Today’s episode features Andy Ryland senior manager of education and training at USA Football since 2010. Andy was a former Penn State linebacker and a member of the U.S. Men’s Rugby team and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals for successful shoulder tackling.
In youth sports and beyond, cultivating skill acquisition, reactive ability and creativity are foundational in allowing athlete’s success. In a current landscape where literally no certification or formal education is required to be a sport coach, there is a gap to be bridged in creating systems that help athletes along a great path of long-term development.
Victory-centric team models shortchange multi-lateral development by specializing an athlete in a position early. Coaches use drills and robotic systems more than they foster situational adaptivity and creative solutions. If you listened to podcast #136 with James Smith of the “U of Strength” then you likely remember James talking about how robotic he sees sport coaching, and this being a reason why he incorporates perception and reaction work in his own training.
In today’s podcast, Andy digs into a variety of topics on sport skill acquisition and long term development, including the difference between “free flow” and structured sports (and how playing one can enhance the other), bandwidth on cueing and instruction, speed training in context of USA Football, barbell training, selecting a secondary or off-season sport, and more.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.Key Points
- The complimentary nature of rugby to football, as well as potential drawbacks in it’s dual sport nature
- How “free-flow” sports are different than structured sports by nature, and what athletic skills they develop
- Bandwidth on how much instruction young athletes are given, and how much they should be coached as they get older
- Speed training development in the context of USA Football
- How creating and reacting to situations is more important than canned and robotic drills in building athletes
- How to select the best off-season sport or secondary sport for young football players
- Progressions on bringing barbell training into youth athletics, particularly in football, the original and pinnacle sport in regards to S&C
- Andrews thoughts on the credentialing process of youth sport coaches
“I think (rugby and football) compliment each other really well. You’re gonna get a huge amount of physical training volume from the running volume within rugby, there’s some great evasive skills, plus the reading and spatial awareness is different in rugby than it is in football”
“Free-flow sports, soccer, hockey, basketball, lacrosse, whatever it is; small sided games are much more common, because you are training these players in dynamic environments in decision making, that offense to deference transition that free flow”
“Are we going to let someone self-organize into a tackle?”
“Why on the first rep of the drill are we instantly shouting so many cues and corrections?”
“Sorting it out in your own body can take 2 or 3 reps, so can I let them explore? The coaching cue I give on the first rep of a new drill more than any other is “it’s a new drill, it’s cool, first rep you’ll sort it out, here we go” and let them find it before we start nailing them with all these specific cues and details”
“One of our taglines is “Humans First, Athletes Second, Football Players Third””
“When we are dealing with athletes that aren’t anywhere close to their genetic potential, everything is improving everything”
“For the sake of a coach’s resume, we’re going to have a kid do one thing, and he’s going to be useful for the team because he does one thing, and that sounds great for a victory-centric model, but at the end of the season, what have we done to that athlete, because we’ve actually narrowed his bandwidth”
“We create a lot of drills, we don’t create a lot of situations”
“The best cue I can give you is “good choice””
“(In picking another sport to play other than football) Choose the sport that you get the most intrinsic enjoyment out of, rather than the sport you think is going to transfer the most into football”
“You go to the barber shop and they have the little certification hanging in the mirror… but what do you have to have to be a football coach?”
About Andy Ryland
Andy Ryland is USA Football’s senior manager of education and training and has been with USA Football since 2010. He has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle.
He is a former Penn State linebacker and member of the U.S. Men’s Rugby team and is a primary instructor in the Advanced Tackling System. Ryland previously served as a Division 1 American Football coach as well as working as a Fitness Coach in rugby. During his tenure with USA Football Ryland became the lead clinician for USA Footballs in-person coach training events including Coaching Certification and its Football Development Model. Key initiatives spearheaded by Ryland throughout his time at USA Football include developing the Heads Up Football Program, trainings its Master Trainer Coach Educators and the development of the Rookie Tackle game type that serves the FDM.”
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