Sports Girls Play

Girls youth sports news, tips and resources for raising a happy, healthy athlete

Making Workouts Fun – One Skittle at a Time

One of the biggest challenges coaches face, especially when training young athletes, is finding ways to make the repetitive nature of a workout fun. Whether it is swimming laps, perfecting beam routines, practicing free throw drills or doing intervals, every sport has its fundamentals that must be done over and over in order to learn and master the skills needed for success.

I frequently use a variety of techniques for keeping my gymnasts motivated and having fun – like creating a “lemonade lounge” for a reward zone during conditioning, rewarding them with jumps on trampoline for performing a routine successfully, or occasionally letting them take turns being “coach” during conditioning. And sometimes we get out a bag of Skittles, smarties, or other little treat and use those as incentives to master a correction a little quicker.

My daughter’s swim coaches use Skittles in a different way. They use them as a code for what stroke the kids practice next. Each swimmer gets a skittle and then checks the white board for the color coded key. The coaches mix it up each time they play the game – sometimes one color is a dramatically more difficult task than another, but the kids still love it. They quickly eat their skittle, then jump in the water to perform the task assigned to the skittle they just ate. As soon as the task is accomplished, they are back for another one. It is definitely one of my daughter’s favorite training games.

While I have outlined how the swim coaches play the Skittle game, you can certainly adapt this game for ANY sport (or even kids chores around the house for that matter) and make it a fun addition to your athletes’ training.

Getting Past “I QUIT”

quit One of the hardest things for parents and coaches to hear kids say is “I QUIT” especially, when the athlete’s desire to quit is sudden. So, what’s a parent to do?

This is a situation I have found myself in a few times, but most recently with my youngest daughter and swimming. I am actually glad I didn’t post about this as we were going through it as it all makes much more sense now that we have gotten past “I Quit” – at least this time.

In September when the fall swim season started, my daughter was pretty excited. She felt like the girls in her group were all her friends and she called them her “Dream Team,” and this being her second full season on the team she also started with a sense of confidence and knowing what to expect. Because my son is also swimming but in a different group, Nat gets to play with her friend before each practice as A’s sister in also in the other group. The two girls were too much fun to watch as they played, chatted and basically used that time as a transition between school and swim. I felt so relieved and was sure this year would be smooth sailing as Nat had so much to look forward to each practice.

And then she got sick. That nasty, fever raging, energy draining, in hindsight-most-likely-flu thing that took absolutely everything out of her.

She was out of school for a week. The following week when she returned to school I recommended that she go to practice. She immediately said “no” and really resisted the idea. (Clue #1 missed.) She ended up going to practice but really didn’t have her energy back which meant swimming was really hard, which equaled “really not fun” for her. That weekend there was a swim meet and she started telling me how much she hated swimming, didn’t want to compete, and wanted to QUIT.  The day before the meet she said that in a way she wanted to compete, but in the same sentence still told me she wanted to quit.

For the next two weeks, any talk of swim became a battleground. She didn’t want to go and if she did, she wouldn’t put her head under water, wouldn’t do the whole workout, and generally was miserable. She would scream at me and tell me she hated swim; she would make excuses for not wanting to put her head under water; and she was generally grouchy. (Clue #2 missed.)

Finally after really stepping back, talking with her coaches, listening to what she had to say, I figured something out – she was still recovering from her illness and being the perfectionist child she is, she thought it was easier to quit than to get back in the water and rebuild her stamina.  After more discussions, we also realized that it wasn’t until last week that she was really back to 100% .

Last week my Nat returned. After a few days of talking, confidence boosting and some distractions from her coaches, she is back in the water, excited, confident, motivated and ready for her meet this weekend!!

PARENT TIPS FOR GETTING PAST “I QUIT”

1. Look at your child’s health. Has she been sick or is she getting sick? Is she dealing with an injury?

2. Have there been any changes or dramas at school or home?

3. Stop asking “how was practice?” A very wise coaching mentor told me this once and while it is hard to do, it is a habit parents MUST break! Instead, let your child direct the conversation.

4. Listen to your child away from the sport. Is your child interested in how her teammates are doing? Does she still consider herself part of the team? Does she give you clues as to what the root of the problem may be.

5. Communicate with her coach. With the right information, the coaches can help re-establish expectations, get your daughter involved and make your daughter find her spark again.

6. Take it one step at a time. Try setting intermediate goals and praising her for reaching them. For us, it was getting Nat back in the water – even if it meant all she did was kick or swim her strokes with her head out of the water.

7. Remove unnecessary stressors. If you daughter isn’t ready to compete or to play in the game yet, then sit one out. I do encourage going to cheer on teammates still as that serves its own positive purpose, too. If you need to reduce her practice times temporarily, then do so.

8. Remind her of her commitment. Organized sports usually have some sort of commitment attached to them. By saying you need to finish the season and then you may quit, gives her the time to reconnect with her sport and decide if it is what she wants to do, and it encourages positive work ethics, too. As in, you need to finish what you start.

9. Use distractions. For example, my daughter loves it when her coach plays the Skittles game. So one thing that helped get her back to the pool was a suggestion to stop at the store and buy her coach a bag of Skittles for practice. She was so focused on buying and delivering the Skittles that the swim issue was secondary. (More tips for keeping workouts fun)

10. Be positive!! Remember that your child is a child first and an athlete second. The sport does not define her success or worth as a person and it shouldn’t define yours either. Keep your eye on the BIG picture.

It’s Just One Meet – Making the Decision to Compete or Not

swim-meet In the world of youth sports it is so easy to get caught up in the emotion and get into the mindset that every competition, game, or match is the most important event. What if the athlete is injured, sick or physically unprepared for the competition? How do you decide?

This is where the coach, athlete and parental team need to come together. There are the obvious reasons to scratch an athlete – diagnosed injury or illness, but there are situations where the decision is not as clear cut.

That is the situation I find myself in today. My youngest daughter is a swimmer. Two weeks ago she came down with that icky virus that has been going around and ended up missing an entire week of school. This past week she returned to school but was so tired after a full day at school she was asking to go to bed early, couldn’t even get homework done, and was just not back to 100% yet. She went to practice twice in the past two weeks and neither one was what I would call a complete practice.

She is supposed to be at a swim meet this morning. We decided to miss it – even though we had paid for it already and her coach was fine with her swimming if she was up to it. She does not feel prepared – and as a coach for a completely different sport (gymnastics) – I know she is not. I know she could have made it through, gotten a time and survived, but she would have been disappointed in her performance.

Knowing my daughter, that would not be a motivating thing at all. It’s only one meet. It’s not the end of the world. Too often as coaches and parents we lose sight of that. Rather than pushing through today and being disappointed, my daughter is intent on going and cheering on her teammates and setting her goals for the next meet. One of those goals is staying healthy.

As a coach, do you have guidelines in place to help make the decision about competition readiness easier and more clear cut for all involved? I know at the gym we do. For us it’s a safety thing.