Future Stars Camps Blog – Sports, Kids, Camp!

Ellen Brunelle shared with SmartPak some of her tools of the trade that she has in her tack trunk.  Ellen has had her own horse since she was 13.  And her current, best equine friend, Nemo is a 14-year-old Morgan gelding. Ellen and Nemo spend time together having fun at jumpers, trail riding, hunter paces, and dressage.

Is it the sweaty palms, or a slight impatience that gives away that you are feeling nervous before a child's swim meet?  Not uncommon, but important to remember that how you respond to pressure may also affect your child's emotions as well.  A tense child will more than likely not swim as well their counterpart who is relaxed and having fun.  Swim Swam shares some parental tips for staying cool:

Over the years, multiple studies reveal that proper strength and conditioning boosts the potential for increased performance in sports.  Swimmers, you know strength based training is great for all athletes in every sport, but did you realize that there are techniques for swim-specific strength based training?  Here are some of the the benefits of strength based training for swimmers that Swim Swam shared:

Scott Riewald, of Active kids, weighs in on strength training for youthful tennis players.  Tennis games are faster and players are hitting the ball harder from everywhere on the court.  Coaches, parents and players are adding strength and conditioning programming as part of their tennis training.  However, there are a lot of questions about starting this kind of programming with young children and here are some of them:

Most everyone who plays tennis, enjoys it and loves it, so much so that tennis is a sport that appeals to all ages.  People of all levels and ages populate tennis courts all over the world.  Tennis is fun.  When you throw the word lesson after the word tennis, does it sound onerous?  Well if it does,  Avery Shackelford of mytennislessons.com has ideas to emphasize the fun in learning tennis at different levels. Here are some of them:

Yahoo Sports shared an article by Justin Barrasso, Sports Illustrated, about Jessica Mendoza a former softball star who was a four-time First Team All-American outfielder for the Stanford Cardinals.  Jessica was also a member of the US women's national softball team from 2004 to 2010.  In the 2004 Athens Olympics, she won a gold medal followed by a silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Jessica's work with baseball amplified with her broadcasting job with ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.

Rob Tong of Youth Baseball Edge, shares what comes as a surprise to him - another way to wear a baseball glove.  Well, there was one variation, putting your hand in the glove and either leaving the index finger out of the glove or putting it all the way in.

Dr. Dev Mishra of Soccer America shares, "A recently published scientific study following young male soccer players at an elite Dutch soccer academy shows that the injury risk is quite high."  "In this well-conducted study the researchers found a substantially higher injury burden in the U-16 (48%), U-15 (28%), and U-17 (21%) age groups compared to the mean. The six months following peak height velocity were identified as the riskiest time period.  Peak height velocity (PHV) is defined as the moment of the largest increase in body height, and happens during puberty. It’s been suspected that a decrease in flexibility during the growth spurt may result in increased vulnerability to injury."

Youth Soccer shares some tips from a Michigan family that has 3 soccer players and another child with their own calendar of activities.  How full is that schedule and how do they manage to get everyone to practices, games and tournaments?  Organization is key as is building relationships with other soccer parents to set-up reliable car pools.  Here are some of the organization tips that the family uses:

If you are thinking of playing college lacrosse there are a lot of options and levels that are available for you such as  NCAA D1, D2, and D3, NJCAA, MCLA, NCLL, NAIA, and CUFLA.  With all these options you need to spend time researching on which level would be the best fit for you.  Playing any college sport will require a great deal of your time, passion, and sacrifices.  You will have to choose practice and games over all other activities that college life offers.  Absorb, accept and embrace your time committment to your college sport of choice.  Lacrosse All Stars shares some of the things that an aspiring college lacrosse should be prepared to think about and answer: