Youth sport coaches have an incredibly complex and challenging role. The physical developmental changes that youth and adolescents go through can seemingly happen overnight. It is not surprising, therefore, that coaches spend most of their time thinking about how to help players with their physical skills. However, the significant developmental…

Helping athletes perform at their best is an ongoing challenge for coaches. It is essential that coaches prepare their athletes to cope with uncontrollable factors that affect performance that occur during game or event competition.

At the youth level, there is an ongoing debate between two paradigms concerning the development of athletic performance: early sport specialization vs. diversification. Early sport specialization (i.e., intense training in one specific sport) can lead to high-level performance, especially for sports that have a lower age at peak performance (e.g.,…

Sport coaches can agree that various levels of practice and play contribute significantly to the overall development of a young athlete. Coaches of young athletes need to also address issues related to strength and conditioning as part of the developmental cycle. Unfortunately, many sport coaches are not well trained in the science related to…

Soccer coaches must understand the principles of play if they want to succeed. The principles of play are the rules of action that support the basic objectives of soccer and the foundation of a soccer coaching strategy. They serve as a set of permanent criteria that coaches can use to evaluate the efforts of their team. In this article, the author…