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With a blog dedicated to the youth female athlete last week, we thought we’d back it up with a simple infographic outlining some key considerations during a potentially challenging time in any young athletes long term development journey. Building a solid foundation of movement, stability, and control within varied athletic positions and tasks is absolutely […]

Sleep is probably one of the least talked about recovery strategies. If you think about it, it requires minimal effort to employ yet it can really be such a useful tool to use in aiding recovery and therefore supplementing performance. It’s a topic that we discuss on our youth development program and the young athletes

As a parent, one of the little wins in life will be when your child transitions from polyphasic sleep (aka waking you up multiple times), to a more monophasic (waking you up just the once) sleep pattern. This is one of many examples as to how sleep is a different beast for youth and adolescent

Speed kills.  Whether we are talking crossing the finish line for the marathon, getting to the ball first, or landing a punch quicker than your opponent…there isn’t a sport where being faster doesn’t provide some form of advantage. But what exactly is speed and how do you improve it? Speed is defined as the rate

Peak height velocity (PHV) describes the most accelerated growth spurt a child experiences. In this blog you will learn: The implications of PHV on injury risk, coordination and your child\’s athletic development How your child\’s workload should be adapted when they go through their most accelerated growth spurt Practical take-homes for managing your child’s athletic

Meet 13 (nearly 14) yr old Freddie. Freddie plays cricket and currently represents Truro U13s and U15s, as well as the clubs adult 3rds/4ths teams. He’s also a regular for the county too! Aside from checking his hair regularly, playing the piano is a spare time passion of his. Jokes aside, Freddie is a fantastic

Unique Benefit 1-Enhancing the Kinetic Chain  The human body is not a random assortment of isolated parts, but rather a wonderful interconnection of several subsystems. We were not put together like Frankenstein’s monster and for the most part should not train athletes this way. The human body is a series of linked systems that can be

Plyometrics are the social media of the modern world. You may have heard of plyometrics… But you might be confused or unaware of their actual purpose. By the end of this blog you will know: ·       The benefits of plyometric training for the youth athlete ·       Some key guidelines for how to perform them ·      

Prior to my arrival, the pupils at the all-girls school I work at had no experience of a structured strength and conditioning program, so these lessons are as much my reflections on my first year leading the strength and conditioning program at Downe House school as they are about doing this in the context of

For two and a half years now, we have been running our successful youth athlete program, “Child to Champion”(). Over 60 young people from varied sporting and non-sporting backgrounds have been able to develop themselves physically and mentally on our programme and as a result, they perform at a higher level.  What changes have we