Episode 269: Developing Youth in Sport - Observations and Opportunities for Improvement
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In this week’s episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, Ironman Master Coach Matt Dixon takes a closer look at youth sports and the development of young athletes.
With his experience as a parent, as well as a coach to world-class professional endurance athletes, executives, and amateurs alike for over 15 years, and using his own background in competitive swimming and triathlons, Matt examines the importance of sports for social and physical development in kids and examines the role parents and coaches play in helping to create meaningful experiences.
"This is sport. The journey of becoming. That is much more powerful and more important than the outcomes." - Matt Dixon
Matt maps out the discussion in a way that applies not only to parents, coaches, and young athletes but also to adult athletes looking to draw insights for their own development journey.
This episode covers the role of sports for kids ages 8 to 18 and suggests a healthy route for developing an athletic foundation. It also provides insight into how we can assist our young athletes in moving beyond outcomes or results, to help them develop athletically, while also establishing essential values and character traits that will last well beyond their playing days.
"The sporting journey can be a crucible from which we can apply so many of the experiences into almost anything that we do in the rest of our lives. And that becomes really powerful." - Matt Dixon
There are trends and challenges in youth sports that interfere with the positive lessons and experiences that organized sports have to offer. From parents who put too much pressure on their kids, to coaches who prioritize winning over development, these issues can create an environment where young athletes don’t reach their full potential or lose their love of the game altogether. Matt examines some of the most common problems in youth sports today and offers suggestions on how they can be addressed.
For parents and coaches looking to create an environment where young athletes can excel both on the field and off of it, Matt proposes certain habits they should foster to develop a performance culture and encourage a positive athletic journey.
"Remember that you are tasked with building an athlete. And in order to do that, you need to ensure that they have passion, they fall in love, they have a strong structure, a really varied skill set, that then when things are important to get focused, they are best equipped and they are fresh mentally. And so you are building an athlete well ahead of developing a runner, developing a swimmer, turning a baseball player into a pitcher." - Matt Dixon
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 07:39 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
07:46 - 11:36 - Matt's Newsings
11:44 - 01:17:53 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 269: Developing Youth in Sport: Observations and Opportunities for Improvement
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PODCAST - Episode 47: Child's Play - FUNdamental Lessons from Youth Development in Sport
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:22
All right, folks, today's show is all about kids in sports, and their development, particularly focusing around the years of around eight to 18 years of age. But before we get going, I do want to remind you of our partner InsideTracker. Because we leverage InsideTracker with our Purple Patch athletes to help them refine their focus and ensure that they can build a platform of health. Whether you're seeking a world championship, or you're just trying to have better energy throughout the day, a platform of health is what performance is based on. And by taking a look at your biometrics and assessing them, and then combining it with the advice and recommendation from the team of experts and scientists at InsideTracker, we get to filter out all of the noise and get some targeted focus to ensure that we accelerate our platform of performance. The best thing is, it's all measurable and trackable. We can actually see the results over the course of time, which validates our approach to give us the best yield possible. The good news is that you don't even need to be a Purple Patch athlete to take advantage. Now, we'd love you to be. You're welcome. We embrace all, but if you're not a Purple Patch athlete, if you're a self-coach, if you're on your own journey, super, all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch, that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch. And we have a very sneaky code for you -- Purple Patch Pro 20, that's Purple Patch Pro two zero, and you get 20% off everything at the store. I highly recommend it, and if you have any advice or you need any advice around this, feel free to reach out to us, info@purplepatchfitness.com and we'd be happy to collaborate to make sure that you can make best use of your InsideTracker experience, Purple Patch or otherwise. All right, I hope you enjoy today's show. It's a goodie, it's pretty helpful. So get on with it. We're going to talk about the kiddies today. Cheers.
Matt Dixon 02:21
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and today we're talking about the kids. It is a revisit to youth development in sport. Now, I've mapped today's show, to ensure that it's relevant to parents, coaches, young athletes, but also adult athletes who are going to be able to draw insights into your own athletic journey yourself. Now, we did a podcast a couple of years back anchored around kid sport, but that was at the time when my son Baxter was seven or eight years of age. And now he's edging on to well, he's almost 11 years of age. And so I felt like after my last two years as being an active parent in sport. I thought you know what, it's time to revisit the subject. I think it's important as we dig into this subject that I frame, my perspective. What am I drawing from to give my education a structure and framework as we go through today's show? Well, the first element is my own athletic journey. I was an elite swimmer, up to a finalist at the Olympic trials level. I spent several years racing in professional triathlons. So I've got a pretty extensive career, if you want to call it that, in the athletic journey all the way from very, very young, all the way up to obviously retiring from elite sport. I also am drawing on my own coaching experience. My first coaching experience was at one of the top age groups and teams in the country. So I was coaching, somewhere between 12 and 18 years of age. And then I went on to coach division one university swimming at a pretty high-level program. And then of course, what most folks know me for my last 15-plus years of coaching world-class professional endurance athletes, time-starved amateurs, and a whole host of C-suite executives. And then finally, I'm drawing my information today on my own experience as a dad, absolutely fully immersed in the dizzying maze of youth sport. My son Baxter, as I mentioned is turning 11, and across any given year, he's doing swim team, Track and Field, water polo, little bit of soccer, some basketball. Last year, he really enjoyed baseball. Outside of that, he loves riding his bicycle, he even gets dragged on hikes with his mum, Kelli, and myself. And that is before we even get to dance into the arenas of guitar, French lessons, and neighborhood chaos with his buddies. In other words, he's a busy young Chappie and he is two feet fully into youth sport. And so it is a combination of these experiences as an athlete, as coach, as well as, as a parent that I am drawing on today's information. What I intend to do through this lens is to provide my perspective on the role of sports for kids, how we should we be viewing kids’ sports? What's the role? What are we trying to get out of them? I'm also then gonna lead into some of my observations of the last two years as things start to get a little bit serious. And out of that, hopefully, provide a perspective and, dare I say, humble recommendations. Let's call that last part, my utopian blueprint. In other words, how I think that we as parents should take on and support our kids in sport, what high school coaches can think about when they're actually managing and leading their athletes. And what we're looking to get out of this globally. What is the best path to ensure that our kids can grow and develop and have a lifelong love of sport with just a few of them becoming world-class? Now, before we dive in, I want to point out that the typical education that I go through here comes from a place of very strong authority. At least I like to think of that. I like to not try and pontificate on things that I don't have a pretty deep knowledge about. Today, I think that this is a little bit more of a grounded perspective. And through that lens, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And there are plenty of ways to do that. You can provide some feedback, or your insights and recommendations, maybe a bounce back on some of the things that I talked about, that you agree or don't agree with. And so feel free to post it on our socials. On Instagram is probably the easiest @PurplePatchFitness. We also can be reached at Twitter @Purple Patch. If you'd like to keep it a little bit more private, a little more reasons, maybe a little bit more long-form, reach out to us on email info@PurplePatchFitness.com. Or you can even leave me a voicemail. And that's very simple, you just head to the podcast page at the website, PurplePatchFitness.com. And you can leave a voicemail or a note in there. Now I'll be sure to share any insights that I think are really valuable, maybe some things that I miss over the course of today's show. But I want to ensure that this is a really valuable session to ground us as coaches, as athletes, and of course as parents. What did you think? What did you learn? What is the best approach to help kids optimize the yield from their sport? I welcome your insights. Well, with that we need to get going. But just before we do, I'm going to have a very, very brief Matt's News-ings. Today, Barry, roll me into that.
Matt Dixon 07:46
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings. I've got two things to go through today. The first is we do, and this is a little bit of a scarcity, but we do have two spots now open on our one-to-one coaching program. A lot of athletes reaching out for that quite often. It is at capacity but we actually have a couple of athletes that are off-boarding. And so, therefore, we have the opportunity to have the role to add a couple of athletes to the roster, we have some fantastic coaches available, they are geographically dispersed and can work with anyone across the world. So if you would like to get an intervention in your performance and have a little bit of partnership with one-to-one coaching, and then reach out to us info@purplepatchfitness.com. You can also head to the coaching page of the website. And with that, in a couple of weeks’ time, we are going to announce a brand new coach. You know that we're very passionate about female sport and female development. And over the course of the last few years have become really, really invested in helping perimenopause or menopausal or female athletes really thrive. And so we are bringing on a new coach, a female coach whose expertise and specialty is exactly in that field. Whether you're a triathlete an endurance athlete, a fitness enthusiast, it's a great addition to the team. And so before we announce the coach, it's a very, very special edition, I'm really excited about it. If you are interested, I know that this is going to be someone that gets to capacity very, very quickly. So if you are under that target banner, and you're interested in getting some one-to-one guidance around your performance, your health, your sports performance, and then feel free to reach out to us to the same email address info@Purple PatchFitness.com and we will of course, make sure that we talk to you about it, explain who the person is and once we announce it publicly, and allow you to get onto the roster there. All right, with that, I do want to just have a little bit of reminder something that I announced last week, and that was something that was very, very special. This is an important one, something that we're really excited about. And in fact, I would seldom talk on this show about new hires, the fact that we are hiring someone, but this is a special opportunity for the right person because we are hiring In a key leadership position at Purple Patch. The title is the Director of Growth and Business. As I mentioned, this is a key leadership role within the Purple Patch team, the successful candidate will be working directly with myself, and Kelly, and is designed as a key role to set us up for even better service and growth in the next chapter of Purple Patch. And as you know, we have a phrase at Purple Patch, evolve or die, we are very, very ambitious. And we are really looking for the next key person to help us on that journey. So we've decided to reach out to our most trusted resource and that is you guys, our athletes, and our listeners. And you know us, you know our methods, you know our beliefs, and we are hoping that someone out there listening might be the right fit, or at least know someone that is the right fit. So if it sparks your interest, feel free to head to the website, PurplePatchFitness.com Go to the bottom of the page at the career section, and we've posted it right near Purple Patch fitness.com. We've also plugged it into the show notes, we're really excited. And of course, you have not just our encouragement, but also thanks for sharing it with anyone that you might think would be a good fit. This person will be based in San Francisco. They will be based out of the performance center that I'm recording this very show in right now. And we will be side by side going on quite the performance journey. We're excited. All right details in the show notes. That's it. But remember, today is all about the kiddies, Barry. And so let's get on with this we are going to do The Meat and Potatoes.
Matt Dixon 11:44
Yes, folks, The Meat and Potatoes. And I've got to say this is one that I am very excited about. Kids in sports - the role, success, and how to evolve it to make it fit for purpose. Just a couple of days ago, I was having a chat with Siri Lindley. Now some of you folks might know Siri Lindley, she's a legendary triathlon coach who has produced multiple World Champions over the course of her career coaching professional athletes. And we were having a nice little chat. I'm good friends with Siri, I have a lot of respect for her. And we were talking about coaching world-class athletes, elite athletes, and she told me the words that she received from her very first coach. And her coach said to her, "I care so much more about the person you become over the results that you achieve." let that marinate, a coach guiding an athlete who went on to become world champion by the way. And she told Siri, "I care about who you become, less about the results you achieve." This, this is sport. The journey of becoming. That is much more powerful and more important than the outcomes. Although if you embrace that concept, your outcomes are going to be the best that you can possibly imagine. Now, if you listen to that statement, that introduction there and you think, "Nonsense. It's all about winning, go big or go home. Second place is for losers," and all of the other quotes that are like that, fair enough. I hear ya. But I hope if you keep listening, that by the end of today's show, you might start to see things in an involved perspective. Because I am not anti-world-class performance, I spent a whole considerable amount of my career trying to achieve just that, both individually and also with the coach or the athletes that I served, but, but, there is a broader picture here. And I hope that as we go through today, that can start to bubble up into your conscience. And you can start to think about it. So as we kick into talking about kids in sport, I'm just going to start with a few pieces of data. And this is going to be our grounding. We're not going to go into this data too much, but just a few statistics that are drawn from very valuable and well-respected resources that we are going to draw on in our discussion. Here we go. 7% of high school athletes go on to play in college. So if you're a high school athlete, you've got less than a one in 10 chance that the opportunity is going to be that you are going to go and play in college at some level -- Division One, Division Two, Division Three -- is about 7%. Interesting. Okay. About 2% of high school athletes, not high schoolers, high school athletes, only 2% of them are awarded some form of athletic scholarship. 2%. Nought point 3% get a full ride. Okay, that is less than half a percent get a full-ride scholarship. In fact, the average scholarship award is $10,000 annually. So if you do get -- if you're part of the 2%, the average is about 10,000. To put that in perspective, average university fees for private universities, the average is about $38,000 annually, out-of-state public about $23,000 annually, in state about 10,000. Okay, for in-state public institutions. So that's the fees. And there's the average $10,000 that you get for that 2% of athletes that are awarded some form of scholarship, athletic scholarship. Okay. All right. And now let's throw out some statistics around single sport specialization. Over 80% of current division one football scholarship recruits played another sport in high school. So of the 2% of high school athletes in the sport of football, American football, of the athletes that are recruits, 80% of them, eight out of 10, played another sport in high school. In other words, they didn't have single sport specialization. Now, let's filter out and go down the line. What about those that win the Heisman trophy? For you guys outside of America, that's the award given to the "best player" over the course of the whole season across all of college football. So the Heisman Trophy winner, the finalists, with no exception, none of them in 2022, or 2023, specialized during high school, single sport. All of them were multi-sport athletes. All righty, let's go up a level let's go to the NFL Draft. Now most recent data 2022, 89% of those NFL draft picks were multi-sport athletes in high school. So, therefore, that correlates to the same information and the same data that we get. And a little side note here, in last year's Superbowl 96% of those athletes, so you could say or argue the cream of the NFL crop, 96% of them almost exclusively, were all multi-sport in high school. Huh. Interesting stuff huh? Okay. Now for reference. Let's go to baseball. The most famous surgery in baseball, anchored around the elbow joint is the Tommy John surgery. Now, this used to be an extremely rare surgery. So much so that when Tommy John got that surgery, they thought it was impossible that he would even return to the sport. Well, it turns out now, once it was a rarity, now it is very, very common. And something that is stifling that will draw on later in the show, 57% of the Tommy John surgeries performed were on people that were between 15 to 19 years of age. So almost two-thirds of the surgeries are occurring to athletes that are in their mid to late teens. So this isn't something that's happening at the end of someone's professional baseball career, it is happening to our youth players. Gulp.
Matt Dixon 18:27
Okay, there's some grounding tidbits, a little bit of data all righty. And with that information and statistics in our little box of treasure to draw from, I want to start with aligning ourselves on what are we even doing here. Kids in sport, what I want us to do is define an unlined on success. And I think that there are -- there is one overriding thing that we should align on. And that's the fact that sports do parallel life in many ways. In other words, the lessons that an athlete can draw on through their sporting journey, the Ups, downs, the challenges, teamwork, camaraderie, everything else that we're gonna get into today, they parlay into many aspects that are important and useful if you're trying to lead your best life or you're going to try and do your best over the course of whatever your career is. So the lessons learned in sport apply to life. That's one thing that's just factually accepted. Good. And from that, it means that this little journey that we have, the small chapter in our total life we hope, the sporting journey can be a crucible from which we can apply so many of the experiences into almost anything that we do in the rest of our lives. And that becomes really powerful. And I think it means that we should keep that principle in mind as we think about coaching our kids when they're in the developmental phase that 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 all the way up to collegiate age, and we parent, our kids. We are supporting their athletic journey, in part because we know it is supporting their journey in life. And so we are here to support our children, and try and expose them to as many different experiences as possible. And in fact, when I think about parenting, our role isn't to drive our kids to set them up for great baseball success, or soccer success, or swimming success, or ping pong success, or rowing success or anything else. All it is, is to continually expose and expose and expose and allow our sons and daughters to dabble in things until they find their thing. It's their ownership, they find their thing that they fall in love with, and perhaps want to make a bigger commitment to. And then when that happens, we are there to support them emotionally, quite oftentimes, financially, logistically, everything else. We are the wind behind their wings, we cannot just barge out of their way. Instead, we are there to help them course correct as they go on their journey, and they find their thing. Now in the younger years of sport, and you can go back to the last episode that we did on kids, the focus should undoubtedly be on fun. You remember that word? Fun. It should be social.
Matt Dixon 21:43
And you can start to introduce commitment, the value of hard work, teamwork, camaraderie, being a good sportsperson, et cetera, et cetera. But predominantly, it should be fun, the joy of participation, the challenge of a little bit of healthy competition, because there is competition in life, and it should be really, really social. And as they develop, and they go on their journey, the fun and the social aspects shouldn't evaporate, it should stay joyous. It should remain fun, but then commitment and focus can increase behind it. Now, some of the positives of a sporting journey are very, very simple, but it's worth us mapping them. Let's come up at the highest level. What is some of the value of a sporting journey for a kid who gets past the 5, 6, 7, 8 years of age and starts to move to the 10, 11, 12, and then 13, 14, 15, 16 up through to high school graduation? Well, there is great value in commitment. Taking something on and committing and seeing it through. And sport can be a great vehicle for this. Once you've made that commitment, showing up following through, and starting to experience the jeopardy of sport where there is no guarantee, but also the rewards. And those rewards come from hard work, attention, detail, focus. And that's very obvious. We all appreciate and understand that. So we can draw, or our kids can draw, from committing to something -- that's super.
Matt Dixon 23:34
But along that journey that we outline, it is doubtless that our kids will also experience adversity, setbacks, some failures, some disappointments, maybe being left out of things, and along that, those are all going to be essential experiences, stepping stones, that facilitate, if approached appropriately, with some good guidance and parenting and coaching, can be key catalysts for growth, for improvement, for the development of resilience and adaptability, all of those lovely cute words that we talked about are essential across work and life. So in other words, they can equip someone, a kid, to be more resilient. And that's an important part of it. We don't just want linear progression, we want setbacks and challenges and overcoming roadblocks because that parlays into life. The third element that's really important as we embrace the sporting journey, is actually establishing a really healthy relationship with pressure, with performance with stressors. How to actually remain focused on the process and aspects that the young kid can control and not get daunted by the what ifs and the maybes. And what happens if I don't succeed And so in other words, we can build a healthier relationship with stress, where they realize it's important for growth. And it's where the best rewards come from, and be less intimidated by negative potential outcomes, or other potential pitfalls. And that becomes really important to adding into the young kid becoming more resilient. Fourthly, if your child is immersed in any positive setting, and an athlete should develop a really good understanding and appreciation of sportsmanship, collaboration, teamwork, something that is essential if we're going to ultimately be really productive participants in society, perform in the workplace. It requires collaboration, teamwork, seeing things from other people's way, and sportsmanship. And that becomes a really important value that we can draw from sport and live our life in the better way. And then finally, I'm going to add an appreciation of the value of coaching, and in fact developing how to be coached, which is a really essential role, an important skill to have. Athletes, through this, begin to understand how to advocate for themselves, how to actually reflect on themselves and start to appreciate who they are, and what they need to partner with others so that they can set a path for their own success or their team's success. Now, all of these, these values that you get, these are stones that make up a road to becoming, that's why I like that word, becoming a better version of themselves. And that is what sport is, that is what sport teaches. And that's important for us to bear in mind. Across all levels, let's make sure that we remember something here. This isn't reserved for the best performance athletes, whether they're physically gifted or less physically gifted from top to bottom level, this is the opportunity that is accessible to every level of athletes. Absolutely every kid that's participating. Next time you sit at the side of a track meet, and you see the lightning kid run, and you can't help but have your eyes drawn in that direction. Goodness me how does she run that fast? And then you pull away and you look at the other kid that's further behind that almost looks like they're stuck in the mud. They're working hard. What I want you to do is pause and realize that both of these athletes are equally equipped to improve from their current level, and that's important, and also reap the rewards that I just went through. And this is why every kid should be welcomed. Every kid should be encouraged to commit, and every kid should be valued, so that they can embrace a sporting journey and reap the rewards that are vastly more important and powerful than first, second, third, or getting a sports scholarship. Which only 2% get a sports scholarship. The same thing applies in team sport. If you're next time watching your kids game, and you see that kid, a wizard, goodness me is that the next Ronaldo? Surely not. And then you compare it to the kid who's attempting to clear the ball out of the danger area. And instead of kicking the ball accidentally kicks the turf and looks down in frustration. Both of these kids, Mini Rinaldo and the kid that just made the mistake, both of these kids equally benefit from a sporting journey. And they are equally equipped to learn, to grow, to improve, and also become great teammates. And that's sport. That's the importance of sports. And this is why we are here.
Matt Dixon 29:14
Okay. Now I hear coaches listening to this and say, Yeah, but what about elite performance? What about that 2%? What about the kids that do want to excel? Okay, so let's dig into youth sport through more of a sports performance lens, and let's think about that component as well. So if we put aside that broader perspective that I just went to, and we just think about having a role as an athletic coach, let's take a high school coach, and say My job is to make the best athlete possible for the long term. Because we don't want a high school athlete that's just great freshman and sophomore year. We want an athlete that is set up for great success. High sports performance in kids sport. Great. If that's the quest, and then, as we go on the journey, the predominant focus or word that we should orb around for any kid in sport from 8t or 9 years of age, up to 18, so let's make it memorable, 8 to 18. The primary focus should be less about performance, and more about development. There's your magic word. Development, that is the magic word. And so high school coaches, when you show up at practice every day, the first question that you ask is, Am I developing my athletes? Am I taking the long lens? Am I patient? And am I setting him up this year to become better, but also ensuring I'm doing the things that are going to help them improve and become better again? Because that, in my opinion, should be the driver? It's the question that comes in front of how can I win this game. How many swimmers can I get to qualify to state? How many victories Can I get in whatever sport you choose? But we're going to go back to that later.
Matt Dixon 31:20
But the truth is, this is especially relevant for the athletes that are actually destined to go on to be high sporting achievers. So in other words, those small percentage of athletes 7% or less, that are going to go on to be collegiate athletes. Perhaps they're athletes that ultimately in their sporting journey might even via for national team selection, dare I say they might become professional athletes. In that very small sub-sector of our athletes that we coach over youth sport, that lens of development becomes even more, even more, important. I want you to pause and let that sink in, that becomes really important. Whatever happens at 9, 12, 14, 17 should still be providing the foundation for best performance to emerge from those years of development. Development, that is the key word. So then you should ask, well, what is development? What are we looking to develop? If you've got someone that's eight 9, 10, 11, 12, all the way up to high school age, what is development? Because it's not just getting faster and faster, it's building an athlete. And we all know that an athlete is a complex thing. So here are some of the things that I think about when I think about athletic development.
Matt Dixon 32:49
Number one, we want them to develop a long-standing love of the sport, and the process of improvement. The reason this is number one is because without passion dropout will occur. And if you ain't doing it, you ain't doing it. So you want your athletes develop a love of the sport and an absolute passion for the process. That means it has to be pretty fun. It doesn't mean that you can't take performance seriously. And you can't ask for commitment, particularly as they start to move up to 14, 15, 16 high school age, yeah commitment needs to be there, but it can be fun. You have to love the sport if you're going to ultimately have the intrinsic motivation, that is a non-negotiable for you, the athlete to go on and be successful. The second element, in order of priority that's important, is skill acquisition and technical development. The way that you do things, your posture, your coordination, your skill, developing skill. It's not about how hard you throw the ball. It's about how you're throwing the ball. It's not about how much power you produce on your bicycle. It's about how you ride your bike and how you can interact with your bicycle. It's not about how fast you go. It's about how good your turns are, how good you are technically with your stroke. Technique, skill acquisition, really, really important. The third element of development is a platform of a really healthy structure. Your chassis, if you're a car, if we can develop a low incidence of injury and a really strong and healthy muscular-skeletal system, it is a platform for the future. Now this means improving your movement patterns, getting an advanced motor programming, how your brain is talking to your muscles in coordination. You want to have good stability, established wonderful posture, really good coordination of movement. A lot of that relates to skill acquisition, of course, and you want to develop a really healthy tissue resilience. In other words, you have low prevalence of injury and ability to be set up to absorb, advance, and growing in demand training load that is required for elite sport. So that's a phase of development as well. Good. The fourth element,
Matt Dixon 35:25
cardiovascular conditioning, we talked about the chassis, you also want to have a platform of fitness. And that wants to build over years, this is something that is a long-term development cue. Now you can develop the pump, the heart, and your cardiovascular system through various modalities, you can't do it just through, or you don't have to do it, just through the sport of passion or focus, you can get there a lot of different ways. And we use this all the time in elite sport for our very, very fast runners. we draw into multi-sport to help with cardiovascular conditioning. So bear that in mind, if you're parenting, or you're coaching young athletes, we're training the pump. And you do that over many, many years through various modalities. But cardiovascular conditioning is important. Of course, even more, important when we think about endurance sports, swimming, running, rowing, etc. Good is that it? Not quite. There's something that is glaring that we are missing, that should be a non-negotiable. And that's developing mental skills, a huge part of the gains a huge part of the platform of success. How to prepare for competition, that's anticipation. And that can be trained on a daily basis, just your mental approach to every training session that you go into. When and how to focus during competition or during training, what are you thinking about during the action phase actually doing it. And then perhaps most important, and yet most frequently ignored, how to structure review and assessment of your performance post. In other words, the reinforcement phase. This is the imprinting phase. This is where a lot of confidence with a positive mindset and some really smart strategic coaching can help build an athlete to develop strength of mental resilience, a really healthy relationship with stress, overcome adversity and fear and ultimately make them a better athlete. And so the mental skill set, that is a huge developmental process that can start very early in sport, and should continue ongoing all the way through high school and certainly, of course, into elite sport. Most athletes, most coaches ignore this. And therefore they're stuck trying to fix low confidence, paranoia, anxiety, unhealthy relationship with Pass/ Fail mindset, etcetera when they are already at a relatively high level. And that makes the whole journey, when it really counts, much more challenging. Now, finally, in addition to these core elements of what we're looking to develop, there's a few other things that I think can really help. And so here's a few that I just want to add in great supporting habits. What I think about with that is key aspects of nutrition, not for weight management, but for fueling the body to facilitate recovery, ensuring you've got great habits around hydration, having the young athlete really start to understand the appreciation of downtime, rest, recuperation, really good sleep, and how that is a performance enhancer for the very hard work that they're doing. And even aspects like how to effectively be coached, how to leverage a support team around you for your own success, all of the aspects around teamwork, and the benefits of collaboration, even in individual sport. In other words, as an athlete, a young kid, from 8, 9, 10, 11 all the way through to 18 years of age, starts to develop and emerge. What comes out of this is a well-rounded set of athletic development, strength, fitness and coordination, enhanced skills and technique, some great supporting habits, a mental game toolkit, and an appreciation and understanding of the benefits of coaching and how to be coached. Because for them to be the best that they can be. They are going to need to draw on everything. If you can achieve a positive platform, by the time you're in mid to late teens, and then you've got the grounding of a great long-term athlete. And for the few at the pointy end of this, a really a great opportunity for successful elite sports And so what we just went through there is the great benefits of the sporting journey applies to everyone. And then it absolutely applies to everyone. But it is even more important. Even if we're thinking about higher-end sports performance, we still have to think about long-term development and embrace the aspects of sport and journey to get there in itself.
Matt Dixon 40:23
So with that grounding, let's go into some observations. A lot of this is just drawn from me as a parent. And I'll get to this in a little bit. But it's no easy task. And let me say, it's no easy task to be a parent of a kid who loves sport. But it's really not an easy task, to be a volunteer coach or a professional coach of kids. So I want to make sure that what I'm going to outline here is with the greatest respect and admiration for all coaches, it is a very, very challenging job to get done. And in fact, I was having a conversation with Kelli, just the other day. And I said, You know what, when the journey of Purple Patch is over at any time, one thing that I would love to do is go back and coach high school. And I think I can make a positive difference, a great team culture, hopefully, help some kids. But goodness me, it's not easy. I hope I still have the energy and the will. So as I outline these stories today, it's not with a heavy pointed finger of Woah all of these high school coaches are doing it wrong. What are these parent coaches doing? I'm highlighting these examples in the pursuit of growth. And maybe if you're listening as a coach, or as a parent, volunteer coach, it might cause a little bit of reflection, and therefore an opportunity for growth. So this is not about pointing out the wrong instead, because ultimately, that doesn't do any good, there's absolutely no value in saying this is all wrong. Instead, I want this to be heard as here's the opportunity for growth. These are some great, great lessons that we can apply and evolve.
Matt Dixon 42:17
So our first one that we're going to take on my little story is well, let's call it soccer woes. And this is a story about some very close friends of Kelli and I, who just like Baxter, they have a 10-year-old boy. And I know him well because our families get to ski to each other with each other every winter. And he is without doubt -- well, firstly, he is a super lad, but he's also very athletic. He's wicked, smart, as they would say, from the East Coast, but he's also very athletic. And one of the sports that he loves is soccer. He's pretty good at it, by all accounts. And in his current team, he plays in goal. Now he doesn't really want to play in goal, but that's where he was placed. And because he's a pretty good athlete, he's done pretty well. And he would, as he said to me, much rather than ultimately play in the outfield. He'd love to be a midfielder. But he doesn't get that opportunity. Because ultimately, that's where his team, of other 10-year-old boys, of course, that's where they need him for best team performance. And so, therefore, that's where he is. Now I know, as I said that he is really smart, athletically, he is very athletic physically. And I'm sure that he would thrive in the outfield as much as he would be in goal, but that's where he is. Well, recently, he received an invitation. And that invitation was to play on a highly prestigious team in the local area, a travel team. And I got to see the quote, contract, yes, 10 years of age, the contract. And in this contract, the local team demanded that every player commit to be single sport. In other words, he was just to participate in soccer on that team. And every player signs the contract that includes no skipped practice without written permission. So, therefore, kiss goodbye to those ski trips. And you're going to be in the position of the coach's choice. And it was very, very clear to this young lad, that he was going to be goalkeeper. In other words, from the age of 10, through till the time that he was on this very prestigious team, he was never going to get to participate in the outfield. This is commitment. It is also quite frankly, performance stupidity. And in fact, it's stunting athletic development for both of the aspects that we were talking about what we're trying to achieve. This doesn't achieve either. That coach, no matter how innocent, and I appreciate it comes from a good place. That coach is potentially filtering out talent potential by pigeonholing someone in and on top of it, not even going to yield the best soccer players ever because many of those players, we're going to lose some of the aspects, some of the lessons skill acquisition that you can draw from multi-plane disciplines of doing different sports because there are benefits of each of the players may be doing an individual sport, and having to look in the mirror and develop cardiovascular and muscular tissue resilience, but also step up and perform with the spotlight just on them. And their skill acquisition that can be gained from maybe a fast-moving sport like lacrosse, of basketball. And so at this age, it's actually stunting these athletes that are participating on this team, and on top of it is filtering out some of the talent potential. And that's a real darned shame. A second example parallel to this, a local youth baseball team. Now, I spoke to the coach, I happen to speak to him I met him on the in our local town. He said, "the team is coming together. 11-year-old kids, they're getting better, and that's great. And every player on the team for the season, they have their position, it's locked in, it's great. They know what they're doing, they do it well, super. Now, the team is full of players that have now done a few seasons of baseball, they probably started at T ball they went on and they're kind of committed, they've got quite a few players that are doing travel ball, in other words, a little bit more serious, but all of the athletes that have been on this, all of the kids have had multiple seasons of baseball to get ingrained. And over the course of that, that develop their roles. They've also established an understanding of the rules of the game, the art of the game, the mechanics, and how it flows. And so you could call them kind of baseball veterans, even though they're only 11 years of age. Hey, remember that stat that I told you about that Tommy John surgery, the one around the elbow? It's no surprise, is it? Because 11-year-old players are locked into outside of hitting only pitching. They're locked into a position. And in the game that I went to see I saw an 11-year-old pitch more than 80 times at times, and they're throwing the ball very, very hard. 40, 50, 60 miles an hour.
Matt Dixon 47:18
And so whoever is better at the time, at 11 years old, remember, this isn't 16, 17, 18 at 11 years old, whoever happens to be fearless and be able to sit behind and be catcher or be able to throw the ball harder, maybe they're a little bit more physically mature, or they've had a little bit of better skill acquisition when they're 8, 9, 10 years of age, wherever they're at, That's what they're doing. And from that age, 10 or so years of age, they're destined to pitch or catch or whatever. And those that just happen to be behind the curve of development -- maybe they're less mature physically, maybe they've been doing other sports and have now come to baseball -- they don't stand a chance. Not a chance. And interestingly at this game, I saw that in action. There was a new kid there, he'd been to five or six practices. And my little beady coach's eye. I was drawn to him, little Johnny. And I looked at him. And I asked to parent who's that kid over there. And the answer I received was, ah, that's Johnny. He's not too hot. He's not great. Well, to me, I looked at him. And I watched how he moved, his hand-eye coordination. And I realized this kids really fast. He can throw the ball with really pretty good mechanics, he is athletically aware. And as a coach, often you can see that, you see movement. And that's great. But it was very clear that he wasn't near the best baseball player on the team. I managed to find his parents and I asked his dad, how long has been playing baseball he was at five practices in he's hardly played at all. I said how is he enjoying it? Is he enjoying the sport so far? He's like well, it gets like, you know, he's down at the bottom of the line. So he gets to maybe hit you know, once or twice and he gets some throwing drills, but all he plays is in the outfield. So quite frankly, he kind of finds it boring. Huh? He's getting bored. See the coaches here, while we're well-meaning are filtering. Their eyes are getting drawn to the kids that have done the sport. That's all they've done, done the sport for a couple of years. And at that time, in the very early stages of development happened to be throwing the ball harder or hitting the ball a little bit better. But they're not stepping back and seeing the physical gifts of the person that just has -- isn't on the front of the development curve. They're actually missing kids who because of the penalty of inexperience, could be the most gifted kids, and by the structure of the team, and the way that it's organized, they're actually filtering kids out of the sport. And they might be the kids that are the "ones," not that that's that important anyway, remember the value of our sport, but they lose a potential athlete, a great addition to their team, because of short-term thinking, worrying about the kids getting to the final. And all of that is great and should be celebrated and it's fun. But we need to think about development. Unfortunately, these examples that I lay out, are not A-typical. They are the norm. And it's a huge challenge.
Matt Dixon 50:48
Let me come to another example. I mentioned that my son Baxter -- 10 years of age, almost 11, he loves swimming. So in preparation for this episode, I thought, You know what, I'm gonna go to a USA Swimming Club that's local, that's got a reputation for high performance at the preteen and teenage level. So I wanted to look at the, "best club in our area." Here's a quote from their website, "swimmers of the silver group..." -- and I guess I should explain the silver group, the silver group is the second level down in commitment, they have a group called the Gold Group, as you can imagine, and that's typically for 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, "...swimmers of the silver group are seven to 13 years of age, they must commit to 85% completion rate of the six sessions of training each week, and are preferably single sport kids." So here we are 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years of old, and they are asked in swimming, which is a sport in which 90% of your weight is displaced by a water, that environment, you're almost learning the skill in space, these kids as they are developing their bone structure, their coordination and movement, et cetera, et cetera, at that age of development, 7, 8 9, 10, 11, 12, they're asked to only focus on swimming. It's no wonder that swimmers have a reputation of being like fish in the water, but unable to carry a bag of Shopping out of Whole Foods when they're older. They don't have any grounding, any stability, overall athletic development. Now, what happens when you take this approach, in my humble opinion, is a massively increased risk of mental burnout, performance plateau for participants, after all, think about it. By the time the swimmers, if they decide to carry on heading to collegiate swimming, they are already more than a decade into a single sport commitment or more than 10 years of only thinking about one thing. But worse than this, or perhaps in parallel to this, there is no way, no way, physically, it just doesn't make any logistical sense that this approach produces the best outcome or athletes. It simply doesn't. Because these swimmers are missing so many benefits that emerge out of, and all of the research shows it a multi-sport approach. Sure, swim. It's important. It's very, very difficult to become an adult-onset summer swim, commit to it, enjoy it, embrace competition, but come up a level and think about the long game development, coordination, skill, camaraderie, teamwork, sportsmanship, the mental game, and so on. And so these demands that have been made on our kids from a soccer team or baseball club or swim team, etc. What it's doing, ultimately, is narrowing athletic development. That's what's occurring here. It's filtering kids out of the sport, or it's narrowing and stunting athletic development. And so if we want to produce the best athletes, and we want to yield, the biggest results, those big yields those big life picture yields, we need to embrace a big picture lens in it, we need to think about long-term development.
Matt Dixon 54:29
So what's our smarter approach to this? Well, the headline news is this. We want to develop overall athleticism, build the athlete then build the athlete for the sport, overall athleticism. We want to ingrain a broad and deep appreciation for the sport, the journey of sport globally, and start to have our athletes experience that. A multidisciplinary approach. Doing different things, it's really healthy. And overall, think about building an athletes at the broadest sense of the term, before you get to the specific sport. There's plenty of time for that. So what does it mean to us as parents? Well, let me not pontificate on this. Let me draw from a great resource -- elite running coach, and one of the fastest High School runners ever, in the history of the sport, Steve Magnus. Many of you guys know Steve has been on the show. He's written a couple of books on publication, and he said it so well. He said for parents of young athletes, before around high school time, there's not much that you can do to help your child's athletic success. But there are lots of things that you can do to mess it up. And so keep it fun. Support your kids, and keep it child-led. Don't fall for the traps of chasing performance when they're young. It's fool's gold. Chase development. Perfect, chase development. And so we break it down, we talk about what we're looking to achieve, we highlight some of the issues and some of the challenges that the coaching aspects face.
Matt Dixon 56:14
So what about some recommendations? Let's go to as I talked about a little jokingly my sort of utopian blueprint of sorts. Now, this in itself, is going to be a standalone podcast. So this last section, we're going to build out, and over the coming weeks or so we're just going to talk about the blueprint of youth kids’ success. But let me at least begin today. Now, as we dive into this, we should remember our goals for our kids, as athletes, all of the valuable life lessons that I went through, that can be expressed through sports, I want you to draw back and remember that. And secondly, the whole concept of looking for development, building the athlete at the broadest sense, and then specializing, because every single time development is going to trump short-term results and performance success. All right, so let's dig in. There are a few main categories of this.
Matt Dixon 57:14
Number one, I have to start here, build the athlete first. What do I mean by that? So as a coach, as a parent, we should encourage this, fall in love with skill development. Focus on not how much, how fast, how hard? Instead, focus on the doing -- your mechanics of pitching a baseball. Develop it, not just, it's great, he throws it really hard. In something like swimming or running, what your posture is, how your strokes are, what your running gait is like, starts, turns, a little bit of strategization, your skill development side of it. Athletically building the athlete first stability, coordination movement across all planes. And that means mixing up activities when you've got a team of athletes switching up positions, putting them in unfamiliar situations, and having them work it out. Because that's a journey of development. And when they go back to their prime position, because yeah, you might have someone that pitches more, they're going to be all the better for it. Make them understand the game and become an athlete. And so place them in different roles, different events, or strokes. If they tend to fall in love with the distance stuff, do the sprints and vice versa. And mix it up and make it fun -- challenging. And as our athletes begin to get older, and then you can start to introduce the elements of sport, that will become really important. So when they're 9, 10, 11, it's fun, and you can introduce a little bit of goals, et cetera, but then when they become 11, 12, 13, 14, now, we're going to bring in some more elements. We're going to think about strategies, pacing, how to navigate racing, coordination of setups within team sports. You're going to have smart goals, goals that are action, focused, not I want to win the championship. I just want to go X, Y, and Z time. not win/lose, not pass/fail, but process goals that help with development and improvement. In other words, putting something out there that can elicit aspiration and dream. But in short, it's not just a wish, instead, come back and say, Great! Now, what are the steps that you need to do, that you can control, that are going to help increase the likelihood? Well, I can control my effort. I can control how often I show up to practice I can focus on where I'm placing my focus, et cetera, et cetera. And that's how you can improve as a youth athlete. So we can start to introduce that as the athlete starts to move to 12,13, 14 years of age. And in support of that, it's important that we start to, at that same similar age really start to develop the mental toolkit. Having the athlete appreciate the relationship with high-pressure environments, how to focus on aspects that they can control how to manage those feelings that their body naturally and suitably get under the threat of competition. In fact, the joy of competition, how to reinforce actions that they do with positive growth lessons, the list can go on. I told you it was a whole podcast in itself.
Matt Dixon 1:00:48
And the third big area is exposure, deliberately exposing our athletes to adversity, to high challenge, but then go on, and look to support for future growth and improvement. So if I was coaching a baseball team, or leading a swim team, you've got to all do what you're not great at right now. Not what great at period, what you're not great at right now, because that's a growth opportunity. I'm going to do everything I can to delay specialization, I don't want you to be single sport, I want you to do multiple disciplines. And I'm going to encourage you to commit, but in a smart way. As they get on in age 12, 13, 14, that might be committing to a set number of practices. But when they're young, really young, it might just be as simple as hey, Johnny, do you want to do water polo? You've never done it before. Yeah, mamma, I'll give it a crack. Great. The commitment is, you're going to finish the season. You might not enjoy it, but you're going to finish the season. That's following through on your word, that's following through on the commitment. It's irrelevant whether Johnny is good or bad, or hits 100% of practices, or 50% of practices, we're going to see this through. And it's very rare that you want to quit unless it's for some other reason. And as we do that, you need to allow, through all of this, exposing our athletes to adversity and challenge commitment and follow through, ensuring that we're looking on skill development, building a mental toolkit. We're allowing it to be -- oh Barry, I always forget this word tell well oh thank you very much for the whisper in the ear -- Fun. We're allowing it to be fun.
Matt Dixon 1:02:41
All right. So how about coaches? How about parents? Let's finish this pretty meaty show today. Let's talk about coaches, of youth athletes. Let's talk about parents. I tell you what, being a coach, it's tough. It's a really tough role, it's a challenge. But goodness me is it empowering, is it rewarding. And so through this, as I mentioned before, this is very humble advice. The first thing I can say to coaches of youth athletes. Take the long lens, the word is development, and that means patience. I encourage you on commitment, but be flexible in your commitment, at least through high school, absolutely embrace and endorse multi-sport. Remember that you are tasked with building an athlete. And in order to do that, you need to ensure that they have passion, they fall in love, they have a strong structure, a really varied skill set, that then when things are important to get focused, they are best equipped and they are fresh mentally. And so you are building an athlete well ahead of developing a runner, developing a swimmer, turning a baseball player into a pitcher. And if you want to really differentiate, if you want to become great, and then elevate your program and elevate it through performance culture. What do I mean by this? Here is where a superpower of a coach comes into action. Number one, everyone is welcome. Number two, as the coach you value efforts, and the journey of improvement. That means if Sally is new, and doing not great to begin, because it's tough, and she improves, you show as much admiration and excitement as Jenny who's been doing it for five years and is winning every race. Value effort and the journey of improvement. There should be absolutely no special treatment whatsoever for kids who are currently performing at the highest level. Good, celebrate it, enjoy it, but no more than the kid that is behind on the performance journey. Remember what we're trying to get out of this. And place, finally, your focus, your words, and your actions around these aspects -- teamwork, effort, support, sportsmanship, personal development. And if you want to integrate some feedback, and then base all of your feedback around a few key principles. Number one, positives. Lead with the positive. What are you doing well? What do you see that's good? Keep doing that and build on it. And then what are the opportunities for growth? Here is your path if you want to improve. These are the things that you need to do if you want to improve. But never, ever, ever go around, just telling kids what they're doing wrong. Don't do it like that. That doesn't work, you're doing it wrong. Because what that type of language does is imprint. It imprints, for a young kid, a lack of belief, and it becomes a mirror of self doubt. And so here's what you're doing well, keep doing it, here's your opportunity for growth and your path to improve. Positive, positive, positive. And finally, you better get creative, because you've got to come up with a whole bunch of really seriously fun, hopefully funny, and memorable cheers and songs because you want your team cheering and singing all the way through. So in other words you better make it fun. And if you nail this, if you get these elements right, you're setting standards and you're developing a culture. And out of that, your teams are going to excel. And why is that? Because your kids are going to love it. They're going to have a healthy relationship with competition, they're going to show up and work hard, they're going to feel valued and worthy. And the talent out of that will emerge, it actually becomes easier on you. Your team will grow and a performance culture will develop. And so if you are a coach, that's motivated to have the top athletes. I get it. But don't get blinded by the super-talented 10-year-old. Focus on the kid, if you want to create the next Michael Phelps, the next Cristiano Ronaldo, the next Serena Williams, whoever you might say, if you want to find that kid, yeah, there's a certain physical gift, but look and nurture the kids that are loving it, that arrive with a positive attitude that try hard and do their best and are like a sponge of growth, taking everything that you take in. Because those traits are the things that test the mark of time. They might not be the fastest right now. They might not be the best right now. But they're the ones that you want to put your money on.
Matt Dixon 1:08:14
All right, finally, parents, whoo, well let me tell you, I say all of this like I am the world's authority, it ain't easy. I told you, it wasn't easy to be a coach. It's really not easy to be the parent of an athlete. And I'm going to say this right now, I am not doing it right. It is so hard for me to hold myself back. I want to tell you a little vignette. And it is just from last week. It was a swim meet. We belong to a wonderful swim team. And Baxter has been working very, very hard in practice. And in fact, in practice has been working on his starts, his turns, his torpedoes, in other words, his streamline under the water. And I was really intrigued. I was really excited for the swim meet. Because I knew I thought if he puts that into action, he's gonna go a lot faster. And that's going to be fun. It's going to get exciting. It's going to be great. It's good for the team as well. I think he's going to go there and it's going to get some best times. And it was a nice warm, hot, sunny day and the whole meet, he spent running around playing with his mates, running clambering up and over chairs. He was having a blast. And what did I have, internal strife? Here was my dialogue -- Oh my god. He's just throwing away his performance for F sake. And it drove me absolutely bonkers. I'm a coach. I love excellence. I want to see performance, I want to see the fruits of labor. And I had to catch myself and hold it. I had to come up out of the weeds. Instead of breaking down every one of his mistakes because yeah, he swam, he swam pretty good, but he didn't put into action really any of the things that I knew he could on starts and turns and here I was as a coach going, I want to tell you how you can improve. But I'm not his coach. That's not my role. I'm his dad. It was torment inside. And so I had to button my lip and I had to smile. I say to him, "Did you have fun? Did you race hard? Did you enjoy it?" And he loved it. I've managed to keep my mouth shut. I don't know how, by the way, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. And thank goodness, because I was in a place right there that any feedback I gave him, I would have done damage. I would have eroded his self-belief, his enjoyment, his fun, his passion for the sport. And while I would have tried to help him because I want to see him -- he's my boy, I wanted to see him get faster -- I actually would have done damage. And so I'm lucky, I held myself back, I turned to my friend Ben. And I said, F*** sake. And that was my one little peak of frustration. But, Dixon, take a chill pill. He's 10. It's great that he played with these kids. And I am the problem here. Not Baxter. Because he's showing up, he's working hard, he's practicing, he's improving for goodness sake and he's loving it. So get the heck out of the way dad, me, and let my son enjoy his sporting journey. Let him love it. Can you tell I built this podcast as a reminder for myself as much as for anyone else? Because my role and Kelli's role as his mum, and Ben and Devorah's role as Dylan's mum and dad, our parent's role -- it's support. As parents, we want to do all we can to open opportunities to expose our athletes, to lots of different types of sports and situations. And we want to drive them there and make sure that they're having fun and support them and be their advocates, and then get the heck out of the way. And let them find what they love. Because when they love that, then they're going to be in a place that they can take on a broader commitment. And so when they play their games, or they enter their swimming, or track and field running races, no matter what, we look for support. And we asked them, was it fun? Did you try hard? And as they get a little bit older, that might evolve. What did you do well? What did you learn? And what are you going to do about those lessons? But that's not for 10. That's for 13, 14. As we think about this for parents, I would encourage you diffuse, winning, losing. Instead, celebrate hard work. Allow them to be proud of their efforts. And be really careful with your words. Evolve from, "Well done. You won. Terrific. It was great you won," to, "I'm so proud of how hard you worked. Was it fun? Did you try your best?" That's the stuff that they can build on. And as much as you can, and you heard my turmoil coming out, it still bubbles up inside of me, hold on the feedback. Hold on the feedback because it's their sport. It's not yours. It's Baxter's, it's not mine, I don't own it. And I'm there. If he asked me a question, I can tell him. But it's not my journey. It's Baxters. My role is to just help create the environment and the logistical support.
Matt Dixon 1:13:54
The good news for Baxter by the way, he's got a coach right now, who gets it and does it right. As a part of his swim program, it's one of the best examples of everything I'm talking about today. His name is Mark, his assistant is Paul, and collectively they have a performance culture. And it's just like our local swim team. And why is that? It's because Mark and Paul play the long game. They appreciate athletic development. They understand the role of sports. And Mark and Paul coach kids from 8, in fact, less than 8, 6 all the way up to 18. And they have their standards -- show up, look at me in the eyes, say hi, shake hands, ask how we're doing. "How you doing? How are things today? Good standards. Commit to showing up and trying to improve. They value of hard work. It's imperative that every participant 6 to 18 shows sportsmanship. We cheer for both teams. We cheer for each other. We stay to the end and cheer our friends and teammates. Every swimmer tries every stroke, we mix it up. And you know, along the way, when you start to create that culture, you know what starts to happen? The kids improve, but they approve while they're falling in love with the sport. And you know what else? For the last many years, they're the best-performing swim team in the area. And there's no accident there. It's not because of the workouts, the intervals, it's because of the performance culture that is developed the right way.
Matt Dixon 1:15:48
I hope that helps. Remember, I'd love your feedback. I'd love to hear your questions, any thoughts that you have, feel free. You know it on the socials, you can get me. You can also ping me an email info@PurplePatchFitness.com. Feel free to let it go with your own perspective and your feedback. I'll try and get back to as many people as I can. And while you're doing it, have fun, stay sane. And if you're like me as a parent, I understand your pain. But goodness me, ain't fun. I'll see you next time. Take care.
Matt Dixon 1:16:21
Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there and you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends, and it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, any questions that you have, let me know. Feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve, simply email us at info@PurplePatchFitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, Let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sport, athletes, coach, kids, performance, journey, development, team, swimmers, draw, develop, age, coaching, years, patch, skill acquisition, athletic, good, other words, purple, youth, child