Athletic development: the concept

The term “athletic development” denotes an integrated system to enhance athletic performance, not an isolation of individual physical qualities. No single component of conditioning can be solely responsible for athletic development. It is necessary to have a balanced and integrated system to facilitate, develop, enhance, and motivate individual and team athletic performance.

The body is a kinetic chain with movement occurring from toenails to fingernails. A sound program emphasizes integration of all the links of the chain by training movements not individual muscles. The goal of athletic development is to develop Athleticism – The ability to perform athletic movements, run, jump and throw at optimum speed and technical proficiency with precision, style and grace.

Athletic Development is based “function based” principles:

• Train movements not muscles
• Train fundamental movement skills before sport specific skills
• Train postural (core) strength before extremity strength
• Train body weight before external resistance
• Train joint integrity before joint mobility
• Train strength before strength endurance
• Train speed before speed endurance