Jan 29, 2015

To Be a Kid Again

By Vern Gambetta

If you want to improve your athlete’s movement skills, take an hour and go watch children play unsupervised. Observe how freely they move, how uninhibited they are, and how quickly they solve any movement problem presented to them. Then go back to your athletes and do everything you can to incorporate that same freedom of movement and spontaneity into their training and see what happens.

It takes courage because some of the movements won’t always look “correct” but it may redefine what we think is correct. Movement should be flowing and rhythmic, not rigid and programmed. Keep challenging your athletes with increasingly difficult movement problems that continue to test their limits.

— — If you are intrigued by the thoughts of veteran conditioning coach Vern Gambetta, you will want a copy of his exciting new book, Following the Functional Path: Building and Rebuilding the Athlete. —

When you were a kid you never paced, you raced on land, in the pool on bikes. When you were a kid you just jumped, you ran as fast as you could, you threw rocks and everything you could get your hands on for hours. You imitated the big guys–you learned through mimicry and observation.

Get your athletes to be kids again. Putting the “fun” back in fundamental will allow you to explore the outer limits of performance.

Vern Gambetta, MA, is President of Gambetta Sports Training Systems in Sarasota, Fla. The former Director of Conditioning for the Chicago White Sox, he has also worked extensively with basketball, soccer, and track and field athletes. He is a frequent contributor to Training & Conditioning. Vern also maintains his own blog.