Hi Pakewi, can you explain that in a little bit more detail? I’m not sure I understand.
I tried to run 3( 6 )week sessions at the grade school my son just left ( grades K to 6 ) This was the least amount of time Charlie and I felt we could do and not overwhelm the kids due to other sports and general activities. One session in the fall, Another 6 week session ( 2 or 3 x a week depending on if you can get 3 days ~ 35 to 45 minutes per session / varied for different ages ) just after the xmas break ~ Jan if you can do it and then the final session to work in the spring to go along with the track season. ( front load it by 4 weeks or maybe more
Tudor is a great resource and has written many books. He states in one of his books that gymnastics , track and swimming are the best background developmental sports = gymnastics for strength, flexibility, / Track for speed and strength and pool for endurance.
I went from doing competitive gymnastics 3x a week for 2 or 3 years to breaking the grade 9 provincial record in Ontario in the 60 meter hurdles. There was very little specific training before I actually ran any meets. Interestingly I was also a very strong swimmer and did track only in competition ( no training) for probably at least 2 or 3 years in grade school. ( 100, 200 , high jump ). Grade 10, I jumped my height with very little training specific training either. ( 171 or 5"7’inches).
Angela,
That is very interesting. After someone mentioned it here first, I noticed that the most talented grade 8 female short sprinters I had last year all have gymnastics backgrounds, and one of the quickest grade 8 boys is a high level swimmer. It’s too bad all the grade 7’s and 8’s were away when you visited.
My school has a rock wall, and consequently it tons of gym mats, as the rock wall is covered with them virtually all year long.
I’m working with mostly grade 3’s and 4’s this year. I’d like to build some speed, power, and general strength work into the regular curriculum, as the curriculum addresses agility, balance and coordination, but does not address strength, power, speed, or running mechanics adequately in my opinion.
I’d like to run some extracurricular programs as you mention. It will be critical to getting kids ready for track season later in the year. As I found out, it’s impossible to get people fit in six weeks!
The other Physical Education teachers in my school are pretty open to ideas, so it will be interesting to see what changes we can incorporate. I think general fitness and some work on running mechanics are the key issues. Some of the mechanics are atrocious!
When you ran the extracurricular program, how did you split it up? Did you cap it at a certain number of participants? Did you work with one or two grades at a time?
From coaching high school track for 12 yrs., at least as far as the girls, the kids with gymnastics backgrounds in particular were such quick learners. I would teach them various drills and coach them on it maybe a few more times on some of the finer points and with few exceptions, they would perform the drills well. They possessed the capacity to learn and even master some drills very quickly.
The two best female athletes (identical twins) had been involved with gymnastics from age 6 until probably 10 or 11 or so(not sure exactly when they stopped) before they, due to their height, “started breaking equipment.”
Rob Panariello - frustrated by what he’s seeing in his rehab clinics in terms of injuries - wrote a very good article for my website on the subject of development and preparation in young athletes.
Pioneer, that is very interesting that you mention the capacity to pick up drills quickly. I noticed that too. I wonder if that has something to to do with the envelope of time that Pakewi mentioned…
NumberTwo, thanks for the link to that article, it is excellent. Man I have a lot to learn!
T-Slow, I attributed it (rightly or wrongly) to the fact that they had been exposed to and required, within the framework of their training, to learn so many movements that it made them more consciously and/or subconsciously receptive to learning even more and different skills.
Later on they picked up swimming, volleyball and track and field-one was primarily a hurdler and the other a jumper (hj, tj/lj and later pv).
T-Slow - Rob P is a sharp guy and has a lot to offer on both the rehab and conditioning side of things. If you are ever in the New York/Long Island area, you should look him up and visit one of his clinics. I’m hoping to visit him some time in the next few months.
I had 50 kids and at first I just ran them all together. Initially you can do this but quickly you will see a way to organize yourself depending on what your goals are.
I would never cap it as it will sort itself out and you are smart enough to innovate anything if the program is popular enough to make kids want to show up. My view was more kids the better as they feed off each other. Try never to cut and pull on your teachers to do task stuff like attendance etc. Use the keener teachers who have no vision to help you organize and sort but you must keep things moving and avoid too much instruction. Find ways to get them doing things without thinking too much.
I would not work with different grades separately yet. Get started first as I said and then you will have the right answer.
Contact me and we will meet again and go through some ideas and see what works.
That would be really cool. I’m in Toronto so it would be easy to get down there. I also have to make it out to your conference this year. It was a major bummer that I couldn’t make it last May. If you are going to be anywhere near Toronto soon and you have time to get together, let me know!
Angela, that would be awesome if we could meet up and chat about how to get things rolling. I’m heading out to visit ESTI in Michigan this weekend, and he uses a couple of cool CF-based acceleration ladders that might be a really good fit. It would allow kids to be split into three groups and rotate stations, which would help keep things moving if the group ended up being large.