Youth Sports Performance
Help your youth athlete reach their full potential with our Youth Sports Performance training program. We help athletes of all ages and skill levels reach their goals, both on and off the field. Our coaches are passionate about helping kids reach their dreams, and we use a holistic approach to training that focuses on both physical and mental development. Through this approach, we minimize injury risk, improve speed, agility, power, strength, and competitive intelligence.
About the Program
Bowling Green Powerhouse’s Youth Sports Performance program is one of a kind. Coach Burba’s unique style of training prioritizes youth development through the mind then the body. Instead of barking orders, doing drills for the purpose of making the kid sweat, and measuring success only by fatigue, Coach Burba teaches first then optimizes your child's performance. Other programs and their instructors try to push the athlete, almost involuntarily, to be better. This fails to teach understanding of the “hows” and “whys,” thus slowing down progress to true athletic success and longevity. The best athletes can “feel” the right decision, react instinctively, and train intuitively. These qualities are taught and developed, not forced into the athlete. Ultimately, that way of training drains the fun out of performance. Coach Burba's mind-to-body approach addresses the individual needs of the athlete and takes into account the unique mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of youth athletes. Knowing how to coach different character traits is the most optimal way to enhance sports performance and build the athletes autonomy. This program brings the fun and excitement of training back into a world where everyone expects and tries to train their kids like professionals. Coach Burba teaches his athletes to want to grow, not be forced to grow. Research proves that skills learned voluntarily are retained and developed faster than those involuntarily or skills/training forced upon them. An athlete that wants more reps, more time, and more fight will always outshine those who are forced beyond their will and their interest.
An open letter from Coach Burba:
Parents and Coaches,
If you are reading this then you are a part of a unique population that knows how good it feels to watch your youth athlete throw their first ball, make their first tackle, score their first goal, win their first match, and all the other firsts that come with youth development. It is incomparable. Not only does that feeling spark on their firsts but all following successes they have in the future. The joy and passion they feel and express hits you right in the chest. I know this feeling well. I want to thank you for being a parent that is pursuing additional routes that your child can take to continue to be successful and grow not only on the field or court, but in life. I also want to thank you for being involved enough in your student athlete's life to consider more training options for them. Too often these days kids lack the proper role models and family support needed to truly express themselves in a positive and successful way, so thank you for being that model.
Today, it can be hard to choose the program for student athlete development. A lot of businesses have capitalized on preaching sport specificity to parents and coaches, making course options almost infinite; pitching, throwing, agility, hitting, serving, etc. This always leads to infinite questions; “Is my child throwing enough?” “Do they need more time on the field?” “Should my child be lifting weights?” “Why do I see so many kids online doing these crazy stunts, should mine be like that?” This specificity era has caused so much confusion and fear of the “underdeveloped” that we have trended away from foundational, holistic training that has proven for decades to be the most optimal. At the end of the day what youth need is constantly varied exposure early and specificity later. It is in every developmental athlete book you can find yet businesses and society have created a false philosophy that youth should be treated like pros. The fact is, learning to do a lot of different movements early on allows faster movement learning later. This is one large contributor to athleticism. A lot of those amazing plays you see are not practiced, they are in the moment free style choices that the athlete was able to do based off a history of varied movements. The point being, specificity early leads to injury and burnout.
I know these issues because I have had to train athletes around them and out of them. I see it with other programs, discuss it with other coaches, and make plans to solve this problem. My biggest goal in developing young athletes is to expose them to as much as possible while on a constant path to sport and life success. When teaching a child how to breathe right improves their lacrosse AND pitching ability, what more can you ask for? I believe exposure and well planned positive teaching will not only build success in your athletes future, but keep the joy in activity and promote a future of healthy living and competition for a lifetime.”
