TPM #296: Long Term Athletic Performance Strategies for Parents and Coaches
Focus on sports specialization has created a massive gap in foundational movement skills. One of the best shows us how to overcome in helping children be healthier.
Way back when I was teaching young ones, I vividly remember what was most popular during our time in the gym. While a few students always asked for floor hockey and basketball, and we had volleyball, badminton and soccer in the curriculum during the year, it was movement activities and games that got the kids the most excited and engaged.
As a young Physical Education teacher, I was surprised to see how well these movement games went over. My childhood was dominated by street hockey, touch football at the park, wiffle ball, and of course ice hockey on the outdoor rink. When I really thought about it, I did have fond memories of tag games, and hide and seek from the neighborhood. I did not remember our elementary gym classes having the type of movement games I taught.
Fast forward to 2025, and you will find many youth not able to do a proper push up. Their running efficiency does not look right, and changing directions looks clunky and awkward. When you add this to their conditioning/cardiovascular being poor, the situation is bleak.
Structured play and movement activities are how we develop durable, resilient athletes.
In a world of hyper-specialized youth sports (and way less free play), we’re seeing a major gap in foundational movement skills. Kids aren’t climbing, sprinting, or jumping like they used to—and it’s showing in their athletic development. Back in the day those activities were outside and in daily gym class. Both of those opportunities have been removed or reduced.
Coaches like Jeremy Frisch are leading the way with movement-rich, play-based training.
His approach?
Opportunities for…
Sprinting, jumping, landing, and changing direction
Building kinesthetic awareness (aka body control)
Strength, balance & resistance—through PLAY
Who is Jeremy Frisch and why should we apply his lead and teachings?
He is the owner and director of Achieve Performance Training in Clinton, Massachusetts.
Although he trains people of all ages and abilities, his main focus is on youth athletic development, physical education, and physical literacy. He is the former assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Holy Cross athletic department. While there, he worked directly with the Crusader men's basketball team, in addition to serving as the strength coach for Holy Cross' men's soccer, men's and women's lacrosse, baseball, softball, field hockey, tennis and women's track & field squads.
Frisch is a 2007 graduate of Worcester State College with a bachelor's degree in health science and physical education.
Frisch is a great example of the new age coach and teacher focused on physical literacy as a building block for long term athletic development. His work has become a necessity with the removal of daily physical education from the school curriculum.
A great summary of his philosophy from his social media page:
Parents and coaches of youth athletes ...
Before worrying about sport specific lessons, a speed training coach or an organized strength and conditioning program take a quick assessment and figure out...can my young athlete do these things:
Can you skip in a straight line and in multiple directions?
Can you backpedal?
Can you crawl 20 yds under control with hips low?
Can you crab hold for 30 sec?
Can you hop forward/back and side to side on both without putting the other foot down?
Can you hang from a bar for more than 30 sec?
Can you balance on one leg for 30 sec?
Can you stand on one leg and touch the ground without falling over?
Can you jump and land without collapsing?
Can you take 10 big steps forward (a lunge) with falling over?
Can you front shoulder roll, cartwheel, or somersault?
All these are simply basic movements that set the foundation to be able to learn more complex athletic/sports specific skills. Youth athletes should be exposed to basic movements early and often and ultimately mastered before attempting to move on to high performance training.
While the focus in our society is youth sport, research gives us a reminder of what is critical in the development of healthy children:
The below is a feature on Jeremy’s program and you get to see him in action. Much of the discussion is about the business of running this kind of facility, but there are some great nuggets in seeing the kids in action.
Additional resources.
By sharing the teachings from a coach like Frisch, we can then search out those close to home with similar opportunities. They do exist, but if we don’t have criteria of what we want our kids to learn, then we tend to group all development coaches in 1 bucket. They are not all the same. This approach is exceptional, and unfortunately not common enough.
If your having a hard time finding that outlet and are a do-it- yourself, knowledge is power!
A link to a master class in youth athletic development with Jeremy is below , you can get more info. For $49, it is very reasonable for anyone interested in learning and applying these concepts.
https://athletesacceleration.com/youth-trainingmc
Happy Sunday and let’s keep moving!