Centers for Athletic Performance

(Part I – Awareness Training For the Young Athlete)

Before you can get into the multi-directional speed and agility exercises you need to develop the coordinative components that precede speed. We have all seen the martial arts film where the hero, in the middle of a fight sequence, closes his eyes and lets his senses guide him to victory. Some Star Wars fanatics might refer to this as, using the force! But what ever you call it, it is AWARENESS, and it is probably the most underdeveloped skill in today’s young athletes.

When the elementary schools took tumbling out of the curriculum and replaced it with basketball and flag football, they decided to skip an essential building block in the foundational development of an athlete. Being a basketball player is more than knowing how to break a 3-2 zone, or perfecting the 3 man weave drill. Michael Jordan hit those phenomenal fade aways and highlight film dunks, not because he practiced dunking for 8 hours a day, but because he had such an acute sense of awareness that we could anticipate a situation, and adjust his body perfectly with balanced, synchronized movements that enabled him to get off the perfect shot.

When an athlete starts their growth spurt at age 11-14 this awareness training becomes increasingly important. Unfortunately, this is when sports programs start to incorporate more speed and agility work and less balance and rhythm work. As the athlete’s nervous system is looking to develop this awareness, the drill work they are doing has them moving too quickly to implement the proper protective and performance related strategies for movement. This results in uncoordinated, slower movement and a loss of confidence.

If left uncorrected this awareness deficiency could also resurface in the form of injuries. In Goal #1 we discussed specific causes of injuries, and how most of them are related to unmanageable rates of acceleration, deceleration or force on or around a specific joint, muscle or tissue. By heightening our awareness, we might be able to sense or anticipate these things and maneuver out of harms way, before an injury happens. This will also put us in better position for success athletically.

When you break down multi-directional speed (or agility) there are certain components that seem to be the foundation upon which speed will be built. Some of these are:

Spatial Awareness – knowing where your body is in space and time.

Kinesthetic Awareness – sensing changes in the position of your body, length/tension of the muscles and connective tissue.

Sensory Awareness – being able to react instantly and successfully to touch, sound and sight related stimulus.

Balanced Coordination – with out balance the body gets out of position too easily, once out of position the quality of the movement as well as the speed are compromised.

Rhythmic Coordination – being able to efficiently coordinate, synchronized movement with time to successfully complete the desired task.

These factors are not independent of each other. Although we may stress them independently, they are all a part of an interconnected network that, when synchronized, and operating at its full potential, will allow the athlete to reach their goals.