Every quarter we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In this edition we look at the latest research on what artificial intelligence means for elite sport, optimizing practice environments, velocity based training, parkour for athletic development, and much more.
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If running is a natural movement, then how come so many adults have poor running mechanics? Children can only develop skills in activities that they do, and therefore coaches and parents have to help them find the right activities that will nudge them in the right direction. On this week’s GAINcast, James Marshall joins us to share his approach to coaching speed for children, as well as the role of testing in PE and youth athletics, ground-based agility, and details on his upcoming GAIN PE courses.
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When it comes to mobility, Kelly Starrett is the man. The topic was almost taboo when he starting teaching the CrossFit community about it. Now he’s working with elite athletes and teams in nearly every sport around the world. On this week’s podcast he joins us to talk about how we need to reframe the conversation around mobility and rethink youth development.
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There is a tendency within the education and scientific world to measure things. We benchmark things or test things, create an intervention, and then measure again to see if progress has been made. As the human body is immensely complex, we can’t measure everything, so this process requires us to isolate and reduce to simple measurements. What starts out as in innocent project can quickly become a dogmatic approach to training or education, where we “teach to the test” and lose sight of what our original aim was. Read more
We all know less can be more, but doing less is hard. We all hate to be out worked. Coach Tony Holler came to track and field coaching as an outsider and stumbled upon the benefits of minimalist training. On this week’s GAINcast he joins us to talk about how his training program came about, how it is put together, and additional thoughts on training speed. Read more
Let’s look at where we have been over the past seventy years. What has changed? Society has changed immensely; youth sport has become commercialized. There is no longer mandatory physical education in the schools. Then and now child development does not follow a neat linear progression, so-called windows of opportunity for development of various physical is a myth, sport development is all over the place, youth phenoms rarely turn out to be senior champions. Read more
Our mailbag is full, so it’s time to go through some listener questions about a variety of topics. On this week’s episode we dive into questions on the barbell, peaking, explicit coaching, throwing technique, and how much strength is enough. Read more
Sometimes we take training young athletes for granted. Give them almost anything and they will see some initial growth, but true long-term development requires a more thoughtful process. This month on HMMR Media we explored training the young athlete. Through 3 new videos, 4 podcasts, and 4 articles from 11 world class coaches we explored examples of training methods, long-term athlete development, key issues facing youth athletics, as well as ideas on how these concepts can be transferred to older athletes as well. Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about progressions lately. This month’s site theme is the young athlete, and that goes hand in hand with progressions. I’ll also be moderating a panel discussion on the topic at GAIN in two weeks. As a result I’ve got a bunch of random ideas floating around in my head on the topic. The following is not a set of answers on how to progress the athlete, but rather a compilation of things I am thinking about. Read more
We can complain about it as much as we want, but the decline of physical education and the rise of early sports specialization are trends that are here to stay. We might not be able to change the system, but we can still actively work to help athletes at an individual level. Jeremy Frisch has taken that challenge upon himself to reinvent training for the kids he is working with by bringing in varied influences from physical education, speed training, motor learning, strength and conditioning, and more. What is even better is that he is sharing his experiments with the world on social media. He joins this week’s episode to discuss where his approach came from and how it has evolved. Read more
