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Jan 10, 2017
10:56:14am
CoachSpeak Playmaker
The first, and most important factor....
for your kids chances are genetics. What innate physical abilities do they have? A good indicator, although not always the case, is whether or not you, your husband, or any of your, or your husbands, close relatives where good athletes. The reason this doesn't always matter is that some people who have natural athletic ability never cared about or participated in sports so it is possible they passed on good athletic genes that are almost unknown since they never participated in athletics and no one ever really knew. I know people like that by the way so it isn't all that uncommon.

But the point is athleticism is an inherited trait.

But you never really do know what you are going to get when you start mixing genes together and it is possible that your child may inherit athletic genes from your gene pool that weren't dominant in you or your husband but for some reason came out in your child. you just don't know what they will be until they start doing things.

Then you look for evidence of their athleticism, or lack of it, from the time they first start being active and walking. If your kid just naturally excels at physical pursuits it becomes obvious pretty fast that they have athletic ability. For instance both of my sons, who are/were notable local athletes, learned to ride a bikes on their own at age two. They also were constantly climbing on things that were difficult to climb on, and were better than the other kids around playing games like tag, or jumping on the trampoline, etc.

if your kid is better than the majority of the other kids at those things, and picks them up naturally, then your kid probably has inherited athletic ability.

Also all athletic ability isn't equal. For instance a kid might not be fast or quick but he might have a very strong arm, or he might not have either of those traits but he might have excellent vision that let's him see things better on a court or field which helps him to perform.

Then you can also help them to improve on their abilities by putting in the time and money to get them specialize training and coaching. That can be expensive but I have seen those things turn average athletes into better ones and top tier athletes into unbelievable athletes. It works although you are still limited by your inherited ability as to the amount you can improve. If you are not physically capable of ever running a 4.5 forty then you will never be able to do it no matter how much you train. But you can improve on whatever you are currently capable of doing through training and practice and let's say your kid naturally runs a 5.1 forty. That's not very fast but it also isn't slug slow. There is no reason that they can't shave a couple of tenths of a second off that time through training and the run a 4.9 forty. Well for a high school athlete they isn't burning fast but it is fast enough that they are in the upper half of their piers and can help them to get on the filed rather than watching from the sidelines.

So natural ability is the first thing, if they have that then the next step is to train to bring out the potential in their natural abilities.

Unfortunately thought there are some people that just don't have much athletic ability and that's just life. They probably have some other ability they need to discover and pursue that. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quick when they start participating with other kids. It isn't hard to discern who is athletic and who isn't.
CoachSpeak
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CoachSpeak
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