Coaching Young Athletes
Free articles and resources for coaches of young athletes.
Featured
Free articles and resources for coaches of young athletes.
The Community Brainstorm is a monthly forum where we tackle key coaching questions together, drawing on the collective wisdom of our coaching community. Each month, we highlight a real-world challenge, inviting coaches to share insights, strategies, and resources that help others navigate common issues in track and field coaching. Join us in building a stronger, more connected athletics coaching community.
Di Sheppard, the influential coach behind rising Australian track star Gout Gout, has built a career grounded in authenticity, resilience, and a no-nonsense coaching philosophy. Known for her direct approach, Di prioritises both athletic skill and personal growth, creating a training environment that demands accountability and independence from her athletes.
Learn the secret behind her success in this feature article on one of Australia’s most talked about track and field coaches.
This High Performance Town Hall explores the importance of a comprehensive training program for athletes, focusing on the “whole athlete” and the role of communication, and planning.
Master Coach, Susan Hobson, and AA Dietitian Lead, Bryce Anderson, highlight the crucial elements beyond just physical training, including nutrition, sleep, recovery, and mental health, and how these should be integrated into the program.
Training young athletes is a delicate balance of enhancing performance while ensuring safety, longevity, and enjoyment in sports. Overtraining can lead to burnout or injury, while undertraining may limit athletic potential. For junior athletes, particularly those aged 12-18 in track and field, the correct training loads are crucial to optimizing their development while preventing injury.
This article discusses the recommended training loads for young athletes, focusing on the balance between technique, strength training, and recovery. We’ll explore research-backed guidelines and provide insights into how to tailor programs for individual athletes’ needs.
Episode 1 of a short-lived AI Podcasting era! This episode summarises the key points from the book "Conditioning Young Athletes" by Tudor O. Bompa and Michael Carrera.
Our AI hosts discuss the importance of long-term athletic development for young athletes, emphasizing the need for age-appropriate training methods to optimise performance and prevent burnout and injury.
For track and field coaches and athletes, coaching cues are a great tool for instructing and reinforcing the desired skill components.
However, there is strong evidence to suggest that not all cues are equally effective.
This article delves into the critical role of coaching cues – specifically, external and internal cues – in shaping athletes' performance, including their ability to develop and retain newly acquired skills.
The STEPS formula provides a framework for coaches to make changes to their coaching, in the areas of space, task, equipment, people and speed. The changes can be made for the whole group or just for an individual who accesses the session with different equipment and a different coaching plan.
Explore the art of coaching through Wayne Goldsmith’s perspective, focusing on building genuine connections, fostering engagement, and inspiring athletes beyond mere physical training. Goldsmith highlights a concerning global decline in youth sports participation, arguing that traditional, metric-driven coaching approaches often miss what truly motivates young athletes: meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose.