Athleticism and Toaster Repairmen…

August 6, 2014

By King Hoover

Coaches and Parents- Across the last few messages, we’ve discovered more and more about the intangible-but priceless- benefits of sport training for our youth. We’ve also seen ‘behind the curtain’ as to how those benefits accrue over time, what we do to increase them- and what we do to cause them to cease. The one fact that stands out a little ‘taller’ than the rest is how more time in Sport allows an athlete to continue to develop. Where the confusion lies is that many people believe that ‘only more time in a particular sport’ allows for this continued development, whereas the latest data demonstrates the flaw in that approach. By age 6 the human nervous system has fully formed and the first important stage of sport (or play) begins. Coordination, a very complex interaction of movement and information processing is occurring. Spatial Awareness, Rhythm, Reactivity to Auditory and Visual Cues, Balance, etc… all of these contribute to an athlete’s Coordination. The key is to expose your athletes in this period to more and more differing activities to challenge these separate qualities to their fullest extent. I’ve always been fascinated by those guys who had a passionate Mechanical Inclination. You know the ones, they rebuild cars from the frame up, do repairs on their own homes and have every tool imaginable in their garage. How did they get ‘good’ at ‘fixing and building stuff’? They were exposed to the opportunity to ‘fix a lot of different stuff’ often and over time, developed the skill. Your athlete is the same, if you only ever want them to be able to fix Toasters- put only Toasters in front of them during this critical period of development and, Presto! Toaster Repairman…or maybe you’d like them to master other things. I’ll bet you would too… (No offence intended to the Toaster Repairmen that may be reading this message) While his appearance and interview on HBO's Real Sports was controversial with some, he was named one of the Top 40 Most Influential People by the NFL (and the ONLY Doctor on the list). His client list reads like a list of Candidates for the Hall of Fame in their sports, the very best in Football, Baseball, Basketball and more. Consequently, Dr. James Andrews offers some expert insights as to how we can create the very best opportunities for our athletes. You can read his article at: http://www.cleveland.com/dman/index.ssf/2013/02/noted_surgeon_dr_james_andrews.html You may or may not agree with everything he say here, but no one can say "he doesn't know what he's talking about." I look forward to getting your feedback and questions about the material. Athletically yours, King Hoover- Transforming Athletics 605B East Renfro Burleson Texas 817-320-1161 www.transformingathletics.com p.s. If you feel your athlete has made substantial progress during their time in our program, please consider telling other coaches and parents about us. This allows us to keep our rates low and focus on what is most important- creating and applying the BEST approaches for improving your athletes. Thank you in advance for your kind referral. k