When I first created the Youth Athletic Development Academy, I thought it would only attract those kids that love sport. It's a natural progression, right? However, over the last few years of running our programs at schools, I’ve learnt that there is a massive need for programs for kids who don’t love participating in and [...]
“Better people create better athletes.” James Kerr on former NZ All Blacks Head Coach Graham Henry. The All Blacks success speaks for itself, and in our opinion, the reason they have reached such success comes down to the culture they have created, where each athlete takes responsibility and plays their role with humility and […]
The sled push is a lower body exercise that develops the posterior chain [glutes, hamstrings, calves], and acceleration technique. The sled is a versatile piece of equipment that can be used to improve athleticism in a number of ways. In this post, we'll stick to discussing the sled push in specific, which in and of [...]
Imagine your health, energy and performance is a bucket. Optimising this is largely dictated by two factors — stress and recovery. Even though recovery adds to your bucket and stress takes away from your bucket; stress through working hard in the gym, and stress from school work and family responsibilities is valuable as it challenges [...]
As we are coming into Term 1, I thought it would be good timing to write up an article on a really crucial question that I get asked constantly: how many times per week should I train? Specifically, when answering this question, I am going to be talking about athletic development [fitness] training. Finding [...]
The Youth Athletic Development Academy is a sport performance, physical literacy and fitness institute for youth throughout the specific stages of their growth and development. We work with ages 5 through 18, and our programs predominantly service Sunshine Coast based students. The three pillars of our program are: 1. Youth athletes looking to optimise […]
We’ve written about the importance of performance testing for youth athletes before. The TL;DR version of that post is this: Performance testing involves running athletes through a series of movements and assessing their performance. Periodical performance testing plays an important role in the development of any athlete. The tests that are undertaken as part […]
It's that time of year again. The new year is a great time to reflect on the year that has just gone, while looking forward to making the year ahead bigger, better and even more successful than ever. In theory, this sounds great, but how many times have you set goals this time of year, [...]
Typically, when I ask a youth athlete about their previous gym training, I get one of the following responses: • I do HIIT (high intensity interval training) a couple of times per week, or • Monday is chest and arms, Wednesday is abs and cardio, etc Now, I am not here to bash either of [...]
We’re excited to have Strength & Conditioning Coach Todd Davidson guest posting on the #YADacademy blog today, utilising his extensive knowledge base to chat with you guys about the importance of mobility training for youth athletes. Thanks, Todd! We’ll have to get you back again to share more of your expertise with us all soon! [...]
