How to Become a Great Player

Many parents want their kids to succeed in their sporting endeavors, and why wouldn’t they? Success in sports leads to happiness and popularity for their kid, helps them gain confidence, avoid ridicule, and could lead to better opportunities down the road. But have you ever stopped and thought about what actually makes a great player and how to get there? Too often, children blindly chase this idea of “greatness” without a solid plan or understanding of what they should be focusing on, putting in hours upon hours of work with no noticeable improvement in their play. In my experience, it’s because kids are typically trying to improve the wrong skill set.

To succeed in any sport, it requires a combination of three skills:

·       Sport-specific technical skills (hitting, fielding, dribbling, shooting, etc.)

·       Athletic/physical skills (speed, power, strength, conditioning, etc.)

·       Sport IQ/understanding (tactics, positioning, decision making, etc.)

Too often, athletes invest all their time into the first area, while neglecting or investing little effort into the other two, even though technical skills don’t matter without a solid athletic foundation and tactical understanding. How often do we see kids at the field kicking/throwing a ball around? Now compare that to how often you see kids sprinting, jumping, or playing tag-based invasion games all out, not very often, right? This has only been made worse by specializing early in one sport, where they no longer get the athletic development they desperately need from playing multiple sports.

The key to seeing consistent improvement in their play is to develop and master these three skills.

To maximize these skills, all three must be introduced at a young age so that a solid foundation can be built. Athletes get introduced to their sport-specific technical skills very early on, but hardly get introduced to any kind of focused athletic development training or sport IQ training at this same age. Here at Southern Maine Athlete Academy, we focus on helping children build this athletic foundation (just like their sport coach helps them build their technical skill foundation), so that they can maximize their development as a player.

If you want to give your child the athletic foundation they need to succeed in sports, you’re in luck! Simply explore our academy and sign up using the provided registration page to give your child the athletic foundation they need to maximize their development and help them succeed in their sporting endeavors.