Understanding Athletic Development and Physical Preparation

Fundamental movements provide the foundations on which all sporting, physical activity and life skills are based.

By supporting your participants to develop increased movement capacity and coordination, you enable them to progress on their journey to becoming physically literate, helping them gain the confidence and competence to embark on physical activity across their life cycle.

Once those skills have been established, you can then help your participants revisit, develop and progress them.

Importantly, developing movement skills in your participants helps in the reduction of injuries, can increase and support skill development, and provides the base for future athletic development and physical preparation.

This in turn opens up more opportunities for your participants, including access to a wide variety of physical activities and sports, and a reduction in injuries allows for more development opportunities and training time.

Key point: fundamentals provide the essentials for life.

As your participants grow and develop, they move through a series of physical, emotional and developmental changes.

It's essential to recognise the state of development and appropriate progression relevant to the maturation status of the people you coach, as well as to gain a wider understanding of the development pathway, how you can support transitions, and how to prepare the people you coach with wider holistic development.

While this is often thought of as a priority for adolescents as they mature and progress into adulthood, in a much wider sense this includes a person's experience and knowledge of the sport and physical activity.

Regardless of their age, you need to understand how their sporting history, training age and experiences have had an impact on athletic development foundations and opportunities.

To support your participants effectively, make sure to explore and understand how growth and maturation impacts on their development, but, importantly, be aware of the social, emotional and cognitive as well as the physical dimensions of development to support and empower the participant and their family as their navigate their athletic journey.

Understanding injury prevention is an important aspect of coaching. In its simplest form, this involves understanding the benefits of a high quality and appropriate warm up and cool down.

Further, by recognising injuries and managing the return to training and return to play, you can ensure that any injury is fully healed, as returning too soon can cause injuries to worsen, delaying the participant's return further. Understanding the rehabilitation process enables you to limit the extent of the injury, reduce or reverse any impairment and functional loss of range, and support their return to play.

It is your duty of care as a coach to ensure that the health, well-being and safety of your participants is always prioritised above practice and competition opportunities. 

Through a strong understanding of sporting movements, risks and potential injuries, you can develop and include injury prevention within your coaching programme, which will not only reduce injuries and help reduce risks, but also support participants to achieve their training goals and empower them to be healthy and active for life.