Youth Fitness for Parents: 3 Elements Affecting Physical Literacy

So we have talked about what physical literacy is, and how kids organically learn it, but also that kids are not having the opportunities to learn it like they used to.  So how do Brand X® Professional Youth Coaches help kids expand their access to the library of human movement?

First we need to identify the three elements we as coaches can control.  The first element is tasks or the movement problems we can introduce.  There is an infinite number of tasks that we can ask kids to do.  Let’s just take one for example, say hopping.  We can ask them to hop with two feet, one foot, back and forth from two feet to one foot, hop onto a box with two feet, hop onto a box on one foot.  You get the picture.  The movements and combinations are limitless and expand the child’s movement experience.

The next element we can control is the environment.  Again using the example of hopping kids can be asked to hop in a variety of ways, inside a gym, outside the gym, on a flat surface, on an angled surface, from a flat surface to an angled surface to a flat soft surface.  Each iteration expands the child’s movement experience and vocabulary.

The final element The Brand X® Method Coach can influence is movement competence.  A Brand X® coach will work teach kids to move safely and efficiently in the primal movement patterns.  Laying the ground work with  “Movement Skills” the Brand X® coach will scaffold movement and embed the proper patterns so that kids can move from the planned structured moments in the gym to the spontaneous movements required in sport flawlessly.

These three elements can be viewed as a Venn Diagram where the intersection is the available Movement Solutions a child is able to produce.  Increasing mastery in these elements and expanding their intersection is what your Brand X® coach is doing when working with your child to expand their physical literacy.

In our next installment we will talk about how the Brand X® Coach works to build flawless movement through systematically teaching “Movement Skills” and allowing kids to experiment and explore movement in a safe and supportive environment.

For a great example of various kids addressing a movement problem check out this post on @thebrandxmethod instagram account 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClyilovtH8v/?igshid=YWJhMjlhZTc=