Tag: LTAD

Foundations of Strength

I love creative coaching! And, earlier this week I stumbled upon Fitness Quest 10’s Brett Klika. Check out this video he recently posted called ‘Foundational Strength‘. In it, Klika walks you through a fun and effective progression for helping young athletes develop the functional strength to do push-ups. What’s So Important About Push Ups? As …

Myth Busters On Games Versus Skill Development

Written by MIKE MACKAY (High Performance Manager, Women’s High Performance Program, Canada Basketball) “The greatest myth currently being perpetuated is the idea that basketball players can improve their skills by playing numerous games. Many of our developmental athletes are sometimes playing up to six basketball games on a weekend. This is often preceded by only one practice …

Footwork: Artful & Efficient

This is a must see video. The NYTimes.com absolutely crushes it (pun only slightly intended!) with the feature which explains why Roger Federer’s footwork is the basis for a nearly flawless game. This is not about tennis.  This applies to all sports. This is an insightful illustration/description of fundamental movement skills and basic physical literacy that *any* athlete must obtain to …

Are You Teaching Or Training?

Brian Grasso of the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA) wrote an interesting article where he gets into an important question of whether we are training, teaching or coaching our young athletes. Grasso is not a basketball coach. Instead, his area of expertise is around youth athletic development. That is, age and stage appropriate physical development …

What Level Are You Preparing Your Athletes To Play At?

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” —Albert Einstein Think about this quote for a second and ask yourself, does this thought apply to the way you develop an athlete? To borrow a thought from writer/teacher/coach/mentor, Dick DeVenzio, I continually ask athletes, to ask themselves, …

Taking Play (Too) Seriously…?

4:55am… up early with the wheels spinning. Ideas abound. I wasn’t going to share this one, but after chatting with some friends recently, I thought “Why not!?” I can’t sleep anyway, so consider this my late night (or early morning) ‘message in a bottle’ that I’m tossing out to whomever may be interested. I should …

Better Basketball: The Future Of The Game

In the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of spending time with and getting to know Rick Torbett (lead instructor of Better Basketball). And, the more time I spend with him, the more impressed I am with who he is as a teacher-coach and moreso as a person. The article below, The Future of …

10 Key Factors In Long-Term Athlete Development

In planning for the sporting excellence and well-being of Canadians, Sport Canada has launched a resource rich website focused on long-term athlete development. “This website describes a model of Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD), a training, competition, and recovery program based on developmental age — the maturation level of an individual — rather than chronological age. …

TLC: You’ve Gotta Have Rhythm To Coach

It all starts with some TLC. Not tender loving care, that is, but knowing the difference between a teaching activity, learning activity and competing activity. Let me explain… TEACHING vs. LEARNING vs. COMPETING In order for a coaching staff to run more effective practices, coaches need to apply a little TLC. T = Teaching Activity …