Soccer Moms RSS
3 Ways to Protect Your Child When He’s Playing Outdoors
With spring here and summer fast approaching, playing outdoors is an everyday event. Outdoor athletes face unique challenges as they not only battle sports opponents, they combat the outdoor elements of heat, sun rays, and bugs. You could just tell your child what to do–here spray this on or drink this–without explaining why, but here’s a perfect chance to teach your child another lesson that will stick with them for life: how to hydrate properly, stay protected from the sun and beat the bugs. Hydration The most important part of a young athlete’s diet isn’t what they eat, it is what and...
5 Steps to Helping Your Child Avoid a Youth Sports Meltdown
What do you do when your child has a youth sports meltdown? You probably feel helpless as you sit and watch from the sidelines. I know that powerless feeling of sitting in the bleachers, watching my child tank, knowing that there was not a single thing I could do to help. That may be true during the game situation, but there are ways parents can help their kids avoid youth sports meltdowns. A lot of it starts with you, Mom and Dad. You have the power to help or hinder your child’s mental toughness. This week’s post is written and sponsored by Brian Marentette from Sports Mentalytics,...
How You Can Help Your Athlete Come Out of a Slump
If you had a magic wand to wave over your kids in youth sports, I’m pretty sure you would be using it to help your athlete come out of a slump. It’s hard for parents to sit by and watch their kids struggle. Performance slumps can be extremely frustrating and difficult to get out of without getting to the root cause. In most cases, the root cause is mental. This week’s post is written and sponsored by Brian Marentette from Sports Mentalytics, a company which provides assessment tools that deliver insights and offer solutions for individual athletes or teams. Brian holds a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology...
5 Things Coaches Need to Teach Their Captive Audience
Coaches, you have a captive audience every season that you decide to take on the challenge of turning a group of individuals into a team. Your players are captive because in order to make the team, and in order to play, they must listen to you and do as you instruct. As a coach, this could be a huge power trip for you, or it could be seen as a precious opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of young athletes. I’m praying you see it as the latter. Each day that you have practice and every game that you...
Soccer Players and Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are currently the most misunderstood macronutrient, now that fats are beginning to become understood a little better by the public. It is easy to see why there is such abundant carb confusion. There are so many sides to the argument that it is overwhelming: are carbs the enemy? Are we supposed to be “carbo loading?” Is this gluten-free thing a diet fad that will fade out? Fortunately for soccer players, understanding what practices, games and lifting does to our bodies along with understanding how carbohydrates function within our bodies allows for us to know how soccer players should approach...