Whether you’ve been training for years or you’re just getting started in the sports training business, you need to understand how to train young athletes. If you plan on making your business run and impact a lot of lives, you better have a grasp on how to train young athletes and deliver an exceptional experience.
I’ve been blessed to be able to interact with some amazing people in our industry, and one of those people is Dave Gleason. I had the opportunity to watch Dave work 
with a group of kids he’d never met before, and it was absolutely magical. I have never met a trainer who is able to work with young kids the way Dave is able to.
Many of you know that I’m a father of three boys, and I run a training center where we work with plenty of young athletes. So, I’m pretty interested in the topic of how to train young athletes and how to provide a quality experience. I also have plenty of experience actually training young athletes, but when I watched Dave do his thing, I was blown away. I quickly realized that I had a lot of work to do.
When I had the chance to hang out with Dave at an IYCA Summit, I thought it would be great to video-tape his talking about some of his thoughts on how to train young athletes. I think it’s absolutely vital that we, as an industry, do a better job of interacting with young kids because we have the opportunity to be their first positive experience in the world of training. This can set an athlete up for a very positive outlook on training.
We can also mess this up, which is exactly why we need to learn from people like Dave Gleason. When you hear him talk in the video below, you’ll quickly recognize that he’s not doing this for himself. He is 100% dedicated to making a positive impact on young athletes, and it shows.
I’m not sure you can fake this. It has to be something you truly care about and understand the impact that you may be having on the person you’re working with. I think that many young trainers miss out on this because they are so concerned with formulating the “perfect program” or they simply don’t know how to interact with young people.
As funny as it may sound, most people simply forget what it was like to be a kid. We forget what we liked, what we talked about, how we felt and how we learned. Most importantly, we often forget how we liked to be treated.
I always tell young trainers on my staff that they need to approach every training session as though they were working with their own little brother, sister, or cousin. the personal touch is what matters because, as the old adage says, kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
That’s why I thought it would be great to share some of Dave’s magic with you in this interview:
Dave has also put together an amazing product along with super-trainer and all-around great guy Dave Jack called Game Play Performance. It’s basically an instruction manual on how to train young athletes using games as a way to enhance performance. If you work with young athletes in any capacity, I highly recommend this product.
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