BEST Youth Athlete Speed, Agility and Strength Training in the United States

16 Jan BEST Youth Athlete Speed, Agility and Strength Training in the United States

Sports parents: beware of nonsense training for youth athletes.

Seriously, BEWARE.

There’s a lot of bs out there that looks flashy and will make you “ooh” and “ahh.” Like a kid attached to a resistance band while icky shuffling through a ladder, then jumping over a cacophony of hurdles and tap dancing through rings. Or a girl attached to a band with a soccer ball at her feet, while she is half-assed dribbling through cones. She’s. Not. Even. Going. Fast.

This is bs because there is no focused adaptation from these drills. It’s usually sloppy, feet are clunky, and landing mechanics end up being piss poor. There’s no precision.

It’s also predictable. The kid knows where they are going. This isn’t agility. It’s robot training. It’s actually making your kid slower and weak. Not to mention, causing painful overuse to their muscles, bones, and joints.

Too, proper deceleration training must start with no equipment to teach proper postures and positions so they can land well without falling over. We want them to learn to recruit the glutes and muscles surrounding the knee, taking the load off of the knee joint when they land from any jump.

Once mastered, then we add in the box.

For box jumps to even train proper deceleration mechanics, shoulders must be stacked on top of feet, chest up and eyes forward, with hips low and slight knee bend:

But sadly, most box jumps on social media are piss poor – kids are rounding their backs and falling over when they land. Their weight is on their toes, and it’s adding more stress on their knee joint, without recruiting the quads, glutes and hamstrings to fire.

And no, a 24″ box jump for my high school girl above is not appropriate for your under 10 year old, nor is a high depth jump off of a box. And don’t get me started on vertimax where they’re doing a vertical jump attached to resisted cables. Please, make it STOP.

Performance adaptations for kids under 10 are driven by neural factors. They don’t develop true strength and power until they have finished growing and are in high school. When they’re older, adaptations are driven by muscular hypertrophy, strength and power. So any banded jumps, cable sprints, or heavy loads are not appropriate for the younger ones, and don’t even serve any physiological benefit.

We need to make training appropriate for where a kid is at. Just like we wouldn’t skip basic math and have an 8-year-old do calculus right away.

Kids must learn control of their own bodies first, and build coordination, balance, stability, and rhythm to be able to express the more advanced plyometric and strength movements later on in their development.

Don’t. Skip. Steps.

Too, any trainer that has a circus of equipment with random movements is duping you. “When you end up chasing too many rabbits, you end up catching none,” as the old saying goes. Each drill or fun game should be set up to get a specific adaptation, whether it’s focused deceleration training, or helping kids improve their spatial awareness and reactive ability.

The truth is, the more rehearsed and complex the drill, the less true athletic development is happening.

Youth training should focus on fundamentals of movement, through play-based speed and agility pre puberty first, and then progress to harder plyometric/deceleration drills, loaded strength training and power development in the gym in high school and beyond.

Some red flags:
– Complicated, flashy training for young children
– “Agility” that is rehearsed and a kid running through cones with the coach over instructing and telling them where to go
– 8 year olds doing exact same movements and loads as 16 year olds
– Drop-in sessions being allowed
– Kids falling over during jump and landing drills and not being corrected on their technique
– A trainer saying “good job” aka NOT COACHING as a teenage girl has knees caving in during jumps and is clearly struggling.
– A trainer sitting while the athlete is working out
– No individual programs for middle and high school girls, instead they all do a general whiteboard workout that is a circuit of random exercises
– No tracking of strength and loads lifted for middle/high school athletes

Some green lights that are quality youth training:
– Simple and fundamental focused
– Exercise selection, load, and dosing (sets/reps) based on age, exercise history, injury history/injury status, and individual biomechanics, in-season vs. off-season
– Kids under 12: more play based games for speed/agility (tag, racing, mirror, and small sided games, crawling, climbing, Tug of War, handball)
– Kids older than 12 (progressed strength training, and data-driven speed training, more advanced plyometric progressions like box jumps, bounds, medium tier plyos)
– Monthly memberships that require consistency (true speed and strength development only happen with consistency, NOT a drop-in session for all but once a month)

All of my athletes here in Tampa Florida I see weekly. And many have trained with me for several months, some for YEARS. And they thrive and stay healthy because I can actually COACH them and progress their programs.

Obviously I can’t work with everyone, which is why I wrote this blog.

I want parents to find someone in their area who knows what the hell they’re doing with youth athletes.

If you don’t train with me, at least I know your kid is under great care with someone else.

So here’s my list of the BEST youth speed, agility and strength coaches across the country. No fluff. No nonsense.

Only true long-term athletic development under a safe, progressed pathway, and people who have coached youth for DECADES:

Lee Taft – North Port Florida
Mike Boyle – Boston Mass
Dave Gleason – Pembroke Mass
Ernest Osias – Charlotte NC
Jeremy Frisch – Clinton Mass
Emily Neff – Hatfield PA
Joel Smith – Cincinnati Ohio
Heather Clapacs – Avon Ohio
Zak Woodward – Denver Colorado
Mark Shropshire – Longmont Colorado
Cody Hughes and Brian Kula – Nashville Tennessee
Coach Oriana – Tuscaloosa Alabama
Ray Zingler – Marietta GA
Tony Villani – Fort Lauderdale FL
Joe Aratari – Rochester NY
Austin Jochum – St Paul Minnesota
Brendan Thompson – St Louis MO
Mike Robertson – Indianapolis IN
Mike Whiteman – Pittsburgh, PA
Coach Joe Hos – Newtown PA
Jeff Moyer – Bethel Park PA
Jessica Burke – Chicago IL
Tony Holler – Arlington Heights IL
Johnny Tea – Los Angeles CA
Les Spellman – San Diego CA
Matt Tennie – Northport NY
Gerry DeFillipo – Wayne NJ
Carmen Bott – Vancouver Canada
Daniel Back – Austin TX
Missy Mitchell-McBeth – Dallas TX
Scotty Smith – Green Bay WI
Cynthia Monteleone – Maui, Hawaii
Rachel Nuzzolese Soccer by Rachel – Columbia MD
Healthy Baller Gym – Fairfax VA and Rockville MD locations

I know I forgot a handful, but as I remember some folks, I’ll add to the list.

So keep checking back for your area. 🙂

IMPORTANT:

Watch this podcast below on why strength is more important for LIFE, than your kid going pro. After all, sports will end one day and kids must learn when they’re older how to stay healthy, fit and strong:

Additionally, if I’m going to mention the best practioners out there, I need to also shout out the best researchers, too. Because the best youth speed and strength coaches apply the science on performance and injury reduction for kids. 

Below is a list of academics who have committed their research to proper training and injury reduction for strong, healthy kids:

Dr. Tim Gabbett
Dr. Joe Esienmann
Dr. Rick Howard
Dr. Tony Moreno
Dr. Avery Faigenbaum
Dr. Sean Cumming
Dr. Jayanthi
Dr. Tim Hewett

Parents, please, follow the right people who are doing quality research, as well as hire the coaches who are putting the research into practice.

Don’t hire a trainer based on their following or flashy nonsense on social.

In fact, the more simple and less viral training for kids looks, the better.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erica Mulholland is a former college 3x All-American soccer player and now Hall of Famer from Johns Hopkins University. She holds a Master of Science in Exercise Science and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, who has been helping female athletes of all sports with speed, agility, strength, power, and conditioning for 14 years. She works with youth female athletes who want to become stronger and faster, as well as ACL rehab for female athletes in the later stages (over 3 month mark post-surgery) who want to return to sport better than they were prior to injury. She offer training in Lutz, Florida.

Work with Erica in Tampa and Lutz Florida for speed, agility, and strength training, OR late stage ACL rehab (must be at minimum 3 months into physical therapy and post-surgery): BOOK ASSESSMENT HERE

Interested in REMOTE TRAINING for Female Athletes? BOOK A CONSULT HERE

Get Erica’s book FEMALE ATHLETE HIGH PERFORMANCE