This is a resource for teachers or coaches to implement Alliance Athletics style training into games or activities to develop training adaptations that athletes get from or programming.
While it is our belief that athletes should be educated on how to train and manage their bodies, it is also the case that in some instances there is also a need to implement some of the principles WITHOUT the athletes knowing they are actually training specific qualities. Fun and engaging methods are never not effective when working with athletes or students of all ages!
This article might be periodically updated and added to as we get more good ideas so feel free to suggest any other good ideas after reading through this resource.
We have a coaches folder as well that we have created to help support team coaches, which will have some resources including station cards, posters and more! Reach out to me (email below) if you would like access to the folder!
Below I will outline a few games, activities, movement breaks and frameworks for you to use with your team or class.
Stations (Can be used for anything, get creative!)
- Great to facilitate participants to complete exercises you can program for them based on what you would like them to do, warm-ups, cool downs or workouts.
- Works best when participants have had some level of instruction on the exercises already.
- Very versatile
- Can be taken a step further and create bingo cards for the participants to complete, challenges, races etc.
Here is an example of some of the resources you could use. These posters and graphics will be added to the "Coaches Folder" in time. If you would like them sent to you reach out!
Full Colour and Picture
Basic and minimal
For younger athletes and students!
Tendon Tag - (Tendon Capacity and Foot Function)
- Tag game
- Have the athletes go barefoot for best results
- Participants hop either on 1 or 2 feet and must stay on the lines on the gym floor
- Line tag, have taggers chase runners until all athletes have been tagged
- Can do this in sets of 30 to 60 seconds, and even progressively add more time as the athletes gain capacity
Footwriting - (Foot and Glute Stability, Fascia Training)
- Have the participants barefoot ideally
- Line up and stand on one leg
- Coach or participant can say a word and the participants have to write the word in the air using their foot that is off of the ground
- Focus on smooth movement and balancing without dropping the elevated foot to the ground
- Amazing for training stability through the foot, ankle and glutes!
- Bonus: Ask the participants where they feel the most burn. The higher up the chain they feel it (from feet to glutes) the better fascial connection the participant has. I will cover this more in another article coming soon!
Red Light/Green Light - (Full body coordination and conditioning)
- Simple game of red light/green light
- Have the participants bear crawl
- When they have to freeze they will be challenged to maintain stability, particularly when one or more of the hands/feet are off of the ground
- You can do this with other exercises too! Get creative and share any others you see with me, id love to see
British Bulldog - (Full body coordination and Conditioning. Hand/Foot strength)
- Simple game of British bulldog or octopus
- Participants must bear crawl though
- You could ease the participants into this by allowing taggers to crab walk to as this will be quite difficult at first
- Make sure to talk about safety with the participants first (protecting wrists, maybe don't have them go full out speed etc)
Bounding Variation Relay Races - (Athletic development)
- Use various plyometric movements and create relay races
- Single leg hops, single leg bounds, 2 leg hops, 2 leg bounds, skips etc. Get creative!
Numbers - (Foot and ankle stability, tendon work, hip mobility and function)
- This is one of my personal favourite ways to warm up
- Play a simple game of numbers with a hacky sack, soccer or basketball
- Particpants pair up and must keep the ball up for 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 touches using anything but their hands/arms until one person fails
- Can give them 1 to 3 "lives" depending on skill level
I hope that you found this resource useful! I will be adding more to this as I find more ways to implement Alliance training into games, activities and movement breaks.
If you do any of these with your class or team please share some feedback with me or grab a video! They will help add to this resource. Again, if you have other ideas or suggestions to add to this resource please send them my way.
Thank you,
Matt