The spring term of our successful Activate youths’ program recently recommenced after the Christmas break. Our Brand X certified youth coaches run twice weekly strength and conditioning sessions for kids aged 5-8 years old and 9-12 years old. These classes run on Mondays and Thursdays at 3.30pm for 5-8yr olds, and Tuesdays and Fridays at 3.30pm for 9-12yr olds. The classes are organized alongside the school term, with breaks for Easter and summer planned.
The Brand X Method
As some of you may already know, our kid’s program is associated with The Brand X method which is the world leader in youth fitness and youth fitness education. The programs that we receive from The Brand X increase physical literacy and athletic capacity in children while considering the whole child. Whether your child is already involved in sports or not, our program is uniquely designed to cater for kids of all ages and ability. Our current kid’s program is regarded as a foundational necessity for youth development and health, not just a class to pass time for children.
WHAT DO WE DO?
Over the course of the term, we will be focusing on each child achieving efficiency in basic foundational movements, for example, the squat, the hinge, the lunge, jumping, landing and many more. These basic movement patterns are essential in not only every sport, but also in daily life activities. Increased sedentary behaviour combined with lack of unstructured play, outdoor exploration and increased sports specific training have left massive gaps in what was previously expected as natural and normal movement acquisition in our children. Lack of moving often causes additional problems with coordination, accuracy balance and agility.
HOW DO WE DO IT?
For example, at the beginning of the first term of our program last September, we measured the kids’ broad jumps. Throughout the term we focused on the technique of this movement while also introducing it into games. We use specific cues suitable for kids to help them understand the goal of the movement and use game-based activities to build up repetitions of the movement while keeping the children’s attention. We re-tested the group at the end of the terms and the results were as follows for the 9-12yr group:
Testing DAY 1: Testing DAY 2:
130cm ➡️ 138cm
143cm ➡️ 151cm
128cm ➡️ 136cm
152cm ➡️ 158cm
143cm ➡️ 158cm
134cm ➡️ 141cm
140cm ➡️ 149cm
OUR APPROACH
At Activate we believe that when it comes to training, children are not just mini adults. We don’t just do a scaled back version of what adults do. Instead, we take a holistic approach when training our kids which considers their psychological needs, their abilities to understand instruction and perceive their own actions and their developmental stage. The programs designed alongside The Brand X are methodologically planned to teach foundational movement skills, not simply activity / games based. Your child will learn fundamental movement skills in a fun safe environment which will in turn improve your child’s confidence and self-esteem. There will also be lots of fun games involved over the weeks which will challenge your child both physically and mentally.
SCHEDULE:
5-8yrs: MON and THURS @3.30pm
9-12yrs: TUES + FRI @3.30pm
To sign up or for more information email us at youth@activate.ie. More information will also be available across our social media sites on both our Facebook and Instagram pages:
Facebook: Activate Youths
Instagram: @activate.youths