This subject line of this email might make you scratch your head a bit...but there are 6 simple points you'll want to read at the end because it could mean the difference between your kid growing up with confidence, courage, and a successful mindset, or not.
PFP was established in 2014 as a place that helped kids get bigger, stronger, and faster for sports.
The “Youth Athlete Performance Enhancement” industry was founded in the 2000’s. It probably existed before, but it became popular in the 2000’s and has exploded since.
Why?
It’s obvious. How good at sports a 12 year old is defines his or her value. It defines their value in their friend group, their value on social media to a bunch of people they do not know or like, and sometimes, sadly, the value and worth they feel in their own family.
Sports performance is often a source of ego and pride for parents, so therefore those parents find their value in how much of a beast on the field their child is (you are likely removed from that list if you are still someone reading my articles).
My industry, athletic performance enhancement, has sabotaged the joy, passion, self-confidence, self-image, and the long-term success of our athletes. Ironic seeing as how our ultimate job is to improve those things.
That is why, in 2015, we decided to take an uncommon approach and see if there was a better way. We looked at the 10 human drives for motivation, the 6 human needs, and the major things missing from kids' lives that they were actually craving.
We decided that although uncommon and maybe even unacceptable, the following 6 steps were most important at PFP:
Step 1: A loving, enthusiastic greeting that made every kid who walked through our doors feel safe, accepted, and happier than before they entered. We established that this was the #1 need, the #1 thing missing from these kids lives at school and sports practices.
Step 2: Connection and relationship building where trust was established and where kids would know that their “athletic performance coaches” cared more about them as people than we did them as athletes.
Step 3: Foam rolling and stretching! Physical health and integrity was next because injuries are at an all time high and they are responsible for damaging the body first, then the mind of the student-athlete.
Step 4: Circle up for a motivational message from a mentor-leader who is vulnerable, caring, and inspiring. If life lessons really are the most important thing sports can teach, we better put them before the physical workout.
Step 5: A complete and comprehensive 10 minute warm up that includes fun, gameplay, connection, but ultimately gets the body fully warmed up and primed for training HARD.
Step 6: Train HARD. Getting kids to work their tails off was much easier when we started putting first things first. We “ease” them into their workout session by making them feel emotionally, mentally, and physically good first, then they wantto workout. Imagine that!
We imagine a world where every athletic performance coach, every sports team coach, every teacher and youth influencer follows a similar approach so that the outcome is a happier, more passionate, more confident, higher-performing young man or woman.
Those 6 steps have helped more than 75 athletes get to college to play sports. They have also given hundreds of others, who have stayed at PFP long enough, confidence to say, “I love sports, but they are not my life. I will workout for the rest of my life because it is good for my mind and body and because it is an enjoyable experience. But my value and identity is not in sports.”
This is The Youth Truth, my friend. This is what we believe is necessary in today’s stat driven, pressure packed sports world.
Dedicated to change,
Coach Andrew
