The ABC’s of Athletics

What are the ABC’s of athletics? It stands for agility, balance, coordination, and speed. Together, these movement skills lay a strong foundation for an athlete’s future success. Between the ages of 7-11 is the most important time for a child to learn the basic fundamental skills in athletics. During these years, their bodies will be undergoing significant physical and emotional development such as; muscle growth, weight gain, body awareness and motor skills.
This will lead to injuries down the road. This can be seen in Little League where pitchers are suffering elbow and shoulder injuries at an alarming rate. Right now women's sports on the collegiate and high school level are experiences an epidemic of non-contact ACL knee injuries.
Proper movement skills include agility, balance, coordination, and speed the ABC's of athleticism. They will lay the foundation for all athletic success in the coming years. It is important to note that children have so-called sensitive periods for learning fundamental movement skills. These periods need to be taken advantage of. Ages 9-12 are probably the most important for acquiring movement skills and laying the groundwork for later athletic success. If proper skill training is not developed by this age it is very hard, if not impossible, to learn later on.
Fundamental movement skills can be further broken down into four broad categories and for optimal athletic development pick activities that encompass all four areas. These consist of locomotion skills such as running and jumping, non-locomotion skills such as twisting, turning and balancing, manipulative skills including throwing, catching, or kicking and movement awareness, knowing how to move ones body and how to orient it to others and objects.
The big question then is how are these fundamental skills best developed? The answer is easy-through play, especially for children twelve and under. Free play and exposure to as many different sports as possible is the route to take. Free play can consist of such simple games as tag, hopscotch, or jumping rope. These simple games all have elements of the ABC's of athletics.
Also, playing as many sports as possible benefits athletes by exposing them to many varied movement patterns and different types of hand-eye and foot-eye coordination. Not just team sports but sports that encourage total development such as martial arts, tumbling, dance or gymnastics. These types of experiences lead to a large reservoir of movement skills that can be called upon when learning new sport-specific skills or trying to master more advanced movement skills.