There’s something that I need to put down in writing that’s been bugging me for months (maybe years) and it’s a narrative circulated by many (uninformed) people that don’t have the first clue. As you probably guessed, I’m talking about the "Kids these days are soft" BS. A claim that has been having a run for years, and frankly it’s annoying to hear. In an era when kids face more challenges than ever. The idea that today’s youth are somehow "softer" than previous generations is not just outdated, it's just plain wrong.
 
I would argue kids today are actually tougher than ever before. There may be an exception here or there, as there usually is. The notion that kids are somehow lacking in resilience doesn’t hold up when we consider the things they face today. Consider just this, the infinite judging from others on the internet. Social media means that every action, every mistake, is under a microscope from their peers. Imagine having your every move critiqued publicly—at a time when your identity and emotions are still developing. This constant exposure is draining for adults, never mind a developing young person.
 
From my experience, some of these youngsters have better emotional maturity than I (and many of us) did at their age. They can have chat with me and ask me for a day off, granted the world itself has shifted to that being a normal thing, still it does take some sort of emotional strength to conjure that. It’s never been about suffering in silence and just dealing with it, that ends poorly the vast majority of the time, so these kids are learning that’s not the answer and taking action to go with it, kudos to them.
 
When we think of other things our young people have the pressures of many of us did not when growing up, think about college (university to my friends beyond North America). It’s no longer an amazing achievement to get into and finish college, the expectations are to get into THE BEST and only THE BEST (see Operation Varsity Blues for some proof of that). These expectations are beyond what many of us ever experienced and this ever-growing pursuit of perfection that society (and yes parents) puts on them does not make things any easier.
 
Final point, most people that are babbling this manure about youngsters not being tough or resilience have not spent any significant time around them (apart from MAYBE their own offspring). I would challenge anyone to speak to a high schooler on a daily basis for a few months and not be baffled at the crap they have to go through.
 
That's all for today folks. Thanks for reading today, not totally about coaching this one, but not not about coaching either. Back again soon with more goods. Have a day friends and Happy Thanksiving to all here in the U.S.

A few weeks ago, Core Collective hosted an amazing 2-day Seminar. Yes, I was both lucky enough to attend and be there as someone that was a speaker. Let me tell you, this being my first speaking engagement of note…I was nearly shitting bricks.
 
Now, many might say, well you give talks all the time when you’re coaching, the high school specifically. Yes, those are all young minds that are listening to someone that’s “an authority”, already at an advantage there. This was a bunch of people paying good money to hear people speak on topics they wanted to learn about. Naturally though, I stuck to my wheelhouse, coaching young athletes. While I don’t have a degree in child psychology or anything of the sort, I do have 10 years of working with the population. That alone has given me insights on what works well and what tends to fall flat on its face (having done some of the latter myself). Made it a lot easier to get into it for both putting together the presentation and feeling at ease once I started.
 

Still, I was nervous as hell. I did have tons of support from friends and the Core Collective fam (Gabby, Izz, Tay, thanks!). Much to my surprise there were questions, folks were taking pictures and some head nods. Maybe I was only saying things that felt like common sense, but still means I was making sense at least.
 
Seminars and conferences are always a great place to bump into like-minded people that you can learn a thing or two. I felt like I was fortunate enough to be the one giving out some of the content for once. Certainly am looking forward to the next one and refining things after this one (hint hint to anyone out there).
 
I firmly believe we should be willing to do that hard things and push our limits. It sure does help when you have supporting people around you. Thank you to those that gave me the confidence to go through with it to the best of my ability. Last, but not least, thanks to the other awesome speakers I had the pleasure of sharing the day with so many great ones I could list them all, but it'd be better if you just asked me about them.
 
That is all for today fam, hope you all have yourself a day and thanks for reading!

I’ve been doing what I do for more than a decade and the large majority of that has been independent. With that, I’ve seen my fair share of athletes, either those that walk in looking for help or those from my high school team putting in the work to get the edge on the pitch. In my experience, there are three things that can make you a better athlete going from 0 (doing nothing or minimal) to 1 and get on the path to improving as a competitor.
 
1 Explosiveness (sprints, plyos, power)- Whatever term you wish to put to this, you need it to be more athletic. Getting from A to B quickly has a ton to do with this. Good athletes can get from A to B quickly, or at least quicker than they used to be able to. Being able to do the A to B thing quickly, means you need to get to your fastest, as quickly as you can. So, you need to have good accelerators. The basics for this start with;
 
Jumps (2 legged)
Medball work
Hops (1 Legged)
Sprints
 
2 Train legs (single legs especially)- The shift away from mirror muscles in youth athlete training has come a long way, BUT there’s still plenty of way to go. Of course, you need a strong upper body to be a good athlete. Any coach out there will still tell you if you had to pick which half makes the bigger difference, it's your legs. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen folks assume someone won't be a good player because they 'appear' nonathletic (looking skinny, maybe has a gut) then they torch everyone out there. Folks didn't bother to take a gander at the tree trunks these people were sporting on the bottom half.

Get your squats and deadlifts in kids and you need, yes NEED, to do single leg variations of these too. Whether that’s a pistol squat or a simple split squat, a BB 1-leg RDL or a 1-leg bridge, it needs to be trained (and progressed) properly. Oh, and train that power stuff I mentioned above on one leg too.
 
The most common single leg variations that are trained with athletes for me are;
Bulgarian (RFE) Split Squats
Landmine 1-Leg RDL or BB 1-Leg RDL.
 
3 Train Lateral (Transverse) Plane-
 
It’s a plane not addressed enough (even with the wealth of knowledge and evidence out there), especially for athletes. Lateral strength will translate to better change of direction and less injuries, show me where the downside is on that one. Being able to brake from top speed and turn quickly? Yeah, never going to need that ever in sports…wait.

Oh yes, power should be trained in the plane too.
 
No need to complicate it either;
Lateral Lunges
Curtsy Lunges
Lateral Sled drags
Lateral Hops
 
Of course, all of the movements I named are baseline (with some exceptions) and should be progressed or/and tweaked as the situation evolves. These three things will make you a better athlete or more athletic if that's all you're looking for as well.

That is what I have for you all today fam. Appreciate the time and thanks for reading. Feel free to reach out with questions or further discussion.