Static stretching (defined has holding a stretch for at least 30 seconds) is not recommended for warm ups because it fatigues the muscles of the joint. It would take 30 minutes of rest for the muscles to recover. This is not a concern for the cool downs. If you have ever had physical therapy involving static stretching, then you would know from experience that static stretches fatigue.
I've done more yoga stuff as I get older. I'd call it dynamic. Depending on the instructor, we don't really hold poses. There's a lot of small and big movements that can be involved. And we are asked not to push beyond comfort zone—flexibility comes over time mindset.
@Timbuck, also the term "yoga" is a catch-all for lots of different styles. I've done some routines that are definitely more static and some that are dynamic. FWIW, I will do 11+ and my on the ball warmup followed by some quick yoga progressions with my 19Us on a Monday after a Sunday game to help them get loosened up before we go into our actual session for the day.
I think both static and dynamic have their merits. I base most of my knowledge off what I've seen pro's do - if they think its right with all their millions invested, then they probably know. Pros do a lot of static stretching but not necessarily RIGHT before a match/session. More so in the morning of, or hours before. Dynamic is more crucial once you get closer to 'game time'. Personally I prefer dynamic as the players will often stop to do their own static stretches in between. They know their body best. Also regarding PPP and ages, I coach 10 and 12 year olds (as well as 16) and I have a small scrimmage area set up upon arrival and no 'stretching warm up' but in the 5-7 minutes of kids slowly coming in and saying Hi, the players kinda goof around and get their bodies moving anyway. Taking shots and playing "last man standing" type games. Seems to work. I will say PPP has made it easier for me as a coach to deal with the excitement/energy/messing about because it gets the desire to scrimmage out the way - then they can focus on the technique parts later.
Based on our discussion I decided not to start with Play last night. The adjacent field has a coach who uses PPP, so I could easily observe PPP vs non-PPP. Both coaches were there early and set-up. I set-up a more drill-based warm-up. 5:30 PM start and my players were still milling around while the other field had already been playing for about 2-3 minutes (maybe more). So. It definitely looks better to have them up and going even before the scheduled practice start. Apart from how it looked to an outside observer, I think it was also more productive, fun, and educational for the players. Ten minutes into practice I was still getting players filtering in, which added a layer of disruption to our drill. Although, it'd be rare for us to still be in Play ten minutes into practice.
I think the play/practice/play structure is good. My issue with the new coaching courses is the accompanying "only ask questions" methodology being required. I've said it many times, we'll never catch up when our coaching plan is letting "Inverting the Pyramid" play out in real time. Thank the Scots for realizing you can offset the athletic advantages of your opponent by passing the ball and lets get on with it
Ran across an idea recently that intrigues me: Coaches are architects of the optimal learning environment, not conveyors of knowledge. Do we set-up a session that allows players to discover on their own? I would've said this was BS and too time inefficient. Maybe I'm softening my stance. Based on conversations with coaches who were in pro academies in Argentina, Brazil—questions only is not their experience. The opposite, they were told what to do at a young age and when they entered their later teen years were "rationale" introduced. PROBABLY very different because they were in a soccer watching culture to begin with.
yeah I think I see it a bit like teaching a kid to read. I'm not telling you everything I know, or everything there is to know. I'm giving you explicit instruction (letters, sounds, syntax/ball control,priciples of play, commonly used patterns for recurring situations) in some tools so that you can unlock the world for yourself.
It may seem like a bit of semantics, but imo coaches design the practice session to induce the movements that we want to train. (I use "movements" in the general sense that athlete development is focused on developing athletic movements.) If the planned activity is not working as intended, the coach adjusts the activity until he sees the desired movements. You could call that guided discovery, but really I think it is just the basic concept of athletic training, at least for complex team sports. Training someone to run the high hurdles is a lot simpler. But development coaches are conveyors of knowledge, but we are mentors, not lecturers. Coaches who aren't athletes themselves don't have any knowledge to pass on, while those that played soccer at the highest level have more knowledge to pass on than a casual player could ever absorb.
I'll tell you what. If you have players who have a feel for the game, it makes letting them "discover it on their own" a lot easier. Yesterday we had 12.5 players for our game. Three of my weaker players got a ton of time, but it was clear that they were lost. Movement, spacing, technical execution, it was all off, and when you have three players who are clearly not ready to play at the same level as the rest of the team, it puts everyone else off. Usually I can "hide" my weaker players so they have a chance to play and get experience without bringing the whole team down. We couldn't do that yesterday with the players we were missing and only one sub. It was frustrating.
@stphnsn I sense that you are seeing the training model as individuals learning the game. Training is more efficient if the coach uses group dynamics in a positive way to enhance group learning. In other words training a group is "a lot easier" if some of the group have "a feel for the game". When they successfully perform the desired movements, the coach reinforces and the rest of the group copies their example. Every group of individuals has players with different strengths and weaknesses--different ideas and ways of playing. Learning to adapt to others is an important part of learning teamwork. I believe in training the way you play and playing the way you train. That way there is no mental disconnect on game day.
How do you guys handle being your daughter's coach? Specifying "guys" and "daughter" because the dynamics can be different between boys and girls. But parents of sons are most welcome to chime in, of course. For the past 3 years my dad/sport/coach relationship with my daughter has been excellent. She loved the game. Enjoyed practices, excelled. High mojo stuff. This year I wasn't her lead coach for the first time ever. I've talked about it before in previous posts—I have no problems with the lead coach. Great coach, great content. Other kids are excelling, but for the past 5 months my daughter hasn't been thriving. She is 9 and she struggles with the activities. I think struggling with the activities has her confidence shot. Last fall, she was probably the most impactful player on the pitch toward the end of the season. We still have May to go and I'm hoping she rediscovers the love and fire for the game—but right now she's so tentative and not engaged. My wife made an astute observation, that this kid has grown A LOT in the past six months. Been going through growing pains—maybe that has affected her mindset? In the bigger picture of her life, there's a lot of psychosocial challenges going on too. Friendships in school are evolving negatively for her, friendships on her soccer team are non-existent (we had a lot of turnover from last year) and we don't go to the same school as most of the kids. For the first time in her young life, she has a homeroom teacher that she doesn't adore. On my end, I'm intense and hyper-focused, and I've been on her case about "it". Admittedly, probably too much. As I see it, I have one month to fix this. I don't care about performance or results at this point, I just want my kid to get out of the season still having some love for the sport. In August, November and December 2018, we took her out of soccer just to give her a break. Starting in August 2017 until the end of July 2018 she'd had pretty regular soccer, when I realized I thought she needed a break. Everything I've researched suggested this was a good move but wondering if this took her momentum away. I want her to be multi-sport/multi-activity until about age 13 (she's been mostly soccer since she was 6).
I'm not going to quote. You say she's been struggling for 5 months, plus mention school which is in it's 9th month. Take it easy on yourself, give yourself 5 months to get things trending upward again. I have 2 sons one year aprt under the old age groups, I alternated coaching them from u6 up until I could get them both on my team for u13/14. I've been through the turning them over to a coach you are ok with/watching other kids progress while they stagnate. In my sons case it was a combination of not fitting with the playing style (ball winning direct wing play crosses) and fitness (undiagnosed hernia (ok, we diagnosed the visibile protrusion in his abdomen right away, took the doc a year to agree after it didn't go away) followed by osgood-schlatter). We also academically redshirted them, so he was never on a team with classmates. he quit community after u13, played his last season for his middle school and liked it because they let him over dribble then feed his friends passes at the 6 He considered coming back since the birth year change would have let him play with his aug-dec 03 friends but in the end we decided not to - club stuff. I've seen osgood-schlatter (knees) take a lot of kids off their game, they don't say anything they just self manage by not running unless they have to, so it looks like they just suddenly don't care. Literal growing pains. Also severs disease which is similar but with the heels. If your deadline is a month because that's when classic tryouts start, she is probably still good enough to get invited. If the community club youre with has kids from her school, maybe take a year there, see if being "The girl" or maybe helping her friends play well sparks something. maybe taker her to the see the local WPSL team - it's soccer but no pressure on either of you. good luck.
Soccer became a chore, a grind this year. I want her to just get back to the joy of playing. I'm not worried about the technical and tactical because I saw it as recently as a few months ago. The psychological and physical may be the pillars I need to buttress right now. Psychological isn't my strong suit. Good point. I had OS pretty bad. We didn't know what it was when I was kid. It was pretty debilitating for me. Yes—Classic tryouts, but I'm actually not worried about her making the team. We are either going to move to a new Classic Club or to the town Travel program. The coach of the Classic team I'm considering knows her and she scored the game winner against them in the Fall and we already talked and she has a spot if she wants it. Same with the travel program, I know the coach and DOC personally and they've been trying to get her to come over. She does have friends on the. travel team which would be a big plus. I kinda want that for her—reduce the time in the car, play with friends, maybe easier competition, less commitment—but this time it's my wife who wants her to stay in Classic.
My daughter is only 2 so I'm no help with real life experience. My thought was if she's not enjoying soccer as much as she did in the past, is there something else she is enjoying? Maybe something she's replaced soccer with in her own mind, even if she hasn't told you that?
With avg soccer parents, the concern about getting town travel parent coach vs. paid club coach would be valid, but you've been working with her for years, you know how to evaluate skills, etc, so, her dropping to a lower level of competition in order to maybe get a higher level of enjoyment should work out ok. I have to think a happy 11 year old can make up missing a year of 3 practices per week and out of state tournaments vs a 11 year old who just went through the motions for mom & dad 3 times a week. good luck
So I've been researching multi-sport vs single-sport over the past year or two and a lot of the good sources say multi-sport with a caveat for the hyper-passionate individual. Anyway, so we've been exposing her to other stuff: swimming, gymnastics, martial arts, track, voice, art, math, theater etc. All of which we've had to turn down because of time commitment to soccer. She likes the other activities as much as soccer. The gymnastics coach said she had a natural ability/strength for that too at her "tryout". So who knows? I promised her as soon as soccer ends we would let her pursue the other things and reduce the soccer commitment going forward. Also, a lot of weekends, when we were stuck in the car going to games—she just wanted to be a kid and play with her friends/cousins.
Yep. Her travel coach would either be me or the DOC of the travel club—he's good, does things the right way. So, no concern there. Yeah, I wouldn't even consider it otherwise. My wife actually wants her to be with a female coach (which the Classic club would offer for her age group). I'm all for this. IF she stays with soccer, I'm playing the LONG game. I want her peaking at 18–22 (or 30!), not at 13. The irony, is that I'm trying to help her regain the joy she had for the game. Maybe, in the process, I'm pushing her further from it. I'm like a stereotypical coach in that technical and tactical is my comfort zone. Emotional guidance, confidence building—not my strong suit.
I guess my approach would be to let her dictate how much time she wants to commit to soccer versus other activities and go from there. If she wants to play half as much soccer as she is now, find a program that will let her do that, even if it means going down to a rec-type program for a season. She may realize how good she is and how much she actually enjoyed playing with a competitive team if she gets a taste of something different. The stats I've seen, and my own experience at our small club, shows that kids start losing interest around 12-13. If I were you, I'd be trying to stave that off by letter her continue to play on her terms.
I'm just trying to think back about my daughter at that age. Maybe talk less shop and more about the game from a fan perspective. If you see a new juggling trick, show her that dad's interested in learning it. I dont mean force her to watch, but maybe just happen to try it around her. Play sports or anything really for fun, not for development or learning. At that age, girls (and boys) just want to have fun with dad. Definitely give her some days off if she's not into it. At nine, I do believe that it's better to be the top player playing lower level than just one of the players on the team playing higher level.
At 9, the training is more important to development than playing matches against opponents playing poor soccer based on physical abilities rather than good skills and tactics. Unless youth soccer has much changed, there is far more poor play than good play. I haven't watched much soccer in the past 2 years, but watching a highlight clip of Barca v. Liverpool was a shock to me. Since 2010, Barca has greatly changed. Apparently now it is playing a counter-attacking style that is entirely dependent on Messi's individual superiority. He is 31. What is Barca going to do when Messi retires?
Thanks for all the responses so far. One of the other people I follow and we’ve had their program speak to our club in the past is Proactive Coaching. I asked him (Bruce Brown) a similar question: how do a better job of keeping my role as dad and coach separate? I was blown away because he actually called me back and replied to my question in the phone. The answer was strikingly simple: once you get in the car for practice/game or after practice, you’re back to being dad only. I can’t talk to her about training, give tips, etc -unless she asks. It jives with the response above about letting her dictate the level of participation on her terms. So at home-no coaching unless she asks. I can prompt her to practice like any parent, but it’s not one of my individual coaching sessions. And if she does ask, don’t download everything-“leave them wanting more” It makes sense because I’m hyper focused/obsessive about coaching stuff so she was getting too much of it. Don’t read that as I’m always running daily sessions with her. Meaning, I’m reading, listening, watching coaching stuff a lot. Like I’m driving them to school and I’m listening to the 3Four3 Or Way ofChampions podcast (for me, not them). But when she would agree to practice at home, I’m always fixing technique. Should’ve taken a page from my own youth-I trained on my own outside a lot and fixed my technique by myself.
@elessar78 . Having done been dad and coach to 2 very different kids. Here is my take. I like the answer from Bruce Brown. That is what I tried to do. The only words in the car were variants on the "I love to watch ypiu play" statements that you read about. I also carved out time to do non-soccer stuff with her. The goal is to keep the dad-kid relationship intact no matter what happens on the field or at practice. I also let them drive the soccer at home. We did kickarounds in the yard, when they wanted to, and I had to work to not turn them into training sessions but just playing for fun. I didn't create high level players but I did create great human beings that love the game. My oldest has stayed involved and is now my co/assistant coach with a couple of my teams
This was our first two match weekend of the season. We played a cup group stage game on Saturday and a league game Sunday. For our cup games, we're playing our strongest team we have available and only making changes when guys need a break. In league games, we're giving everyone as close to equal playing time as possible. Our boys' commitment was been inconsistent so far this season, but I was pleasantly surprised with our play Saturday against the top ranked team in the tournament. We drew 1-1 after warming up and then getting back in the cars to change facilities due to field conditions. The boys' play showed us that when we have a chance to play our best players together, they can really play well, and we see that they are absorbing the things we're working on in training. Sunday was not so good. It was a 4-3 loss away to a team we should have beat. We had 1 sub and were missing some of our stronger players. Our tired legs showed in the last half hour or so, but for the most part, our boys kept playing hard. Sloppiness in the back did us in. I hate playing back to backs like this, and it's even worse when a third of the team can't make it for whatever reason. Our guys were dead at the end of Sunday's game so it will be interesting to see what kind of training session we have tonight. I guess I better plan something light and fun for them knowing how many miles they all have on their legs.
@elessar78 I was in almost exactly the same situation 2 years ago. My daughter as a U9 tried out for and made one of the best local teams. At end of year, she wanted to quit soccer entirely. She scaled back and played CYO (I coached) in Fall (could have a whole thread on this). She wanted to try out in the Spring for a new team. We held back and said "play rec in Spring, I'll coach again. Then tryout." We dominated the league. My daughter and 3 of her rec team went to a smaller local club this Fall - I came on as an assistant coach. She is one of the team leaders and has rediscovered her love of the game - BUT: 1) She (and some other players) are aggravated with other, less serious players. Honestly, we've blown a lot of leads in games due to mental lapses out of the small group of players who are prone to screw around in practice. 2) In tournaments when we go up against teams in the 4th and 5th division of her previous team's league and tie them...it's tough for her to deal with.