Objective of the Course

The objective of this course is to ensure coaches working with juvenile athletes, players or teams understands and appreciates:

• the importance of fundamental motor skill (FMS) development for the 6 to 12 year old athletes and players
• is conversant with the categories of FMS skills
• is aware of the critical emphasis that needs to be placed on FMS learning in the overall development of juvenile athletes and players as sports performers
• To explain, desribe and illustrate almost 260 FMS exercises for use by the coach to develop and improve the FMS of the athletes/players.

 Course Content

Skill is the most important component of fitness in most sports. Fundamental Motor Skills are part of the skills that coaches need to train when working with juveniles. FMS provide the building blocks for many physical activities, such as playing games, dance, and sport.  “Having these skills is an essential part of enjoyable participation and a lifelong interest in an active lifestyle” (Developing FMS Manual, Sport NZ). All high performance sports skills are effectively an extension of the various basic motor skills the coach needs to develop when working with 6 to 12 year olds.

Fundamental movement skills are important to the motor development of children’s physical, cognitive and social growth.  In this course we present four categories in which the fundamental skills fit – Locomotion skills, Manipulation skills, awareness skills and balance/stability skills.

FMS are part of the development of the child in physical literacy. According to Whitehouse physical literacy has been identified as the foundation on which life long involvement in sport and physical activity can be achieved. The definition of Physical Literacy is: “the development of fundamental movement skills and fundamental sport skills that permit a child to move confidently and with control, in a wide range of physical activity, rhythmic (dance) and sports situations” (Higgs, Balyi, Way, Cardinal, Norris & Bluechardt, 2008 pg.5). More importantly for the sports coach it is noted that this also includes the ability to ‘read’ what is going on around them in an activity setting and react appropriately to those events (Quinn, 2012).

The more the coach teaches children the most effective ways of exercising and completing any type of skill the better that child becomes at skill development.

This course examines the 4 categories of Fundamental Motor Skills – locomotion, manipulation, awareness and balance and demonstrates the importance of each category in the physical and overall development of the athlete/player.

LOCOMOTION SKILLS

Locomotor skills involve the body moving in any direction from one point to another. Locomotor skills include walking, running, sprinting, acceleration, deceleration, dodging, jumping, hopping, skipping, climbing and plenty more.

MANIPULATION SKILLS

Manipulative skills are the skills one needs for moving balls and objects around. They involve handling and controlling object with the hand, the foot or an implement (stick, bat or racquet). Manipulative skills include throwing and catching, striking with the hands, feet and an implement (e.g. kicking, volleying, batting and dribbling). There are 3 skills needed for manipulating objects: Eye development, hand-eye/foot-eye coordination and tactile, touch experiences.

AWARENESS SKILLS

Awareness helps athletes/players function on their own and within a group. The skills include effort awareness, space awareness, and awareness of time and body awareness, where the athlete learns how his or her bodily movements relate to other movements around them. This helps them to anticipate where others could end up in relation to where they are themselves based on seeing the body movements of the others.

BALANCE SKILLS

Balance is critical for maintaining the body position in movement or even when in a staionary position. The balance (Vestibular) system is located in the inner ear and affects everything one does; it is this system that helps in the control of movement and concentration. Balance or stability skills involve the body balancing in either in one place (static) or while in motion (dynamic). The ability to balance, whether stationary or moving is a key to success in most sports and physical activities.

Topics of the Course

Introduction to the course

This topic introduces the course and sets out its key aims and objectives.

Importance of Fundamental Motor Skills Learning

This topic examines the importance of FMS. It presents physical literacy as the ability for an individual to move competently and confidently in all types of environments and especially in sport – it is the literacy of movement. The key components of physical literacy are the fundamental movement skills!

Categories of Fundamental Motor Skills

FMS are general patterns of movement that combine two or more body segments. They are “the basic vocabulary of sport,” In this topic we examine the four groups of motor skills – locomotion, manipulation, balance/stability and awareness

The Young Athlete and Fundamental Motor Skills

This topics the stages of development of FMS. It should be noted that learning fundamental sport skills before mastering the related fundamental movement skills can reduce performance ability later.

The Learning Phase of Fundamental Motor Skills

This topic examines the beginner or discovery, intermediate or developing and mature or consolidation stages of skill development using the standing long jump as a general overall skill.

Skill Coaching Methods

In the remaining topics of the course we present up to 260 different motor skills for the coach to use when coaching juvenile athletes or team. However this topics examines the key coaching steps to use when introducing, coaching and developing skill mastery irrespective of what skill is being coached.

Fundamental Motor Skills – Locomotion Exercises (85 exercises)

This topics presents 85 different Fundamental Motor Skills from the Locomotor Skills group. They provide skills that can be used with 6 year olds and upwards and involves running, dodging, hopping and jumping exercises that will improve leg strength and force production.

Fundamental Motor Skills – Manipulation Exercises (60 exercises)

This topics presents 60 different Fundamental Motor Skills from the Manipulation Skills group. They provide skills that can be used with 6 year olds and upwards and involve skills of throwing, catching, kicking, striking and others.

Fundamental Motor Skills – Balance Exercises (46 exercises)

This topics presents 30 different Fundamental Motor Skills from the Balance/Stability Skills group. They provide skills that can be used with 6 year olds and upwards and are divided between static and dynamic exercises,

Fundamental Motor Skills – Awareness Exercises (48 exercises)

This topics presents 60 different Fundamental Motor Skills from the Awareness Skills group. They provide skills to develop the awareness of space, time, effort, body and relationships.

Course fee

The fee for this course is €49.95.

Important note:

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