You’re Doing it Wrong, But You Don’t Have To - Youth Athletic Development Programs

An opinion piece written by Coach Zack Wallace - ACES Nation Athletic Performance Specialist and Director of Sports Performance at the University of North Georgia

I want to talk about an issue in youth training, from my perspective. Then, I want to talk about the elements that our year-long athletic development program includes and some insights as to why. 

The way middle and high school approaches strength and conditioning around the country is very odd to me. Don’t get me wrong, some schools invest heavily in their student-athletes by way of upgraded facilities and hiring top-notch professionals. However, this is not the case for the majority of budgets, especially being post-Covid. I think the reason for this discrepancy in experiences and development of youth student-athletes comes down to misinformation and the lack of educated coaches who administer training sessions.

Let me give this analogy first. 

When it comes time for a person to drive a car at 16, they have been in a car and probably have driven around with a parent or family member supervising them. They have familiarity with the car in a couple of different experiential ways. The situation is never: they’ve never been in a car before but now they have to drive one.

This may sound extreme but in many cases, this is what happens in schools. I see it differently with boys versus girls, but that’s my opinion and not always the reality. I’ll break it down for you.

Boys: Typically, their main training consists of dynamic warm-ups or push-ups and sit-ups. Then, at a certain age, they are thrust into the weight room. They are usually expected to do what older, more experienced athletes are doing at lighter weights. Or, they are introduced to strength training with bench press and bicep curls.

Girls: Typically, girls coaches confine athletic development to conditioning (running at low-moderate intensity for distance) and just playing the sport. There is typically no development of movements or multi-faceted strength until the collegiate level.

It deserves mention that there is always the coach who writes something on the whiteboard and tells the athletes to complete the workout while he/she watches, without giving further or direct instruction.

Those are some issues but what solutions does ACES Nation offer? As a company, it is our goal to make sure that every athlete has access to affordable training and nutrition programs from certified professionals. That is why we provide appropriate and progressive training, accompanied by specific demonstrations and informational cueing. We give coaches and athletes the foundational education of athletic development. This is delivered to the athlete directly or to the coach, who can distribute and monitor the progress of each individual athlete.

Now you know how we provide programming, let’s get into the actual program! As I’m writing this part, I’m getting the vibes of the SpongeBob episode where the narrator is taking SpongeBob through training for the Krusty Krab and is about to reveal the Krabby Patty secret formula. Unlike that episode, I’m going to tell you what you’ve been waiting for.

Sports require speed, power, reaction, strength and stamina. These characteristics are experienced and expressed in multiple directions. You will see the elements that build off of those qualities in our program.

Our goal is to start with movement quality and exposure to a warm-up in the first week of the program. This coincides with the first week of school. Nothing major on “syllabus week.” Academic stress and distractions of seeing old friends are enough for athletes of middle school age. 

Side note: We have given strategic weeks off for major school breaks.

Continuing on, we start with bodyweight exercises and progress to dumbbells. There is a period of really hammering home the development of overall strength, mostly bilateral (both legs) before moving into single leg exercises. That being said, we are developing single leg strength and power with our deceleration and sprint work being done on the field. The emphasis is to develop good patterns of slowing down and taking off. You can find a multitude of drills that will aid in athleticism: skips, bounds, jumps, accelerations, curvilinear running, resisted drills, reaction drills, conditioning, etc. 

We really wanted to let the foundations of sports expression be the driving force in this program and let resistance training aid in those elements. It should also be noted that no sport, in particular, was held in consideration, more of a focus on developing the athlete overall and understanding that they may be playing sports concurrently to completing this program. With that knowledge, we managed the overall set and rep schemes to fit the multi-sport athlete throughout the school year.

In summation, we want to bridge the gap for athletes and coaches who don’t have the resources to provide professional level strength and conditioning programming. We want athletes to develop their physical capabilities beyond the wave of specificity that seemingly reigns over most youth athletes. The holistic approach of this program provides the body with a larger skill set and with a more robust structure to withstand the hours and rigors of your sport.

Work hard.

Take care of your mind and body.

Have fun!

- Zack Wallace