Tuesday, September 19, 2006

These guys are gonna be great! - Starting with young athletes


Here are some of the 13 yr olds in the basketball team that i coach. They are flexing after a physical training session.
They did:

  1. 150 incline chinups
  2. 200 pushups
  3. 5 court lengths of lunge walks
  4. 5 court lengths of standing broad jumps
Why?
Pushups = upper body pushing,
chinups = upper body pulling,
the lunges are single leg strenght and stability and the standing broad jumps are double leg strength.
(they have to decelerate each jump perfectly and this eccentric contraction is good for tendon strength and deceleration technique which prevents injury.

This year in our under 14yrs tournament we had 0 serious injuries (more than 3 weeks out of action) 1 sparined ankle (minor, out 2 weeks). thats with about 20 guys training 3-4 hours 3-4 times a week for 5 months. and with about 18 games. (1 injury per 6-7 THOUSAND man hours of activity... yes some is good fortune, but training tends to manufacture fortune doesnt it!) We make it to the top 8 out of 140 teams. Not bad... but we are going for more next year!:)

These guys are starting really young. At their age i was a FATTY. The younger the better. I am REALLY interested in youth athelteic development. Its the foundation of greatness.

posted by Coach Jonathan Wong @ 9/19/2006 11:10:00 PM Comments: 0