We know that many injuries happen during a phase of deceleration (IE, stopping yourself or slowing down in order to make a cut on the field, landing after jumping for a ball, at foot strike during a run, etc).

Or in the case of the title of this article, an injury happened when Spaceball One made the jump to Ludicrous speed and needed to slow down quickly once they realized they overshot Lonestar and his Winnebago (poor Lord Dark Helmet!).

Learning to stop yourself is a critical element in sports performance and, with everyone so concerned about trying to go faster, we often overlook this component of training.  Due to its importance, I tend to place deceleration training first in my program design.  While this is important for any athlete, I find this extremely important for youth athletes; who typically don’t have great mechanics on the field and a low level of strength to handle the forces that are placed upon them during competition.

Parents are always concerned about having their kids in the gym training for two main reasons:

1. The kids will get hurt, as lifting weights can be dangerous.
2. If the kids are lifting weights then they aren’t practicing or competing in their sport.  Which means they aren’t getting better.

Obviously both of these statements are inaccurate.  The first one was discussed in my article on resistance training for youth athletes, and the second was broken down when I talked about the Long-Term Athletic Development Model.

However, there are some other things that one must understand with regard to that second statement and training deceleration.  Mainly, the time in the weight room or offseason conditioning should be a time to learn how to appropriately move and perform the tasks that are required of you in competition.  When kids go out onto the field to play, there is not 50% or 75%.  There is only 100%.  They are all out, all the time.  Practicing at 100% is to fast of a pace to actually learn what is going on.  The weight room and offseason training is a wonderful opportunity to slow things down and allow kids the chance to actually learn how to do things right.  As they become more aware of the proper form and technique, you can begin to speed things up, until they are working at competition pace with great technique.

The two things I like athletes to learn right away are

1. How to land
2. How to stop themselves

How to land is taught by using low level plyometric exercises and working on sticking the landing.  Typically I’ll have the individual hold the landing position for a 2-3 count before repeating the jump.  The focus is not on how high the athlete jumps in this phase, but rather, on how proficiently they land – Is the landing soft?  Are the joints in good alignment?  How balanced do they look? – This should be performed both with bilateral and unilateral plyometrics and in vertical (up and down – think traditional jumps in place), horizontal (forward and backward) and lateral (side to side) planes.  I use low repetitions (4-6) so that fatigue does not compromise technique and the ability to understand how to land properly.  Remember, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent.  Only perfect practice makes perfect.” 

Learning to stop (decelerate) is taught on a 10-yrd field.  The athletes stand at the start line and run out to the 5-yard line and attempt to decelerate themselves by breaking down into an athletic position.  They then back pedal 5-yrds to the start line, and then re-accelerate forward through the finish line, which is 10-yrds ahead.  The key points to make are that the athletes need to first learn the mechanics of slowing down before just running through the drill.  The goal isn’t to just make kids tired and exhaust them, but rather to foster a learning environment, where they can develop useable skills.  To do this, I start by just having the athletes walk through the drill several times.  Each time we start to walk a little faster until we are at a jog.  Once the athletes can jog through the drill proficiently, we can begin to speed things up to real time and develop that skill in a more competitive environment.  I teach the athletes to decelerate themselves in this drill in a few different ways:

1. Breaking down to an athletic position
2. Breaking down to a position where one foot is slightly in front of the other (similar to a lunge position but the feet are slightly closer together).  Remember to work on this with both the dominant and non-dominant sides
3. Breaking down to a lateral position, in which case the athletes will lateral shuffle back to the start line (rather than back pedal) before turning and sprinting towards the 10-yrd finish line.  Again, remember to work on this with both sides

Putting it into practice

Putting these techniques into practice are not hard and should not be overly complicated.  Remember to have the athletes walk through the tasks slowly at first to learn and understand what is expected of them in each position.  Coach them through the movements and don’t just let them go through the motions, as this does nothing to enhance the developmental process.

Last week I had the opportunity to work with a group of junior high and high school lacrosse athletes (33 kids on the field and me!).  All were worked on were fundamentals.  We did some easy warm up and mobility exercises and then worked on basic bodyweight movements like squats, lunges, push ups, and planks (since we were on the field and not in the gym).  We then did some low-level plyometric exercises with a deceleration emphasis – squat jump to stick the landing and ice-skater hops with a landing stick.  We then finished with the 10-yrd deceleration drill.  You would be amazed at how many athletes had a hard time stopping themselves in a balanced position.  But, we slowed it down and walked through the drill several times to help improve their understanding of what was supposed to take place.  Things as simple as this can go a long way for sports coaches.  It doesn’t have to take a huge chunk of practice time.  You just need to be consistent and specific with a few of the drills and really ensure that the kids are learning them properly.  Teach deceleration first and reap the benefits.

The Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) Model is basically a set up guidelines for the preparation of athletes starting from a very young age all the way up to elite competition.

In a guest blog article a week ago, Strength Coach Carson Boddicker wrote about this model and broke down the tasks that apply to each age group.

I wanted to lie out each phase and give parents and coaches some specific bullet points to think about with regard to the development of their young athlete.

FUNdamentals

• Boys 6-9/Girls 6-8
• Emphasis on learning fundamental movement skills.
• Training and activities should be FUN and concentrate on the ABC’s (Agility, Balance and Coordination).
• There should be NO specialization in a specific sport and the children should be encouraged to participate in many different sports and activities in order to be well-rounded athletes in the future.
• There is a low emphasis on competition at this age, and a greater emphasis on learning the playing and learning the rules of the game.

Learn To Train

• Boys 9-12/Girls 8-11
• The emphasis in this stage is to learn basic sports skills (while the emphasis in the FUNdamental stage was to learn basic movement skills).
• Refrain from specializing in one single sport during this time period.
• Athletes should be forced to learn how to compete, and not learn how to win in this stage.  For that reason, focus the majority of the work on practice (60-70%) and a small amount of the work on actual competition (30-40%).
• Children should be encouraged to participate in general conditioning which may include endurance and flexibility work, as well as basic body weight exercises and movements.

Train To Train

• Boys 12-16/Girls 11-15
• Athletes start to develop more specific sports skills.
• Depending on where the athletes are in their maturation process, the emphasis on aerobic and strength training can be more of a focus in this phase.
• Athletes should focus on practices, which are specific to their sport 60% of the time and compete in the actual sport 40% of the time.
• Periodization should be used to help the athletes develop their sports-specific skills

Train To Compete

• Boys 16-18/Females 15-17
• Athletes may now choose to specialize in a specific sport.
• Training becomes a year round focus and should be individualized to the athletes needs, sport and position.
• Athletes are now proficient in basic movement patterns and sports-specific movement patterns and are now ready to try and use those movement patterns in intense competitive environments.
• Competition becomes more of a focus (60%) while training is geared more towards technical preparation (40%).
• Periodization becomes an important aspect of training and athletes should have various periods of down time, to allow for recovery from the competitive season and to focus on aspects of strength, power, work capacity and performance that may need refining.

Train To Win

• Males 19 and older/Females 18 and older
• This is the elite stage of development, where athletes are completely focused on sports preparation and competition.
• Periodization is critical in this stage to ensure the athletes development; however, breaks should be planned into the program to prevent injury or physical and mental burnout.

Conclusions

Hopefully the LTAD model gives you some things to think about with regard to your children or athletes.  I often wonder how many people are thinking about this model when they are coaching young kids.

The other day I saw a man coaching practice for a pee-wee football team.  The children where probably not older than the age of 7 (FUNdamentals stage) and he was teaching them some blocking drills and shouting at them.  He proceeded to then tell one of the kids how his blocking abilities where the “worst thing he had ever seen”.  I have two questions:

1. Who allowed this man to coach kids?
2. Even though he is probably the parent of one of the kids, what qualifies this man to be a coach?  Clearly he doesn’t understand the process lied out above, and clearly he should not be in charge of teaching kids about sports and competition.

Another thing I will say about this model is that parents and coaches need to realize that you can’t skip steps!  Each stage is built on the one before it.  If you have junior high or freshman athletes who have not learned basic fundamentals, have not developed basic sports skills, and have not developed an appropriate level of fitness, then they are not ready for the next level!  They can’t simply jump into the Train To Train phase because they are not ready for it.  So, they need to start with the basics and progress from there.

Finally, not every high school athlete is going to reach the elite status.  If your child or athlete does not have an interest in attaining sports mastery, you should not force it on them.  In the Train To Compete phase, when athletes are thinking about specializing in one sport, those who have no interest at moving onto the next level should remain in recreational sports and enjoy the level of fitness they have developed.  It is this level of fitness that they can carry with them through out their entire lives, remaining healthy and active.