training, this is a dream world.
One of the problems is that “we live in a world where sport science at all of the pie. It has generated random number gatherers.” All the physiological monitoring has failed to monitor the mechanical load. (Think of the bleep test with acceleration, deceleration, restarting, change of direction).
The athletes need to have the ability to endure agility and accelerate, decelerate.
70% of ACL injuries are non-contact. If the athlete has been conditioning properly, we can reduce that chance.
Some programmes include a lot of lying down “core work”. Why? They lie down when they leave your session?
“Never load a poor movement, and certainly never consistently do it.”
This was a bit of confirmation bias on my part, as all the work we have been doing with the SWT and TASS athletes over the last 4 years has led myself and Paula Jardine to conclude that most young athletes can not do basic movements well. Let alone efficiently, let alone under pressure or stress.
Kelvin Giles presenting his “Quest for physical literacy” om Exeter on Monday.
When looking at mechanical efficiency, the load must be determined by the quality of the technique.
Kelvin gave examples of this, and we started with a lot of squat variations, followed by physical competency assessments.
The last hour of the day was all practical with Kelvin taking the group through some lunge progressions, sway drill variations and single leg squat variants.
With minimal coaching cues, Kelvin set tasks that their bodies had to solve: linear, lateral, rotational, squatting, bracing, hinging. So much variation and fun, with just the body.
Exeter school provided the venue and it was great to see their teaching and coaching staff making the most of this opportunity.