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Coaching youth sports, I operate with a handful of “All the Time” principles: have fun, never quit, and do no harm. These principles apply whether I’m coaching teenage girls in a competitive soccer match or managing elementary schoolers in a recreational softball game. They apply during the most unpleasant weather, during early morning games at faraway fields, and even during times of great stress and uncertainty.

Over the past week, my email inbox has gone from trickle to flood with announcements of precautionary measures, postponements, and cancellations, as schools, sports leagues, and local attractions first labored to find the best course of action amid the pandemic and inevitably then opted to shut down. Within this necessary abundance of caution, the missing piece in the last wave of cancellation messages has been proposed alternatives.

And for those in leadership positions, that’s the responsibility—to assess a given situation and say “Okay, here’s what’s next.”

Among other teams, I currently coach the Girls 2009 Flex soccer team for the DMCV Sharks soccer club in San Diego. We have 14 multisport athletes on this team, girls who also play softball, baseball (you got that right), basketball, flag football (damn straight), and even one starting to run cross country. For this group of high-energy girls, cancel everything means an awful lot of cancelling.

To stem the tide of shutdowns and postponements, I chose this team to launch a YES IC (Yes, Informed Continuity) program to keep the girls active, motivated, engaged, connected, and, above-all, safe during the coming weeks and/or months. It follows a simple progression:

1. Active Anywhere (home-based independent activities)
2. Own the Game (structured, partner-based games and challenges)
3. Different Formation, Same Team (small group sessions)

This program is a road map for what coaches are tasked to do in the first place: provide structure and strategy where there was none. As the managing editor for the blog here at SimpliFaster, I’m hoping we can use our platform and community as a hub for coaches to inspire one another to continue leading our athletes through this major disruption in play.

Yes, Informed Continuity

With young athletes, one of the simplest coaching tools is teaching them to change self-talk from what they did wrong (or didn’t do at all) into what they will do right the next time. It is a 180-degree shift in mindset and intent, changing “I pulled my head on that swing” or “I turned toward pressure with the ball” into “I will keep my nose on the ball” or “I will play the way I’m facing.”

Importantly, in a wave of cancellations and NO’S, this program starts with a YES. It starts with declaring what you can and will do. You don’t suddenly need to be an online coaching expert or pretend to be that which you are not. Follow the simple principles: have fun, never quit, do no harm.

Phase 1 – Active Anywhere

During this initial period of nebulous, near-quarantine for my team, I promised to provide at least two structured weekly activities that the players can do at home (or anywhere). Are we looking for amazing individual athletic gains? No—we are simply adding something where suddenly there was nothing.

Continuity. Kids need it—when you’re small, continuity is what gives the world shape.

Like most teams, we have a team scheduling app with a calendar, messaging, and player availability features. Rather than using the “Availability” tab to confirm the intent to attend a team activity, for my ’09 Flex team we will begin using our Team Snap account to show that they have independently completed our planned team activity. The “Yes” tab becomes “I have done it.”

In addition to marking completion via our scheduling app, I will encourage my players to connect with their teammates via FaceTime, text, or any medium of their choosing before and after each planned activity. This is crucial. Practice, games, and tournaments may be stricken from the calendar, but the team and LTAD carry on. Never quit.

What does this look like? Again, you don’t need to become an online coaching savant. For the 9- and 10-year-old girls on my soccer team, here’s what we’ll be doing this coming week in our two planned sessions:

Session 1: Movement Basics

WARM-UP (Standing or Walking):

• 10 x Frankenstein Toe Touches
• 5 x each leg RDL Toe Touches 
• 10 x Knee-to-Chest Hugs
• 10 x Open & Close the Gate
• 10 x Flamingo Lunges
• 10 x Grass/Carpet Pickers (or substitute “Runners” Wall Stretch)
• 10 x Side Lunges

LEGS & JUMPS

• 2 x 10 Walking or Standing Lunges (BONUS: add ~3 lb. barbells in each hand)
• 3 x 20 Jumping Jacks
• 2 x 10 Tuck Jumps
• 3 x 10 Bodyweight Squats
• 2 x 10 Star Jumps
• 2 x 5 Squats holding to a count of 10 at the bottom range of each
• 2 x 10 Skater Jumps

ARMS & CORE

• 5 x 2 Push-Ups (quality over quantity!)
• 3 x 30-second Planks
• 3 x 30-second “Farmer’s Carry”  (For this they can use light dumbbells, 5 lb. bags of flour in grocery bags, books in handled bags… Just keep each side relatively equal.)
• 2 x 10 Reverse Crunches 
• 2 x 20-second Single-Leg Planks (each leg)

BONUS CHALLENGE

• 5 Stick and Land Stair Jumps (Jump from stair to wide landing with safe two-leg landing)
• Banded Shuffles (If you have resistance bands. If not, regular shuffling can substitute.)
• Standing Broad Jumps (three jumps out, three jumps back, space providing)
• Pull-Ups or Chin-Ups

Session 2: Individual Ball Skills

WARM-UP (same)

BASIC SKILLS & FITNESS

• 3 x 25 Toe Taps
• 3 x 25 Bells
• 3 x 25 Sole Rollovers
• 3 x 10 Squats holding ball overhead
• 2 x 10 Hand Walks
• 3 x 10 Star Jumps

ADVANCED SKILLS (Watch full three-minute demo by Yael Averbuch first. Then, replay going through each skill individually, pausing the clip and executing for two minutes before moving forward to the next skill.)

• Single Foot Cuts
• Roll to Cut
• 2-Footed Cuts
• Tap-Tap Roll
• 4-Touch “Tab Ramos” Combo
• “Pulling” Sole-V Inside
• “Pulling” Sole-V Outside
• “Pulling” Sole-V Behind the Back
• Scissor
• Step-Over

CHALLENGE

• Not-A-Soccer-Ball-Juggling. Using a tennis ball, racquet ball, whiffle ball, or any ball of choice, set a baseline number in your first three juggling attempts and then continue juggling until you beat that number by three.

These Phase 1 activities are the types of things I forward to my players during rainy weeks or stretches when field access is limited. Ideally, this initial phase will be one of weeks and not months, but plan in a way that is sustainable and be prepared to move directly to Phase 2 as soon as doing so falls within your club/league/community guidelines.

Phase 2 – Own the Game

At this point, we begin regaining control of what has been taken away and move out of solo, home-based activities and into sessions that can be conducted with a teammate, sibling, or friend. For my soccer players, this will take the form of planned wall skills and games they can play on school/park handball walls, soccer “tennis” volleying games on grass or blacktop, and non-contact shooting games on local fields.

Because kids have opportunities to play year-round, they’ve had fewer opportunities to adapt the game on their own, so in this phase they will need explicit instructions in order for these sessions to resemble a true team activity and not a playdate. (This is not to denigrate pick-up games and informal, sports-based play—those are vital and necessary for kids, but simply fall into a different category.)

For these sessions, I’ll be sending the partner-based activity to my team with a warm-up, progression, rules, and approximate times so there is a plan to follow.

Session 1: Soccer H-O-R-S-E

WARM-UP (10 minutes)

• Team Dynamic Stretching Routine (3 minutes)
• Mobility Warm-Up. Mark ~20 linear yards for: Skips, Carioca Runs, Side Shuffles, Backpedal, 3 Steps-Forward 2 Steps-Back, Full Sprint (5 minutes)

SKILL (20 minutes)

• Dribble Vectors. Begin at middle of marked 20 yards and dribble for 6–7 touches in any direction, then perform one of the 10 Advanced Skills. Continue pattern without expanding beyond a reasonable diameter of space (2 minutes on, 30 seconds off, for 10 minutes total).
• Partner Passing. Two-touch passing, either foot. Two-touch passing, same foot (do right, then left). One-touch passing. Throw-in, trap, return pass. (2 minutes each, 10 minutes total).

PLAY: Soccer H-O-R-S-E (30 minutes)

• There are nine “Zones” the players can shoot for: Lower Left, Middle Left, Upper Left, Lower Center, Mid-Center, Upper Center, Lower Right, Middle Right, Upper Right.
• Player #1 selects the spot they will be shooting from and announces the target zone they will be shooting for. If their shot hits that zone, Player #2 must execute the same shot. If Player #2 fails to execute the made shot, they have the letter “H.” If Player #1 does not make their initial shot, Player #2 can then select any spot to shoot from and any target zone for their own shot.
• If Player #1 makes their shot and Player #2 also makes the shot, Player #1 selects a new spot to shoot from and a new target zone. Players cannot repeat a made shot during the same game.
• Alternate in this manner until a player has the letters H-O-R-S-E. Try to complete three full games in 30 minutes.

CHALLENGE (10–15 minutes)

• Alphabet Juggling: Juggle ball with partner announcing a letter (A, B, C, D) for each successful exchange from partner to partner in the air. See how far in the alphabet you and your partner can go without the ball hitting the ground.

Phase 3 – Different Formation, Same Team

Whatever the timeline presented as each community moves through the crisis, this final stage is a transition toward the resumption of regular team activities. Each step represents defined progress, which is again key when coaching young athletes—they respond to forward movement and understand where they’re going based on where they’ve been.

So, when circumstances safely allow it, I’ll resume modified in-person coaching for my Flex team and plan small group and non-contact team activities, such as a range of fitness-based activities (beach, trail, and hill runs) to accompany partial or full groups for skills, drills, and games. Whether this phase is four weeks or four months out, it is difficult to be predictive in terms of what “best practices” for one of these sessions might look like…. Are small-sided games advisable or inadvisable? Should a team of 14 come out as a full group, two groups of 7, or three groups of 5-5-4? Those are specific details every coach can adjust to within the phase—the important thing is having the confidence and a plan to get here.

On this path, assign your athletes an activity journal to keep them motivated, competitive, and accountable within the team. Many SimpliFaster followers have adopted Tony Holler’s “Record, Rank, Publish” ethos for speed and weight room training, and the same simple concept applies even in uncommon circumstances. For years, I’ve used the sheet below for my multisport athletes to track their activities and track/reward their efforts across a range of fields. We hold occasional one- or two-week competitions with prizes, while also encouraging the kids to consistently track their progress in a self-directed manner.

#YesIC

As you’ve been reading this, hopefully you’ve come up with better ideas than these for remote sessions; or perhaps you already had those better ideas but didn’t have the platform to send them.

This program is a simple outline, waiting to be filled in. We’ll be following and sharing #YesIC on our social media pages, where coaches can ideally offer their own ideas for workouts, team communication strategies, and safe best practices—providing the Informed element of Informed Continuity that SimpliFaster’s community of coaches and performance professionals is uniquely able to contribute. The floor is open. You can  also send ideas, workout plans, and video clips to me via email: [email protected] and we will make every effort to continue supporting coaches and athletes regardless of the challenges our current moment in time presents.

You got this. Remember: have fun, never quit, and do no harm.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

The first time I ran the 300-meter hurdles was a disaster.

I’d been bamboozled by my high school coach, who had convinced me to run track as a sophomore by telling me I’d just be a jumper. “You’ll stay in shape for football,” he said. But when we got off the bus for a meet against Flint Northwestern, he told me I’d be running the hurdles.

I had never run over a hurdle before, but I had eaten two roast beef sandwiches on the bus ride down. What could possibly go wrong?

That day I learned a few things: first, I was a pretty lousy jumper; second, the 300-meter hurdles is just about the hardest race that exists at the high school level; and third, roast beef sandwiches taste a lot better on the way down than they do on the way up. I hope you never have to learn that final lesson the way I did.

I eventually became a decent enough hurdler over the next few years, but that first race was doomed from the start. And while my lack of experience and belly full of beef were certainly contributing factors, there was another: I had no plan.

My experience was not unique. In 16 years of coaching the 300-meter hurdles, I’ve learned that most kids have no plan. They definitely don’t have one that they’ve developed on their own (or, if they do, chances are it’s trash). Some don’t even have one that was given to them by their coaches. Others have been given a plan, but they don’t follow it out of fear of the race, forgetfulness, or the special confidence in their own nonexistent expertise that only a high schooler can have.

So, let’s talk about plans. I want to share with you a 300-meter hurdle model that has worked for me and for the athletes I have coached. I won’t talk much about hurdling mechanics in this piece. Hurdling technique is certainly important, but not nearly as important in the 300 as it is in the 100/110. But even more than that, I’ve seen kids with gorgeous technique over the hurdles get eaten alive by kids whose form was mediocre at best because they ran the phases with purpose. I saw a kid named Emanuel Sledge from Saginaw Arthur Hill (11.10, 22.75) run 39.05 in the 300 hurdles despite looking like he was long jumping every 35 meters. That was in 2006, and it still sticks with me.

Breaking the Race into Phases

I’m not so arrogant to think that this is the only way to run the 300-meter hurdles, but I’m just arrogant enough to say that if your current advice to athletes is some iteration of “run as hard as you can as long as you can” or mostly a hype-speech littered with the words “heart” and “guts,” this race plan will help your kids get better.

The 300-meter hurdle race has eight hurdles and what I consider to be five distinct phases:

1. The Start (up to and including the first hurdle)
2. The Backstretch (hurdle 2, leading up to hurdle 3)
3. The Curve (hurdles 3, 4, and 5)
4. The Homestretch (hurdles 6, 7, and 8)
5. The Finish (between the final hurdle and the finish line)

Breaking the race into phases is the equivalent of chunking a project. Like many high school coaches, I’m also a teacher. In the classroom, if I assign a project to students without helping them break it into components and without helping them devise a plan for approaching the project effectively, I’m setting them up for failure. Some will become so overwhelmed that they’re unable to even begin; others will dive in blindly and realize halfway through that they’ve been going about things all wrong. While a certain amount of problem-solving on their part is necessary, I need to at least give them a map to follow.

For some, the idea of this race is so intimidating they’re beaten before the gun has fired. For others, half the race will pass them by before they realize they’re not in it. Obviously, we want to avoid these things at all costs.

1. The Start

As with any sprint race, the start in the 300-meter hurdles is incredibly important. I’ve heard all kinds of terrible advice as it relates to starting this race, including—I kid you not—go out at about 75% and then kick it in at the end. You should never, under any circumstance, coach athletes this way.

I tell my kids all the time, “You might not be able to win the race with your start, but you can definitely lose the race with it.” If an athlete gets out of the blocks too slowly, the rest of the pack will pass them by. The runner who gets out at 100% and the one who gets out at 75% will both be in pain when they cross the finish line. If you’re going to be in pain regardless, then you may as well get out hard and have something to show for it at the end, right? For these reasons, I cue athletes to try to be the first person to the first hurdle.

The beauty of the 300-meter hurdle race is that there is room for full acceleration, something the 100-/110-meter race does not offer. With 45 meters to work with, athletes can cycle through an entire push phase and transition into an upright sprinting position before approaching the first hurdle. Coach kids to use their explosive energy systems early when they’re readily available to the body. It’s much easier to run fast when fresh than it is when tired. Getting out of the blocks with anything less than accelerating to maximum velocity in mind is a guaranteed way to make sure maximum velocity is never attained, because it definitely isn’t going to come in the final 60 meters of the race.

2. The Backstretch

After coming off the first hurdle, we’ve entered what I call the Backstretch phase. Our athletes should already be running fast here because they accelerated to top speed and cleared the first hurdle with technique so beautiful it could make grown men weep. But while speed is still the priority in the Backstretch phase, it’s much looser­: more like the way we coach kids to run the backstretch of the 400.

The main thing I tell my athletes to do here is a phrase I borrowed from Ryan Banta, author of The Sprinter’s Compendium: “run tall and maintain.” If we tell athletes something else—“float the backstretch” or “relax,” for example—they will inevitably slow down. Slowing down is bad, and we want to avoid it for as long as we can.

Telling athletes to run tall reminds them that they should be in an upright sprinting posture between the hurdles; telling them to maintain reminds them that they need to continue to be fast through the second and up to the third hurdle and avoid deceleration.

3. The Curve

As athletes approach the third hurdle, they’re entering the Curve phase. The athletes have now run 100 meters at or near the top speed they can muster, and both speed and mechanics will begin to deteriorate slightly here. Plus, maybe I’ve been uniquely unlucky in my career, but it has been my experience that wind often presents itself most as a factor in the curve. If you coach in a warm-weather state and don’t battle wintery conditions well into April (grumble grumble, mutter mutter), then you might take a different approach here. But for me, I remind kids in the curve of the importance of their forward lean over the hurdle. Even if wind isn’t a factor, there is very little downside to asking athletes to refocus on their technique over the hurdles, so they don’t begin floating or hurdling in an upright position.

The cue that I use is to tell my athletes to “hurdle downhill”—in other words, to imagine themselves not as needing to elevate in order to clear the hurdle, but as running at a decline and staying down on the barrier.

I also want my athletes pressing to the inside of the curve with a slight inward lean, which means controlling their eyeballs, feet, and arms. First, I cue athletes to “look two lines in.” What I mean here is not for them to violently turn their head and stare at the runner two lanes inside of them, but to slightly shift their eyes to the left and choose a new focal point that isn’t directly in front of them. They’re not running straight, so focusing straight ahead doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it causes athletes to end up drifting back toward the middle or outside of the lane.

Next, we need to consider the actual foot strike in the sprinting mechanics. Boo Schexnayder talks about using the feet to apply force outwardly when coaching curve running in the high jump approach, and while this curve is much less dramatic than a high jump curve, the basic principle still applies. Finally, arm action should also be slightly altered in the curve, with the outside arm approaching the chin as opposed to the cheek. These three things done in unison will help keep your athletes positioned where they need to be.

At the final hurdle of the Curve, the hurdles are nearly even with one another. At this point, I like using the “slingshot” terminology, not because I actually think kids are going to somehow magically get faster coming out of the turn, but because I want them to think about themselves as re-accelerating, resuming their standard upright, eyes-forward posture, and believing that they can be fast going into the final 100 meters of the race. I want them to think of themselves as getting faster here, even if it’s not actually true, rather than letting negative self-talk creep in and convince them of their own slowness and imminent demise.

4. The Homestretch

I love watching the 300-meter hurdles. There’s something beautiful about the spacing of the hurdles and being able to see exactly where each runner stands each time they go over them. In a 400 or a 200 we can eyeball the stagger and estimate who has made up the most ground, but in the 300-meter hurdles there is a visual marker every 35 meters that lets us know exactly who is in front of whom and by how much.

There might be no more beautiful moment than when the stagger has been completed and all the hurdles line up for the first time in the straightaway of the homestretch. There are right around 80 meters to go, and the sixth hurdle tells the tale of how successful your first five were.

For most athletes, the homestretch is the hardest part of the race, and with good reason. With every second that passes, it becomes harder for the body to coordinate explosive movement and overall stability, and technique is often the first thing to go when fatigue sets in. At this point, I prompt athletes to focus on that coordination.

What I cue will depend on what I see my athlete doing at this phase of the race, and it may even change from day to day when we work on the different phases in practice. I might tell them “tall!” or “fast hands!” as they sprint between the hurdles. I might remind them “down!” over the hurdle to keep them from elevating and to remind them that they’re faster when they’re on the track than when they’re sailing over the barrier. I want trail legs snapping “back to the middle and down” so they can continue sprinting.

Speaking of sprinting, the way we coach our athletes’ sprinting technique and how we train speed endurance matters more in the Homestretch than anywhere else in the race, largely because of how it directly impacts hurdling technique. Simply put, if kids are too slow and their force production has diminished too greatly, they will not have enough speed to carry them through the barrier efficiently. This can manifest as:

1. The athlete slowing down even more as they approach the hurdle because they’re afraid they might not have enough speed to get over.
2. Jumping over the hurdle and landing in a near standstill while other athletes pass them by.

Hurdle technique matters, but if they don’t maintain sprinting technique, then optimal hurdle technique isn’t going to happen anyway.

The last hurdle seems like it’s a foot taller than the others. It has always been this way, it always will be, and I’m still not sure it isn’t taller than the others. There is nothing I can tell you to offset this phenomenon. Good luck.

5. The Finish

There are only eight physical hurdles in this race, but there is one last mental hurdle that needs to be cleared: After touchdown on the final hurdle, there are still 10 meters to go before the finish line. Every hurdle coach in the world has watched a kid get passed in the final 10 meters of the race because they did not sprint off the final hurdle. They’re exhausted. They’re in pain. In their mind, the race is over. We cannot let this happen.

Every point matters, and sometimes the final 10 meters is the difference between winning and coming in second, or scoring a point in eighth and not scoring at all. Sometimes it’s the difference between a PR and coming up short. These are 10 important meters.

In my practices, we never finish at the finish line. When we work on the final phase of the race, I put cones another 5–10 meters beyond the finish line, and athletes need to sprint through the cones. I coach my athletes to “catch one!” after touchdown on the final hurdle—meaning, pick the closest person and try to beat them through the line. If they’re in the lead, well, they have to finish hard to avoid getting caught.

Here’s the thing. All of this seems so obvious that it almost feels silly to mention it. Maybe you haven’t mentioned it to your kids for that very reason: Of course athletes need to sprint through the line in every race. But it has been my observation that in the 300-meter hurdles more than any other race, kids don’t do it. And if we don’t convince them of it in practice and teach the finish as a distinct phase that isn’t bound by a white line on a track, but as a final, 15-meter, all-out, everything-they’ve-got (heart! guts!) sprint, we can almost guarantee that some day they will experience being passed because, in their mind, they were done.

Drill this phase until it becomes second nature to kids. Show them video of athletes who didn’t finish and cost themselves because of it (see at the 5:25 mark here). The last hurdle is not the finish line.

Taking It to the Track

So, there you have it: a plan you can put in place today that will give your 300-meter hurdlers a tangible strategy for success in the hardest race on the track. To recap, here are the phases and their cues:

• The Start—Be the first person to the first hurdle
• The Backstretch—Run tall and maintain
• The Curve—Look two lines in; hurdle downhill; slingshot
• The Homestretch—Run tall; fast hands; stay down
• The Finish—Catch one, sprint, through the line

Just make sure they don’t eat any roast beef sandwiches on the bus.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

One of the first lessons that Marines learn in Basic Training is the art of falling. It wasn’t until I got into strength and conditioning that I realized how versatile and vital that lesson proved to be. I have fallen with a fully loaded rifle when rolling to cover from enemy fire. I have fallen in a soccer game with a “friendly” assist from an opponent. I’ve slipped on a patch of ice outside of a local watering hole during the dead of winter. Knowing how to fall saved me from a potentially catastrophic injury in each circumstance.

The ability to fall correctly, however, goes beyond injury prevention. Teaching athletes the proper ways to fall can simultaneously train their vestibular systems, their coordination, and their proprioception. Consider a parkour athlete’s ability to jump and roll out of extreme heights without injury. This isn’t some genetic gift—it’s a set of skills that allows them to walk away unscathed.

Teaching athletes the proper skills to fall will set them up for success for a lifetime—the athlete’s parents will instantly realize their child’s health is your top concern. This article will be a short, concise way on how to implement various falls into your training.

The Falling Epidemic

Falls cause 37.3 million injuries each year¹, and if that doesn’t alarm you, falls are also the second greatest cause of unintentional deaths globally—exceeded only by motor vehicle collisions². One fall-related injury is so common that it has earned an acronym, FOOSH (Fall on an Outstretched Hand): “A FOOSH type of injury is the second most common type of sports injury.”

Preventing injuries is a top priority for parents and coaches alike, and rightly so. The quest for injury prevention, however, is often launched without first scouting for low-hanging fruits. Given the frequency and magnitude of injuries from falls, learning to fall properly can be a first step in injury prevention that will pay dividends long after the athlete retires from competitive sports. Furthermore, mastering falling skills will improve athletic performance and translate quickly to the court or the field.

Many of my athletes come to me barely able to stand after a somersault. Within a few short weeks of training, however, they are capable of popping up off the ground and continuing a play. As we age, the ability to fall in an athletic fashion becomes harder and harder. Practicing falling skills will not only help with coordination but also with longevity. In the elderly population, even those falls that are due to low-energy mechanisms are associated with higher hospitalization rates, longer lengths of hospital stays, and higher rates of mortality.³ Ten to fifteen percent of emergency room visits are attributed to falls.⁴ Injury prevention strategies should start with learning how to properly fall.

How to Teach Falling the Right Way

With new athletes, I incorporate falls into my first few sessions and then review them periodically. I aim to give the athlete the proper tools to utilize in various off-balance situations rather than preaching one specific way to fall.

Once my athletes are comfortable with rolling, they typically do that more than any break fall. I implement rolls as reactionary drills by having athletes roll, recover, and react to a stimulus (colored agility dot, ball, number, etc.).  The athlete learns to stay in the play rather than lying there helplessly. These drills mimic in-game scenarios and randomize training. The drill is effective and enjoyable for the athlete as well.

Key Concepts to Building Falling Skills:

1. DO NOT have athletes plant hand or elbow during any point of the fall.
2. ALWAYS have athletes keep their chin tucked away from ground when falling.
3. Have athletes start these movements as close as possible to the floor and progress by adding height/speed.

Lying > Seated > Squatting > Kneeling > Standing > Walking > Jogging > Running

Front-Break Fall from a Kneeling Position

1. Athlete kneels down with a mat in front of them. Cue the athlete to raise their chin to the sky.
2. Athlete bends their elbows close to their body and has palms facing the direction they will fall. This allows the athlete to displace the force from the fall.
3. Have athletes begin to fall forward and then break their fall with their forearms and palms, which should strike the ground simultaneously. Fingers should be extended.
4. Ensure that the athlete keeps their chin high to avoid striking the floor with their head.

Side-Break Fall from a Kneeling Position:

1. Athlete assumes a single-leg kneeling position.
2. They look to the opposite shoulder of the falling direction.
3. They begin to fall to the deck and break their fall with their arm slapping the floor, with their forearm and hand hitting simultaneously.
4. Their break arm should land under the head, or at a 45° angle toward their feet.
5. Have athlete stretch out the falling side leg and allow the other leg to bend, allowing their foot to contact the ground.

Rear-Break Fall from Squatted Position:

1. Athlete gets down to a low squat position and tucks their chin into their chest.
2. They roll backward to begin the fall.
3. Keeping the chin tucked to their chest, have them slap the floor with both arms extended and palms facing down to disperse the force. Arms should hit at a 45° angle from the body.
4. Keeping head tucked forward will protect head and neck areas from injury.

Front Roll from Squatted Position

1. Athlete gets down to a low squat position and tucks their chin into their chest.
2. They distribute weight onto the balls of their feet and ensure hips are higher than shoulders (think frog stance or position).
3. Have athlete begin roll and ensure their head does not contact the floor during the roll.
4. Have athlete maintain a flexed spine in order to transition out of the roll.
5. This movement is very similar to the side roll and many times can be adjusted on the fly if the athlete is capable.

Backward Roll from Squatted Position

1. Have athlete get down to a low squat position and tuck their chin into their chest.
2. Athlete places hands on shoulders with palms facing up.
3. They begin by rolling back, being sure to keep a tucked chin.
4. Athlete plants their hands and pushes themselves up to complete the roll.
5. They land on feet and extend arms to stand up.

Reactive Falling Drills

1. Use an external stimulus to create an environment where the athlete must roll, recover, and react.
2. Start by having an athlete perform a roll.
3. Use colored agility dots, cones, balls, people, numbers, etc. and have athletes react to this cue after completing the roll.
4. This helps with in-game transitions and keeps the athlete in the play.

A Valuable Lesson

Never assume an athlete has the ability to carry out a well-executed fall. I learned this when I first began teaching one of my athletes how to fall—I asked a high school football player (QB1) if he could perform a simple somersault. With a raised eyebrow, he replied with a cocky, “Are you serious? Of course, I can.”

What ensued next was a horrific display of exactly what you don’t want to do. This athlete began his somersault by placing the full weight of his body on the neck/head area. When he rolled over, the neck and spine were placed in an extremely compromising position. I was immediately overcome with anxiety at the potential spinal injury I had just allowed to happen and wondered if I needed to grab my C-collar and spine board (just kidding). Luckily, that particular athlete ultimately finished the somersault unscathed.

That circumstance, however, taught me a valuable lesson to not assume the abilities of any athlete, especially pertaining to falling. Previously, this athlete had broken his wrist from a FOOSH mechanism, so he was eager to continue to learn how to fall properly. Now he is confident in his ability to fall and to properly protect himself from future injury. He has grown to love the falling drills we practice on a weekly basis, and it became a significant buy-in factor for both him and his parents.

Today, when I explain to parents that their son/daughter can expect to learn how to fall, they instantly love the idea and question why others haven’t taught this skill. It immediately shows that we (the coaches) care about an athlete’s well-being and injuries caused by falling. As coaches, we have the ability to change the falling narrative by introducing these falls into every athlete’s repertoire.

References

1. “Falls.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls.

2. Granhed H, Altgarde E, Akyurek LM, David P (2017) Injuries Sustained by Falls – A Review. Trauma Acute Care 2:38. doi: 10.21767/2476-2105.100038

3. Lee, Hyeji et al. “Severe Injuries from Low-height Falls in the Elderly Population.” Journal of Korean medical sciencevol. 33,36 e221. 5 Jul. 2018, doi:10.3346/jkms.2018.33.e221

4. Spaniolas, Konstantinos, et al. “Ground Level Falls Are Associated with Significant Mortality in Elderly Patients.” The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, vol. 69, no. 4, 2010, pp. 821–825., doi:10.1097/ta.0b013e3181efc6c6.

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