Principles of maturation and navigating transitions with Steve Green

Premise – Tennis is advertised as a Late specialization sport but there is a lot of pressure at a young age.

See Understanding Development Resource here for more information.

Top Principles

Training Environment.

The club, programme, coach should set the stage and create the optimum training environment. What assumptions do your players and parents make when they attend your sessions?

Are they made to feel welcome and relaxed - do they trust you to coach their kids? Are parents made to feel welcome and allowed to spectate? Is relevant information clearly displayed?

Are you building and instilling rituals and routines for players to follow? I.e. warm up, mobility and cool down in particular. These environments that players are bought up in will guide in later life.

Equipment.

What do you have / that you can use? Is it maintained regularly? Is it age appropriate?

Plans and Programme

Do you have a curriculum? Is everyone working in partnership towards this? Are you communicating effectively within your team?

Managing Transitions - From a young age it is important to expose and develop basic skills (run, jump, kick and throw). Allow players to discover ideas for themselves. Make it fun and involve teamwork.

Introduce S+C from 8-10 years old in the form of light circuit training and educate and reinforce routines from this age such as warmup / mobility and cool downs. These routines will be individual to players and it is important to discuss and get buy in from players.. The onus is on the player to follow these routines on a regular basis.

As players develop look at biological and developmental age and not just birthday. Windows of opportunity:

Pre-adolescence: Sprints. Plyometrics

Adolescence: Strength and Hypertrophy. Plyometric training.

Steve's Full Resource is available here.

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