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While perseverance sounds like a very serious skill, it can be fun to learn for your young athletes if you make persisting through tough challenges into a playful activity. These activities for every age group will spark conversations around perseverance while encouraging experimentation and play.
When you coach a young athlete who’s shown ‘natural talent’ or who has committed to one sport, it can be tricky to handle their expectations for their future in sport. Check out these tips on how to handle early high performers and their expectations around success and perceived failures.
Research shows that early specialization is unnecessary and may hurt athletes and their performances. Here are five things to know about sport specialization in younger athletes.
It can be difficult to know what to do—and what not to do—to best help athletes with issues around body image. This is especially true when even seemingly innocuous comments can lead to issues with negative body image.
For young athletes, breakfast is an important meal, but it’s also the most likely to get skipped in order to finish that homework assignment or catch the bus. But there are plenty of easy, healthy options that can be prepped ahead of time and only take a few minutes to whip up.
June 15 is the initial contact date for volleyball college coaches at the NCAA Division I and Division II levels to reach out to rising juniors. Once this date hits, more direct communication can begin between college coaches and the student-athletes. What does that mean? We’ll go through five things to know about June 15.
Watching the kids in a small indoor gym training over three nets, I thought of all the lines we put kids into, the way we ignore the net, the way we inflict pain via the forearm pass and the way 6v6 is experienced by beginners. I get angry inside at knowing billions of kids over my lifetime have walked away from our sport for a lifetime because their introduction to the game is BORING. We must do better when we introduce this sport.
Hot weather is coming, and that means your athletes are at a higher risk of becoming dehydrated during practices and games. And even mild dehydration can impact athletic performance, as well as an athlete’s general health.
Mental wellness can be difficult for parents, coaches and other guardians to cope with when it comes to young athletes. Is a bad grade on a test just because an athlete didn’t study, or is it a sign of something deeper? Coaches and parents should be on the lookout for signs that an athlete’s mental health is suffering, and while they may not be equipped to help the athlete, guardians can help connect an athlete with the right professionals.
As an athlete, it’s recommended that you eat every three hours throughout the day, so it’s important to find snacks that travel easily, offer the right nutrients, and actually taste good too. When it comes to nutrition, the goal is to find snacks that fill you up and keep you energized through an optimal blend of mostly carbohydrates, plus some protein and fat to help you feel satisfied for longer.
