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Sports Specialization: The Truth About Single-Sport Focus for Young Athletes
Youth sports specialization can be beneficial when managed properly; it offers advantages like reduced stress and better development. The key lies in age-appropriate training, focus on development, and allowing athletes to lead.
Prepare to Create Opportunities
Picking your spot is identifying when your opponent is weak or slightly off their game. This can happen for a split second. A goalie drops to the butterfly too fast exposing the top of the net. A defensive player slides too early leaving his zone exposed. These create open windows that can be jumped through if we are able to recognize them
Creating 1:1 advantages as the Attacker
Hockey and lacrosse are becoming sports based on speed and skill. New rules are encouraging players to be more creative than ever before. This is leading to more opportunities to beat defenders 1:1. Gone are the days of dumping the puck in at the blue line – toe drags are welcome.
Not playing much? Here’s how to thrive in a depth position
One of the most challenging positions to be in is coming off the bench and playing a limited number of minutes. Depending on the sport this can look different. In baseball and football there are specific roles such as relief pitchers and kickers. In hockey and lacrosse it is depth roles giving skill players a rest for a few shifts. Either way the role is challenging for a few reasons.
3 Strategies to Building Confidence in Players as a Coach
Confidence is an important part to the performance of your team. Teams playing with confidence have a higher probability of winning, quicker bounce backs from losses and are much easier to coach.
The same is true for the individual players. The more confident in their ability to get the job done, the more you will be able to get out of them as a coach.
3 Approaches to Use When Your Child is Getting Little Playing Time
We all want our children to play the biggest role within the team. Getting into the game as much as possible or we will settle for everyone getting even playing time. At the youth levels of sports where the outcome is irrelevant these wishes are reasonable. This is because it is less about winning than it is about learning the game.
This is not the case when the games start to matter.