Before athletes can become strong and powerful, they need to master the movement skills required in sport. Athletic Movement Skills covers the underlying science and offers prescriptive advice on bridging the gap between scientist and practitioner so coaches and athletes can work together to achieve dominance.

The Athletic Skills Model offers an alternative to dominant talent development theories in the form of holistic broad-based movement education, focusing on health and wellbeing. It places the emphasis on ‘physical intelligence’ – including attributes such as agility, flexibility and stability – through adaptable and varied training programmes, creating a skilled athlete before introducing sport specialization. The book sets out the scientific underpinnings of the ASM before going on to offer practical guidance on the content of the programme, how to adapt and vary the programme, and how to apply the approach to different age groups and sports. The ASM’s application in the youth development programme at AFC Ajax is explored in depth, before a future of talent development with an emphasis on athletic, rather than sport-specific, expertise is imagined. The Athletic Skills Model introduces an important and timely challenge to conventional wisdom in talent development and is a fascinating read for any upper-level student or researcher interested in youth development, skill acquisition, motor learning or sports coaching, and any coaches wanting to refresh their approach to talent development.

Great athletes make difficult moves look effortless with a combination of skill, strength, and balance. Traditional conditioning builds a fitness base, but modern sports training takes into account athletic movement patterns. Athletic Body in Balance is the first guide of its kind to show you how to train for smooth, fluid movement and prevent muscle imbalances, mobility restrictions, stability problems, and injuries. Physical therapist and sports conditioning expert Gray Cook has proven the effectiveness of his approach through the performances of athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, WNBA, and Reebok® University's sports training system. Cook's methods will help you identify functional weaknesses; correct imbalances; explore your potential; and refine sport-specific movement skills such as jumping, kicking, cutting, and turning. You will see where conditioning is breaking down and how to get your body back on track. Whereas other books concentrate on maximizing your strengths, Athletic Body in Balance focuses on exposing and overcoming your weaknesses to form a foundation for long-term training gains. Learn how to maintain what you gain and build on your improvements. Make this comprehensive assessment tool your training guide. Prepare and repair your body for ultimate athletic performance with Athletic Body in Balance.

This book presents exercises and workouts that will help any athletes improve their game by raising their athleticism - from a high school kid playing football to men who play basketball after work to women who play tennis at a club.

Athletic Development offers a rare opportunity to learn and apply a career full of knowledge from the best. World-renowned strength and conditioning coach Vern Gambetta condenses the wisdom he's gained through more than 40 years of experience of working with athletes across sports, age groups, and levels of competition, including members of the Chicago White Sox, New York Mets, and U.S. men's 1998 World Cup soccer team. The result is an information-packed, myth-busting explanation of the most effective methods and prescriptions in each facet of an athlete's physical preparation. Gambetta includes never-before-published and ready-to-use training approaches in - sport-specific demands analysis, - work capacity enhancements, - movement skills development, - long- and short-term training program progressions, and - rest and regeneration techniques. Athletic Development explains what works, what doesn't, and why. Gambetta's no-nonsense approach emphasizes results that pay off in the competitive season and reflect his work at the highest echelons of sport. Merging principles of anatomy, biomechanics, and exercise physiology with sports conditioning applications and four decades of professional practice, this is the definitive guide to performance-enhancing training.

Expertise and research into the development of expertise and skill acquistion in sports performance is a specific area of research within the more general field of motor skills acquisition. This is the first fully comprehensive and focused work on the subject.

Improve long term athlete development (LTAD) and teach children fundamental physical skills with this great resource This workbook is a detailed introduction to the FUNdamentals concept. Developed by experts at sports coach UK it covers the first three stages of Long-term Athlete Development and focuses on the importance of play, fun and enjoyment in sport. The work also: maps the fundamentals of movement across the bigger picture such as the National Curriculum and how different agencies work together provides practical ideas and advice on the application of the three core principles (agility, balance and co-ordination) in kids exercise explains how to coach FUNdamentals and how to plan a programme for coaching young athletes that incorporates the key concepts The underlying theme throughout this resource is for young people and adults to take part in sport and physical activity; they need to learn the FUNdamentals of Movement at an early age. FUNdamentals is about FUN and PROGRESS - taking young people from playground to podium!

In training speed, the most elusive athletic quality, what really works, and what doesn't? What are the components of sprinting itself that elites do, where amateurs falter? And how can we arrange all of this in a training medium that facilitates high performance? Speed Strength is the product of hundreds of athletes trained, thousands of hours of study, dozens of expert mentors, and an open mind. If you are interested in the answer to these questions, then Speed Strength is the book that holds the answers you are looking for, and much more.Joel Smith is the host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast and a track and strength coach of 13 years. As a track coach to national champions and Olympic champions as a strength coach, Joel has seen the elements of speed inside and out. Featuring the insight of over 25 field leaders, Speed Strength touches on the most important trainable elements of sprinting in a holistic and thorough manner.

This is an ideal text for motor behaviour and cognitive psychology courses, as well as a reference for professionals with an interest in motor behaviour and human movement. It explores how focus of attention can affect motor performance, particularly the learning of motor skills.