At the start learning to train emphasizes the building blocks of sports performance: balance, agility, coordination and strength. Once these are acquired we then build on these basic tools, developing a collection of skills such as locomotion, ball handling, throwing, catching, climbing and many other sport specific actions. These two elements together are the fundamentals and the specific skills.
In younger ages the coaches and instructors have to recognize that the fundamentals are not fully developed and training or practice sessions should integrate a mixture of fundamentals and sport specific skills.
For these younger athletes there are a few basic rules for integrating the fundamentals into training sessions, make them fun and variable. Instruction needs to incorporate clarity, enthusiasm and positive feedback. It is very important to avoid specialization at an early age; allow the young athletes to experiment playing different positions and different sports. Free playtime should not be neglected; this allows children to develop their skills and creative thinking at the same time.
Parents, teachers and coaches have to remember to be patient. The standard rule for many things in life, including athletic performance, is that to be really excel it takes about ten years to develop the necessary skill set. Until the skill set of “physical literacy” is obtained there is no reason to over-emphasize single sport specialization especially with high intensity expectations and stressing too much on winning competitions.
A good way to look at ramping up for training is three steps: train to learn, followed by train to compete and finally train to win. Any parent or coach needs to remember the primary goal of introducing children to sport: get them to develop a lifelong passion for sport and physical activity.