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SPORTS PERFORMANCE TRAINING
Why It Might Be The Most Important Investment You Make In Your Young Athletes' Future
We love our kids. And kids love sports. As parents, we want our kids to be happy and part of being happy in a sport is being successful at that sport. So, we hire a trainer to teach our child how to kick a soccer ball, or throw a fast ball, or shoot the perfect jump shot. We pay thousands of dollars in an effort to help our kids succeed and, hopefully, earn a scholarship to a college. But most parents fail to take into consideration the most critical attribute of all successful athletes - a proper understanding of the fundamentals of movement.
Understanding the fundamentals of movement is not only vital for the success of an athlete, it is also a key factor in ensuring that an athlete does not suffer injuries. It doesn't matter if you're 14 and can throw a fast ball or slider or any other kind of pitch if you have not been taught how to move your body properly and get it into the right position. Eventually, incorrect form repetition will cause parts of a body to break down and injuries will start to occur. One injury can lead to more injuries and eventually an athlete even being forced to stop playing the sport they love because of too much damage. That is a tragedy.
Think about it this way. As a baby we go through certain steps in life to make sure we develop correctly. I watch my 9-month old as she grows and learns to do things step-by-step. When she was born, all she could do was lay on her back...then she started to roll...which led to her gradually sitting up...which then got her into position to crawl...which led her to crawling, then learning to stand up with assistance, to needing no assistance, to walking. Babies are just naturally brilliant. They go through these steps to ensure they develop correctly. If they skip a step, you usually have to go back and teach them the proper movement channel.
Developing athletes are the same, they need to go through certain channels to develop and build muscles correctly so they avoid injury. We do our children a disservice by not teaching them how to move and develop their body in the correct way. Sure, we hired someone to teach them how to throw, shoot, or hit, but we bypassed a vital development process.
Does your son or daughter know how to run correctly? Probably not, if they were never taught the proper form they just run the way they did from the time they were little. Improper running form puts on the wrong areas of the body. Too much stress on certain areas that are not designed to receive that stress will result in a break down of the area and eventually injuries. The point of this is before you hire a soccer, basketball, baseball or any other trainer, ask yourself if you're doing everything you can to ensure your child's proper athletic development and future success. Ensuring a child is also taught the fundamentals of movement by a trainer who understands how and why the body moves in a certain way, and you are giving them a gift for life - the gift of a healthy body. Being healthy is a critical factor is continuing to improve as an athlete. A hurt athlete is not progressing in their ability. Stay healthy and Unleash Your Potential. |