Conducting a Youth Sports Practice
Dec 29, 2024
According to Project Play, a collaboration between the Aspen Institute and the Sports and Society Program, 54 percent of American youth from the ages of six to 17 engaged in team sports or took part in sports lessons in 2022. Youth sports provide children with a range of benefits, from improved health to increased opportunities for socialization. Local youth sports programming relies on the support of adults serving in various roles, including youth sports coaches.
Youth sports coaches maintain several responsibilities, such as scheduling and running practices. Before outlining their intentions for a practice session, first-time youth coaches must understand their two key objectives: first and foremost, to ensure the health and safety of all youth athletes, and second, to help athletes develop foundational skills and basic strategies that lead to success in the chosen sport. Practice is a critical tool when serving both of these objectives.
Regardless of the specific sport in question, coaches rarely have time to have lengthy discussions with athletes about tactics or form during a game. Whether it is a football game or a track meet, live competitions are highly structured, sometimes stressful events during which coaches should do all that they can to keep players focused, while at the same time having fun. Practice, on the other hand, is a more controlled environment in which coaches and members of their staff can talk to individual players about very specific topics.
In youth baseball, for instance, coaches can use practices as opportunities to run batting practice (BP). During a game, a player might only go up to bat three times and see just a handful of pitches, whereas coaches can utilize BP to hone a batter’s skills over dozens of pitches. Coaches can enhance BP by using a batting cage, a structure specifically designed to protect pitchers and keep balls from traveling too far while working on a player’s offense.
Practice also allows coaches to better look after the health and safety of their players. Accidents and injuries can occur at any time and coaches, along with officials and on-site medical personnel, must be prepared to respond. First aid kits should be accessible during both games and practices. That said, coaches can use practices to increase player stamina and fitness, reducing the chances of fatigue-related injuries. Similarly, practices afford coaches the stress-free environment needed to focus on and correct minor issues with a player’s form, such as a softball player’s pitching form, which can also cause discomfort or injury.
If a player is recovering from an injury, practices are a good time to determine if they are physically fit enough to return to competition. Finally, coaches can use practice time to check their player’s equipment and make sure everything is functional and properly fitted, further reducing the likelihood of injury.
In some ways, scheduling and organizing a youth sports practice can be more challenging than games and tournaments. Coaches must often schedule and find a location for the practice without the league’s assistance, nor do they have an opposing coaching staff to work with. Coaches usually recruit a few parents to function as assistant coaches and help run practices, which may involve multiple groups of players working on different objectives at different times. Coaches should consider beginning each practice with a group warm-up and ending with a cool-down workout, which serves player health and helps mitigate injury risk.