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I read an interesting article today from a well known youth athlete coach that helped reiterate why we do the things we do at CAP. The article stated that most youth athletes participate in skills related practice or games almost twice as much as they participate in developmental type activities. I thought it might be beneficial to identify some of these “developmental” type activities, and explain their purpose.
- Balance: – Control of posture and position, or body control, allows you to control you body in a chaotic environment.
- Throwing / Catching – Using medicine balls and tennis balls we can teach the athletes how to coordinate their upper and lower body to work as one when controlling momentum. We can also get the benefit of hand eye coordination, tracking, timing and rhythm, not to mention the added load for stability and strength for the core.
- Coordination – We incorporate a soccer ball into a lot of our training instead of just running them through the typical ladder drills. Ball agility still teaches basic footwork and quick feet but due to the ball it teaches them foot eye coordination and being in the proper position to react to the ball.
- Reaction- we like to use a lot of different methods to improve reaction from basic throwing and catching tennis balls with a partner to change of direction against a mirroring partner. Both of these will teach an athlete to react to something whether it is a ball or an opponent
- Strength- A lot of the compenents metioned before is a necessity to become a well rounded athlete but all of those components will be better achieved with a good base of overall strength. This could be the strength coming into and out of a cut during ball agility or the strength through the total body to catch and throw the medicine balls.
To sum all of this up I want to commend you for all of you hard work in the above mentioned exercises because the other trainers and I see a huge improvement in your overall athleticism when it comes to all of the drills that you have been put through.
Keep up the good work!
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