I had dinner last night with Jim “Smitty” Smith of Diesel Crew and Mike Robertson. A mighty fine cow gave its life to sustain our bodies (my apologies to my vegan friends, but it was really good cow). I think I got ripped off after ordering the large filet (medium rare, of course) and then being served what looked like a nickel-sized, but perfectly cooked, transected psoas (geek check).
That’s not why I’m writing today. Conversation covered just about everything you can imagine. We even talked a bit of training (had to justify putting dinner on the business card). One of the topics was how we went about a needs analysis for an athlete.
Here’s a simple way to develop a needs analysis that will assist with determining your programming goals:
1. List all the possible physical characterists the athlete will need to participate in his sport (speed, power, agility, flexibility, strength, etc.)
2. Using a 1-10 scale, determine what would be the ideal representation of each physical characteristic. For instance, a “10″ for flexibility would be a gymnast. A “10″ for maximal strength may be a powerlifter. A “10″ for linear speed would be a sprinter…and so on.
3. Based on the sport in question and the position your athlete will play, determine the ideal score that describes optimal performance for that sport (this is a sport analysis). For instance, a linebacker doesn’t need a gymnast’s flexibility, but he doesn need some. For the sake of argument, let’s say a linebacker needs a 6 compared to a gymnast. Continue to score each characteristic to determine the ideal athlete in this sport.
4. Rate your athlete’s current abilities in each characteristic compared to the ideal for his sport and position.
5. The greater the difference between the ideal athlete and your athlete’s score determines how the athlete should be spending most of his training time. For instance, if the athlete score a 9 in linear speed but only needs a 7, then spending a large portion of training time is unnecessary as trying to improve linear speed will not improve performance and would also be very difficult to do. On the other hand, if the athlete scores a 4 on maximal strength and needs an 8, this would indicate that he should be spending adequate time in the weight room to bring up his strength.
Bill
You may or may not know that I sit on the Board of Directors of the International Youth Conditioning Association (www.iyca.org).
If you’ve got kids in athletics or work with kids in athletics and you’re not involved with the IYCA, it’s time to get involved.
My buddy and Executive Director of the IYCA, Brian Grasso, was recently featured in this week’s Newsweek. You can read a part of the article at the link below:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19114130/site/newsweek/page/0/
At minimum, every coach, teacher, or parent with athletic children should own a copy of Developmental Essentials: The Foundation Of Youth Conditioning and certainly every coach should be certified as a Youth Conditioning Specialist. You can read a sample of the text at the IYCA website as well.
Bill
P.S. My good friend Alwyn Cosgrove is celebrating his Rebirthday. If you’ve been holding off on getting his top-selling Afterburn, the Bodyweight Training DVD, or any of his martial arts training programs, now’s the time to get them. For the next 24 hours, you get free shipping anywhere in the world.
