In the context of long-term athletic development, I always highlight the concept of window of adaptation. Young, untrained athletes can make massive improvements in a short amount of time when they prioritize fitness qualities or skills that haven't been challenged previously. It's on us as coaches to a) identify where the massive growth potential exists, b) make the athlete/parents/coach aware of it, and c) close the gap with good programming and quality coaching. Here's an example in action. Our 10-year-old daughter, Lydia, broke her arm on January 29. As "luck" would have it, she jumped on our hawkindynamics force plates four days earlier, so we had a nice baseline in play. She started training (in a sling) about ten days after her surgery. In just four weeks of one-armed strength training (roughly 10 sessions), Lydia put 0.5 inches on her hands-on-hips countermovement jump (7.8 to 8.3 inches!) and "squished" her graph (a sign that braking and propulsion are both taking place more ...