Despite the prevalence of students with learning disabilities (LD), athletic coaches face challenges in recognizing and effectively supporting the needs of athletes with LD due to lack of professional development in this area. Sometimes referred to as a "hidden disability", LD is not easily perceived by teachers and coaches. Students…

This article presents a visualization tool adapted from rehabilitation exercise therapy as a means for coaches to organize and select activities to progress or regress the skill difficulty to match the needs and abilities of their athletes.

Highly successful athletes must learn how to optimize factors that facilitate flow and effectively manage factors that inhibit flow. This article explains what coaches can do to push the flow button and motivate athletes to have peak experiences and improved performance.

Given the stance of education-based sport entities (i.e., NFHS) that sport participation leads to leadership development, this article aims to provide coaches and practitioners several strategies to teach leadership skills anchored in principles from skill acquisition literature. The principles explored include (1) identification of skill…

Every great shooter in the game of basketball has one thing in common: a routine. To help increase basketball shooting accuracy, this article presents a series of progressive drills that any aspiring middle school basketball player can use to develop their own routine and improve their game.

Due to the significant growth of participants in sports around the world, this article aims to identify the effects of early specialization, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the professionals and people involved in athlete development, especially in the context of soccer. It describes the phases of Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD)…

Tackle football has the highest number of injuries in contact sports. Certain injuries in the head and neck may severely impact the player's physical, neurological, and physiological functionality, even sudden death, as well as the quality of their personal life in the long run. These injuries commonly occur during a collision when a defender is…

Expectations in sport cause many athletes to struggle with their performance. Athletes enter competitions with high expectations and when things don't go as planned, frustrations happen, and performance suffers. To improve performance and increase enjoyment, athletes need to learn to manage their expectations. This article uses golf science to…

Coaches play an important role in ensuring that safety measures, including proper helmet fit, are practiced in youth and high school football. If proper guidelines and safety checks are adhered to, helmets will function as they are intended for in injury prevention and protection. Studies have shown that approximately 84% of youth and high school…

Helping athletes become their best is a constant challenge for all coaches. Having a model or blueprint for teaching skills and correcting errors is essential for quality coaching. The article explores the concepts associated with deep, deliberate, purpose practice and presents a model for teaching sport skill that we call DP2.

This article is intended to assist those leading the sport-specific physical preparation of athletes by providing a progressive approach to staging warmups. The approach encourages consideration of the movement and physical demands of the sport and collaboration with technical coaches. The approach includes utilization of specific movement primers…

Teaching triple jump to middle and high school aged athletes might be challenging. This article discusses the basics of triple jump and how to best teach it. The authors suggest establishing a jumping foot first and then building on each phase of the jump: Beginning with the Hop phase, incorporating the Step phase next, and lastly, ending with the…

This article is a compilation of advice for young athletes. This guidance is based on years of research by experts in sports medicine, and strength and conditioning, as well as Olympic and NCAA professionals. By studying athletes who compete at advanced levels, experts can better identify what it takes to become a successful athlete. Since there…

This article examines the interaction between physiological arousal, negative emotions, and the athlete's performance. It describes how heart rate, physiological arousal, emotions, the sympathetic nervous system, and performance are interconnected and explains how warm-ups prepare athletes for optimal training and competition. The article also…

Too often coaches and parents push their children into specialization of sports in the hope their child will become an elite athlete; however, the journey to becoming an elite athlete is a complex one that requires a strong foundation both mentally and physically. It is important for the growth and development of a young athlete to have all the…