Athlete Development

Athlete Development

Sometimes just turning up isn’t enough.

It’s easy to fall into a pattern that returns good results and, because you're not going backwards, you're quite happy with the status quo. However,...

How to motivate your athletes without being over the top: Part...

Part 1 . Turn Up Ready To Work Hard Skills can be trained, unlike a person’s height. Training your skills is less about your genes and...

Artistic Athletes: create art through your sport

As a swimmer, I’ve been schooled about the importance of ‘rest and recovery’ for years. It has fallen on persistently deaf ears until recently. A year...

AD in the media: Challenge yourself to be the best you...

Achievement at Athlete Development looks a little different to common perceptions of the word. Being on time to academy for a whole month, performing...

Introducing the modern-day Youth Sports Coach

To an untrained eye the understated work of today’s youth sports coach belies the calibre of the person required to do a successful job....

EP3 – Stevie Baxter: Cultural Diversity, Motivation, and the Impact of...

In this episode we cover the influence of culture working in such a diverse ethnic city such as Auckland. We chat about the importance of...

We’re the adults. It’s our problem.

Over-training in our top youth athletes is causing problems. We’re seeing higher injury rates, and more athletes failing to reach their potential than ever...

3 questions parents must ask when choosing their child’s development programme.

What does the programme curriculum look like? Sport, like anything in life, requires you to be good at a number of different things to...

Deliberate practice

Much has been said recently about the perils of early specialisation. In fact, an increasing body of evidence shows that doing too much of the...

Push play

Give a kid a skateboard, step back, and watch what happens. Very quickly they recognise the opportunity to play. To see what happens when they lean...

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Debunking a common myth: Youth weight training

There are these common generational myths that have been passed down to us and it would be fair to say that we really don’t...

AD Alumni: Anna Steven

We're shining the spotlight on some of Athlete Development's alumni who are doing great things in their chosen sport. Meet sprinter Anna Steven, who...

Preparing for school and club sport

Now that school and club sports teams trainings and games are gearing up again, what can your young athletes do to better prepare for...

Pat Chat: Sleep enhancement for youth athletes

In the second of our three-part series,  AD Academy Programme Manager and Lead Coach Patrick Davenport focuses on the importance of sleep for the...

How can you build psychological safety?

When it comes to pursuing excellence, moving from where we are now to a place that is more effective, how we behave is what...