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Last month, my daughter was asked:

Do you have a Dad?

In Boulder, that’s a loaded question.

She smiled and said, “Yes, I have a Dad.”

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The question has come up before.

I stay invisible around my kids’ sports.

I do this with intention.

I want them…

• to be INTERNALLY motivated
• to keep our RELATIONSHIP separate from their athletic success, or otherwise
• to INTERACT with them – I’m a player, not a spectator

Living in a town that places excessive glory on sport, my actions:

1. Support Internal Motivation
2. Lower Athletic Stakes
3. Focus on Shared Experiences

My daughter put me in a bind when she asked me to coach her.

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Remember my advice to place the RELATIONSHIP ahead of performance

In January, we started a simple program – 20 minutes, done every Sunday, I’m not in the room

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For the summer, I asked myself…

What do we want to achieve?

• For next season => get off the wall FAST
• Over the next 1,000 days => set up capacity to go heavy at 16 yo

I came up with three 20-minute sessions per week:

1. Continue the dryland program
2. Street sprints
3. Gym skill development & personal limiter mobility work

Let’s look at each

DRYLAND => keep what’s working, an all-around program she enjoys => good enough

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SPRINTS => to get her off the wall FAST => choose an activity with close to max lower body recruitment

Uphill, street sprints – with casual walk downs

This tweet from Gerry explains more – it was a reminder of techniques we used in New Zealand.

Review & consider Gerry’s graphics – Hierarchy of Sports Performance and Motor Unit Recruitment

To set up the street sprints, she’s doing intramural track right now.

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SKILLS => with ~8 swims a week, street sprints and dryland… plenty of load.

A 1:1 session gives me a chance to assess her fatigue while teaching:

• Squat Variations
• Cleans (I have a 20# “kid” bar)
• Sandbag Variations (I have a 15# “kid” bag)
• Hip flexor openings
• Eccentric rehab techniques

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Let’s pull together the key points:

• KEEP what works
  • maintain the sport-specific schedule from last summer
  • her load is increasing naturally by getting faster
  • she’s enjoying the 20-minute dryland from YouTube
• Train general SKILLS – often missed at the sport-specific level
• PICK ONE thing that would make a difference
• RAMP LOAD GRADUALLY

Be patient – three summers until she’s 16.

As AC/DC remind us, it is a long way to the top (if you wanna to rock ‘n’ roll).

🤟