Today’s episode features founder of Achieve Performance, Jeremy Frisch, and guest co-host, Tommy John.  Both of these individuals are making a big difference in not only the world of youth sports, but also in teaching the importance of global human movement skills, as well as in bringing the importance of movement as a necessary and healing force to the general population.

Jeremy Frisch has been a past guest on episodes 100 and 134, and Tommy John has been a guest on 101 and 139.   These two guys both have a passion for redeeming what our sports industry has become in regards to not only sky-rocketing injuries, but also restoring the core of what it means to be a kid, an athlete, and a human being, which is creativity, play, and free movement, before external parameters, competition, stress and judgment are all added through early specialization and over-coaching.

We spend a lot of time zooming in on things like sets, reps, exercise modalities and training blocks.  At the end of the day, these factors are important, but the long term process by which athletes are facilitated, and the joy that happens when this is done correctly, is an area of our industry that truly demands our focus and attention.  Knowing how to progress youth athletes, and also how to integrate sport coaching with physical preparation on all levels of performance helps us all become more aware and well-rounded in our coaching process.

On today’s show, Jeremy, Tommy and I discuss changes in coaching emphasis from youth through adult, the importance of a thorough warmup that covers a variety of movement skills, how Jeremy’s experience as a youth sport coach has helped his process and integration in physical preparation, the importance and relevance of free play for children vs. organized coaching, and much more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

 View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

How perception of watching adult athletes changes when you have experience watching children learn and play

How moving non-injured body parts and joints is critical in the process of injury and recovery

How coaching changes from working from youth to high school, to adult trainees

How to structure a warmup to provide a powerful strength and movement stimulus, as why this is the most important part of the total workout in many cases

Jeremy’s experiences as a youth sport coach (e.g. football, baseball, tennis), how he incorporates physical preparation methods, and how this work has impacted his physical preparation coaching

The reasons that un-structured play is superior to organized sports for athletic (and personal) development in children

Why pickup basketball is crucial for creative development in basketball players, even if it seems like a “lazy” pace

Is it possible to build skills later in life if a kid missed the window of development early on

“When we were kids, when we got hurt, what did we do? As quick as we could we got back outside trying to play… it’s like we knew intuitively that moving around makes you heal”

“When he got done squatting, when they took the cast off his arm, his arm had more muscle on it than when he started… he did 20 rep breathing squats and that… like 3x a week (being unable to train his arms in that time period)”

“The majority of young athletes coming in, their feet are shot, and if their feet are shot, their hips are going to be shot”

“When you start with a  kid, the change from play to more organized stuff starts when he or she is ready… I’ve had kids who are just studs physically, are they are the most immature kids in the whole world, so I pulled them back because if I tried to organized things to much, they shut down and they don’t come back.”

“For ages 13,14,15 it’s more technical based, for ages 16-19 we are cleaning,