Throughout the journey of playing sports, athletes often focus on the outcome instead of focusing on what inspired them to begin the journey in the first place. Winning a championship is incredible, but is it really more important than the joy, thrill, and flood of emotions that accompany us on the ride to winning that all-important game?
Collectively, our approach is to guide these young athletes in their pursuit of greatness. A major part of achieving greatness is finding pleasure ‘in’ movement. So, where does this begin? Our point of departure is looking at physical literacy. Will Roberts, who is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise at the University of Gloucestershire, nicely captured the holistic nature of physical literacy. “It’s more holistic than just the physical. It’s more about how people become confident, motivated, and have the knowledge to become more physically active.” Physical development is vitally important and must be considered, but social, emotional, cognitive, and perceptual qualities are equally important.
We strive to create environments that allow for the interconnectedness of these qualities to flourish. In our experience, we’ve found that when athletes are challenged in numerous ways, they build a solid foundation for later in life. Life and sport are about interactions. Here are a couple of examples.
As coaches, we are a vital part of the learning journey. Generally, this is reduced to how we influence physical development. However, we are part of a larger 'system' in which the individual finds a 'fit' within the world around them. They are just as deeply social as they are related to abilities (Rietveld & Kiverstein, 2014; Van Dijk & Rietveld, 2017). As coaches or guides, we are involved in a perpetual process!
Here are a few reasons young athletes benefit from exposure to a holistic approach to training.
- Reduces the risk of strain, overuse, and likelihood of injury
- It reduces stress levels related to specific training & participation in competitions
- A sense of fun is added to the sessions, which helps with motivational levels
- The opportunity to communicate to collectively solve a task is designed in
- Appreciates the individual-environment relationship
- Purpose, meaning, and intention beyond the movement itself (Lambert, K., 2020)
Finally, one of our main goals is that of health and well-being. If we let movement, which is deeply intertwined with the world around us, serve as the platform for growth, then our willingness to spend countless hours pursuing our dream seems easy.
Tyler Yearby, M.Ed., CSCS
Director of Athlete Learning, Starters Sports Training
For more reading:
Lambert, K. (2020) Re-conceptualizing embodied pedagogies in physical education by creating pre-text vignettes to trigger pleasure ‘in’ movement, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 25:2, 154-173.
Rietveld, E. & Kiverstein, J. (2014) A Rich Landscape of Affordances, Ecological Psychology, 26:4, 325-352.
Van Dijk, L. & Rietveld, E. (2017) Foregrounding Sociomaterial Practice in Our Understanding of Affordances: The Skilled Intentionality Framework. Frontiers Psychology.