Athletics season is here
Kids deserve to be taught before being thrown into the competitive cauldron
It’s the school summer term, and p.e. teachers will be scrambling around trying to recruit pupils into the athletics competitions that have their dates carved into stone tablets. Everything counts back from the British school championships in July: regional, county, district, and inter-school. All must be held, no matter the state of readiness of the pupils.
It happens every year, and yet the p.e. teachers are caught with their pants down: they haven’t started ‘teaching’ athletics yet. They select pupils based on last year’s results, with no concern for growth spurts. Results are dependent on two things:
Early maturation (often mistakenly called ‘talent’).
The pupil is a member of an athletics club and has gained a skill set and confidence there.
At our club, we receive an influx of potential athletes whose parents are fed up with their children being entered into competitions without prior coaching.
Here’s what we do to help them develop their sprinting (the same principles apply to jumps and throws, but with different techniques).
The Pre-Competitive Foundation: A Five-Point Plan for Developing Youth Athletics
The Strategic Shift: From Formal Coaching to Purposeful Play
The athletics fixture list (like many other sports) assumes that children can already run, jump and throw. This isn’t the case.
Historically, the “1985 child” (me, without being a member of any sports clubs) benefited from an average of 30 hours of weekly free play. By 2021, that figure had plummeted to a mere five hours (according to data from the Netherlands).
This represents a staggering loss of 12,250 hours of movement over a ten-year childhood. These hours were once the laboratory where children implicitly learned balance, coordination, and reaction (and had fun without adults).
The “Environment vs. Genetics” dichotomy is often misunderstood. While genetics dictates the absolute ceiling of performance, the environment provides the raw material coaches actually work with. Without those thousands of hours of implicit learning, the technical “ceiling” is irrelevant because the “floor”—the structural integrity and the variety of movements experienced—is missing.
We see the consequences in the “Fortnite-style” movement pattern—children running with their arms stretched out behind their backs, if they are running at all. Imposing rigid, adult-derived coaching models from the 1980s on these children is a strategic error; they lack the physical foundations to cope with complex systems.
To succeed, we must transition from being competition managers and/or ‘measurers’ to architects of environments that prioritise discovery and “Games with Purpose.”
Summary: Technical systems imposed too early fail because the athlete’s body is not yet receptive to the work. By adopting a “Games with Purpose” philosophy, we ensure that children develop the necessary physical literacy through high-energy bursts of activity. This approach ensures long-term retention and development; if the “raw material” is moulded correctly, technical coaching has a solid foundation to build upon.
With this overarching philosophy established, we can begin building the athlete from the ground up, starting with the integrity of the foot and ankle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point 1: Reactive Mechanics—Developing the “Skimming Stone” Foot Strike
Many young athletes exhibit the “Sunday morning shuffle”—a laboured, heel-toe slogging action beloved by the middle-aged joggers, where muscles take the entire load because the tendons are not engaged.
To improve running economy, we must minimise ground contact time, transitioning the athlete from a heavy-footed gait to a reactive “springing” action. This requires developing the stiffness of the foot and ankle tendons to ensure the runner is not “fighting the run itself".
We utilise a specific progression of “Foot Taps” (Ankling) and rope skipping. The goal is strength without the unnecessary muscular bulk that slows a limb down.
A vital coaching tool is the metaphor of “skimming like a stone across the water.” The child should visualise their foot hitting the surface and immediately springing off. This mental image transforms a landing into a propulsion mechanism, “whipping” the floor rather than slogging over it.
Summary: Developing foot mechanics before competition prevents inefficient patterns that lead to early fatigue. By turning the foot into a spring, we improve running economy—allowing the athlete to travel further with less effort—and prepare the lower limbs for the high forces of sprinting.
Once the feet are reactive, we must look upward to the pelvis and hips to ensure this energy is directed efficiently.
Here is a 56-year-old coach demonstrating some of these exercises:
Younger (and better) athletes should be springier. They might find the coordination difficult. P.E. teachers should be able to demonstrate assistance drills like these.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point 2: Postural Integrity—The “Hip Lock” and Vertical Frame
The pelvis is the engine of running. To maximise speed, the athlete must maintain control of their pelvis, with the ‘free’ hip higher than the supporting hip. If the support hip drops during landing, the leg muscles absorb the load, losing the “free” energy return of the tendons. A stable, vertical frame is hard to develop, but it can be done.
Developing the Vertical Frame
We utilise specific drills to help children find and hold this posture:
The Hip Heist (Push to the Sky):
Stand with your back against a wall, arms outstretched.
Lift one heel as high as possible under the buttock, foot parallel to the floor.
Reach as high as possible with the opposite fingertips, as if reaching for a £20 note on a high shelf (£50 note if you live in Chelsea).
Pause to ensure the free hip is level with or higher than the support hip. This can later be progressed to a walking drill, placing the foot 5-10cm in front.
The Stick Above Head Drill:
Hold a stick overhead while running to force the trunk muscles to work harder to counter the rotation caused by leg drive.
The primary goal is to keep the shoulders stacked directly above the hips, avoiding excessive rotation or leaning.
When posture collapses, the athlete cannot use their abdominals effectively. A collapse in any part of the system means the whole system is weakened. Stiffness, bracing and tension are all words we use, with appropriate exercises, to help the athletes get stronger.
Summary: By mastering the hip lock and maintaining a vertical frame, the athlete’s trunk can transmit power from the legs efficiently and project their centre of mass forward, resulting in greater distance covered per stride.
With a vertical frame established, the athlete is ready to master the explosive transitions of acceleration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point 3: Explosive Projection—Mastering Starts and Multi-Planar Mobility
In most sports, the “first two steps” are more critical than running 100 metres. Yet, without the background of playground games, many children cannot move fast from the start.
Agile athletes are able to project their hips explosively from various positions. This requires not just power, but multi-planar mobility in the hips and the thoracic spine, as well as great postural control.
We start with lunging in multiple directions, incorporating arm movements in all three planes (down/up, left/right, side-to-side), then add bracing exercises against a wall or a partner to teach the positions and stiffness required. Small jumps and hops help teach the ‘spring.’
The “Fire Hydrant Start” is a premier tool for teaching hip projection from a kneeling position. The focus must remain on the first two steps—driving the hips forward and striking the ground hard to “rip” into the sprint.
Summary: Developing the structural integrity and thoracic mobility of young athletes is needed to counteract sedentary lifestyles before they can maintain the posture required at speed.
True athletic development, however, requires a diversification of power skills beyond just running.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point 4: All-Round Skill Diversification—The Mechanics of Throwing and Jumping
To prevent early specialisation and burnout, young athletes must be exposed to many different movements. Parents don’t ‘play’ catch with their kids in the garden now, and some school teachers ban children from throwing balls in the playground.
We ensure that all our athletes throw and jump (to some extent) as well as sprint. Jumping and throwing rely on the same principle as sprinting: generating torque and force from the ground up through kinetic linking.
We start with two-handed football throws: overhead, sideways, underhand, behind, to get the youngsters aware of ‘long arms’ and ‘trunk rotation,’ without explicitly telling them.
We then progress to tennis ball throws and some loaded throws with medicine balls and sandbags: the heavier implements ‘teach’ the children how to use more of their body.
We may then do some specific throwing with either discus, shot or javelin. Even then, we keep things simple.
Javelin Foundations for Beginners
We focus on two primary grips:
The American Grip: Thumb and index finger on top of the cord.
The Finnish Grip: The most popular method; the middle finger and thumb grip the cord, with the index finger resting along the side.
The key technical focus is the “C-position.” This is a “big stretch” travelling from the legs, through the hips, and into the core—an arch similar to a gymnastic arch. The primary principle is “Body First, Arm Late.” The athlete must generate torque through the legs and torso before the arm releases the implement.
Summary: Diversifying implements and movements builds a resilient, coordinated athlete. By learning to link the body from the ground up in a throw, the athlete understands how to use their body better, creating a versatile “raw material” receptive to specialised coaching later.
The final step is organising these points into a session structure that mimics natural behaviour.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point 5: The “Games with Purpose” Framework—Structuring the Training Session
Children do not naturally move in long blocks (Park runs) or stand in queues; they move in brief, intermittent bursts. A successful session must mimic this. We utilise a 60-minute template designed for engagement.
The 60-Minute Training Template
Warm-Up (10 mins): “Shaking off the school shackles” through tag or parkour-style play.
Fundamentals (10 mins): Directional skipping, foot taps, and hip locks.
Theme of the Day (20 mins): Specific speed work (starts, acceleration) using Handicapped Competition.
Jumping & Throwing (10-15 mins): Skill diversification to build all-around power.
Game (5-10 mins): Speed expression through relays or handicapped sprints/ ‘there and back again’ races.
The use of “Handicapped Competition” is a strategic pillar. Matching pairs or giving head starts ensures every child races at their limit. This serves a psychological purpose: fast children need to learn how to lose, and slower children need to feel what it is like to win.
Summary: The ultimate goal is consistency of training. If they keep returning, they get faster. This structure ensures children enjoy the process, which is the only way to achieve long-term speed development.
Note for p.e. teachers and sports coaches.
Spring Workshop: “Speed & Strength for Youth Athletes: A Practical Framework”
Thursday 19th June, online via Zoom 1900-2030 UK time, £75. Early bird tickets available now £59 : Buy Ticket—limited places.
Conclusion
As educators, we must not be in a rush to list rules and regulations and overwhelm with technical points. Nor must we stand there with a clipboard, stopwatch and tape measure and pretend we are ‘teaching.’
Our role is to be patient and draw upon that expertise only when the child’s body has shown it is structurally ready, warm, and receptive.
By building the foundation through purposeful play and structural integrity, we ensure that when the time for specialised competition training arrives, the athlete is prepared.