AS a youth coach, every day is a school day. A while back I purchased a yellow and red card for £4 in a local sports shop.
I bought them as a prop, for a bit of fun, just to see the reaction on the faces the eight and nine-year-old girls we coach twice a week.
The cards have had a couple of outings, the latest was last Tuesday. The coaches had a couple of drills in mind but as many training sessions tend to do, it morphed into something entirely different. We ended up ditching the drills in favour of some unstructured play.
In other words, we decided to have a bit of fun.
During the small sided games that ensued, a couple of kids were given yellow cards for complaining or talking too much.
The kids actually loved getting cautioned; some pleaded to get a red card – just for the hell of it.
Sometimes you don’t know what kind of day the kids have had at school or at home before they come to training.
Just sometimes it’s better to have as few rules as possible rather than getting the kids to follow a few well-meaning drills that might just be an extension of school, where they’ve been following instructions for most of the day.
Sometimes you realise that it’s the kids’ hour – and not the coach’s.
I know kids as young as eight and nine are being introduced to strength and conditioning sessions, on top of their training nights.
I disagree with S&C sessions for this age group. I think they’re too young to be congregating in gyms working on their flexibility and athletic capacity.
If a coach can’t build some strength and conditioning into their pitch sessions, twice weekly, then there’s something fundamentally wrong.
Children are still trying to establish a love for the game they’re playing at eight and nine-years-of-age; the coaches are still trying to nurture that love for the game too.
Every session dedicated to S&C at that age is a lost session in my book; lost in the sense that it's time that could've been better spent.
For example, working on the technical aspects of a player’s game, whether it’s learning to use their weaker foot, or simply trying to make their stronger foot better.
Or dribbling. Playing one-twos. Or shooting. Changing direction. Understanding a little more about positional sense.
Or just free-styling with the ball at their feet or in their hand, whatever the sporting code may be.
Strength and conditioning sessions can wait a while. Now, this column is not anti-S&C – it’s merely pointing out the timing of it in a child’s development has to be right.
But, clearly, dedicated S&C sessions are becoming more common among groups of children.
If the crowd down the road have their U10s heading to the gym on a Wednesday night, then our U10s will follow suit.
It feels like a race to the bottom and desperately Darwinian in nature.
Skills of the game are therefore being neglected as there are only so many post-school hours in the week – and we wonder why we bemoan the overall standard in soccer or Gaelic football, where players are being mass-produced, where one player looks no different to another and where the game is reduced to a tactical and technical monolith.
There’s a battery farm feel to a player’s development and the coach’s copyright must be seen and felt throughout the entire process.
With more S&C sessions being fitted into a kid’s weekly schedule, there must be concerns of mental fatigue and perhaps not having the proper life balance.
Because one sporting code takes up potentially three nights per week reduces the chances of a child enjoying another hobby - be it drama, song, swimming or dance classes – or simply having a night at home learning their 6-times tables or preparing for the God-awful transfer test.
It’s not easy being a kid nowadays.
As more and more kids are being introduced to a gym mat, you really wonder about the tangible benefits and whether these emerging regimes will act as a turn-off when the child grows older.
So what is the right age for someone starting to take S&C more seriously?
Last week, I interviewed Antrim senior hurler Paddy Burke and we went down the rabbit hole of S&C.
In his minor days and the earlier part of his senior career, the Cushendall man couldn't understand why players from more established hurling counties looked so much stronger, more athletic because Antrim were committing just as much time and effort to their sport.
“You could see in teams where they had started that wee bit earlier, in development squads – not even size-wise but just how athletic they are, how they run and move,” explained Burke.
Since the recruitment of full-time S&C specialist Brendan Murphy, Antrim are starting to work smarter.
They have still some ground to make up but you can see the gains they are making. They’re no longer getting beaten out the gates of Nowlan Park. They are beginning to punch their weight at inter-county level.
Strength and conditioning is an integral part of elite sportsperson's life - but how far should it trickle down? To an eight-year-old? Nine? Ten?
At that young age, sport is primarily about enjoyment and learning, and if you’re enjoying something, there’s a good chance you’ll stick at it and flourish.
Coaches that feel the need to commandeer another night off these kids are wrong to do so.
They are not commodities.
That’s not to say they’ll be wrong in four or five years’ time – but right now, it jars with the whole process of a kid playing sport and trying to find the right hobby for them.
We coach 26 girls, aged eight and nine. They train twice weekly and play a game at the weekend. As coaches, we make loads of mistakes.
We're all still learning.
Tomorrow, the coaches and the children are going to the cinema to watch the animated movie, Puss in Boots.
It just feels right to do so.
