Free the children
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Have you been to a zoo recently? You might see a collection of animals behind bars. They have some space to roam but, for the likes of the speedy cheetahs, not enough to get up to full speed and hunt.
They were born to do this.
I have written previously about the stunted development of kittens when their movement is restricted in a lab setting.
Imagine how the cheetah in the zoo feels: pining against his primal urges, wishing to unleash himself and test his speed against the wildlife of the plains.
Would anyone disagree that the natural, uncaged environment is best for this, and many other animals, as long as mankind stops destroying their habitats?
Why do you imprison your children?
There has been a trend in recent years to ‘professionalise’ high school sports. This often means trying to copy what is seen at the college or professional sports level. Or, what is perceived to be done at those levels.
This has meant that high schools have literally put cages into their gyms: calling them ‘Power cages’ (sic) does nothing to diminish the fact that movement is restricted.
No one calls the cheetah enclosure, a ‘power enclosure’ (not yet, anyway). The limited definition of most ‘S&C’ coaches confuses ‘power’ with ‘force’ and this means increasing ‘power’ by adding load to the young athlete.
Quick physics reminder
P=(fxd)/t
Power = (force x distance)/ time.
Power will increase if you do things further and faster, not just adding more load to increase force.
‘The problem is NOT that athletes have too great a spatial awareness.’ Sprint Coach Vince Anderson.
Cages restrict movement and limit speed: the two things that young athletes need to develop. The ‘S&C’ ‘coach’ can justify the expense of the cage by showing how much more mass the young people are moving. Despite the fact that it is slow and has limited range. The environment dictates and limits the scope of programming.
These environments have been dominated by American Football (US) and rugby (Commonwealth countries) and ignore sports where moving external mass (another human, heavy objects) is not part of the sport.
Fencing, badminton, tennis, hockey, soccer, netball, basketball and squash, to name a few, require fast, agile, coordinated athletes (The d and t of the power equation).
If you are training young athletes, then think of how they can improve their speed, coordination, agility and range, often at the same time. How does putting them in a cage help?
Free the children, free your mind. Break the shackles of groupthink.
Further reading: force, power and acceleration. A summary of Jack Blatherwick’s presentation at GAIN
Do you start your pre-season with an endurance fitness test? Your players turn up and do either the bleep test or the 
I checked this plan with some “expert physiologists at Brunel University” they thought it was a good plan.
Testing and evaluation are an important part of pre-season. But just telling players to run further or run faster to improve their test scores may only reinforce their bad technique, and could lead to injury.
In part 1 of this article we looked at the demands of the game and the different positions. Today we will look at how to train for Netball.
Every position requires agility, whether it is moving around the court or evading the opposition in the circle. When looking to improve agility we first need to look at strength, if we don’t have the movement efficiency we cant improve agility.
This month of our internship we have been learning about speed and the most 
One certain way to get your players to run slower is to keep running them into the ground until all technique has been lost (pictured right).
Acceleration is crucial in team sports. “More specifically, horizontal acceleration of body weight. The simplest and most accurate description from physics for explosiveness; quickness, agility and even speed”
In the first 2-3 strides the Gluteal Muscles and Quadriceps are a key factor in providing force for the thrust. After that (5-25 metres) the coordination and SLX are more important.
Bottom-up is from a bear crawl into a sprint. Bear crawl over 5m and then come up gradually into a sprint over 15m. This helps with reciprocal arm and leg action (coordination) and again on SLX.
Every time you jog a drill, you have to finish it which requires braking: this is not resting. Metabolically your players will not appear tired, but mechanically they will have been loaded heavily.
Jim Radcliffe at the beginning of his presentation on successful S&C coaching.
Radcliffe explained this at the outset, based on Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, coaches need to understand why they are doing things, before they start just doing exercises or drills.
Agility progresses through these stages:
This can easily be seen in drills such as the one pictured with mini bands. The athlete at the front as feet coming out wider than the knees (poor hip projection) the athlete behind has knee above foot (better hip projection).
One of the ways to get the athlete to improve mechanics is to train barefoot. This give better immediate sensory feedback about the ability to have a spring loaded foot, rather than a flat foot.
From Day 1, practice 1, Radcliffe emphasises the “Go as fast as you can go” approach to training. Initially this may only be 1/2 steps in different directions, but they are FAST.
What is really refreshing about Jim Radcliffe, is that he is at GAIN to learn as much as to teach, he is always writing notes, or asking the different presenters questions so he can improve his own practice (see pictures of him sharing with Vern Gambetta and Finn Gundersen).