Monday Week #5

Today I ran a lot of kids on the treadmill. Nicki is trying to get me used to running kids on my own. I feel more comfortable the more I do it. I had one kid today, not very athletic, almost fall everytime he got onto the treadmill. This was making me nervous and scared me a little bit too. I'm hoping this kid will learn how to do this without scaring me as much.

I'm beginning to learn where to stand on the treadmill to spot certain kids at different inclines. The steeper the incline, the more support the runner needs. It's hard to do it on your own when the incline is at 40 degrees. Spotting people at this high of an incline hurts my back a little bit, but like I mentioned before, I'm still learning and I will get used to it after I keep doing it for a while.

I also did a couple pretests today. The pretest is something we give all the athletes at the beginning of the session so we can see where the athlete stands. The pretest includes: vertical reach, vertical jump, broad jump, pro agility, 10 yard dash and a 40 yard dash.

The vertical reach is pretty standard. First question I ask is, are you right handed or left handed. Then the athlete stands with their legs shoulder-width apart, raise your dominant arm, and push those bars forward. After that i raise the height, and then the kids bend their knees, use their arms and jump as high as they can and push the bars forward. They do this at least two times, and then I record the numbers.

After this we do a broad jump. There is a tape measure on the floor. The athlete uses their arms, bends their knees, and jumps out at far as they can. They do this three times, and I record their scores.

After this, they go through a pro-agility run. There are three black lines. One is on the right side of the floor, one on the left side of the floor, and one in the middle of the floor. The athlete starts on the middle line, with their legs straddeling the line, right hand on the line. They sprint down to one black line and touches it with their right hand, then they sprint down to the other line and touches that it with their left hand, and then sprints through the finish line where they originally started. They go through this run twice, and I record their times.

After this we go outside and do the 10 yard dash, and 40 yard dash. The kids run this twice. After all these tests, the kids go through a plyo on the Four Square formation. I explain the numbers of the boxes, and I have to count how many times the kids get back to the first box. For example, if the the kids are jumping from box 1 to 2, then I would count how many times they got back to one without touching the black lines.

This seems like a lot, but the kids do great and it doesn't take very long either. These tests are crucial to see how much they improve at the end of the session. They go through a post-test, the same as a pre-test, and we compare the results from the beginning to the end.