Help with training my son to move better.

What do you call baseball flows? Right now he still attacks the ball and goes down with his feet together. We’ve done right/left right/left drills a million times but come gametime he reverts right back to squatting on his heels and feet together when he gets to the ball. He just can’t seem to open his base and lean forward.

Thanks I’ll look into it. He is on the smaller side for kids his age, 4’6 65lbs. Some kids on his team are already 5’ and 100lbs

Bear crawls, low crawls, forward rolls, backward rolls,

In other words find a place to train judo/wrestling/jiu jitsu

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In other words find a place to train judo/wrestling/jiu jitsu

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I second everything said so far, but to add my .02 in my own way, I have a few words, STRENGTH STRENGTH STRENGTH!!!!

Everything he does in life will be enhanced by being stronger. I think one of best things you (and your wife/SO/gf ... whatever) can do for your children is model to them how important it is to be strong. To me, that means you have to be strong (or at least be actively attempting to be strong by training for strength with some kind of method, doesn't matter which one, just as long as it works), and you have to teach your kids the global importance of strength as a foundational physical quality.

Do your best to ensure your kids do not end up being infected by and clinging to old, tired, narrow ideas about strength, muscles, weightlifting, etc. It is 2024, but there is still so much ignorance about these topics. Strength training is not just for men, not just for athletes, it's not just for bodybuilders, or other big macho men with big muscles that like to strut and flex in the mirror. Every human being should care about being stronger and every human being can, and should IMO, strength train.

Obviously people, and your son, have freedom of choice, but as a parent you have a lot of influence on that kid so I suggest you take advantage. That age, 10, is a great age to get him introduced to something that will make him stronger. It may not be weights, it may be wrestling/BJJ/martial arts, or gymnastics, or calisthenics. I'm partial to barbell training because objectively, it is the superior method, but some people won't do it no matter what, I can never understand why. That's where your parental influence comes in, if he sees you doing something he may want to join in, if you seem to enjoy strength training by working with a barbell, maybe he will want to do it as well. Of course, if you, or he, don't go that route there are other ways to skin this cat. In my hometown, wrestling and gymnastics are incredibly popular activities for young kids. It seems like every kid who was a decent athlete that I grew up with did 1 or the other or both for at least a few years when they were between the ages of 5-10. Learning to move in all 3 planes and control your body in all manner of positions is really helpful for building that "fluidity of movement" that you recognize. It's not too late for him to get some of that.

Both me and his mom played multiple sports growing up and through high school. We definitely didn’t win the genetic lottery but held our own enough to compete and stay on the field. The funny thing is my 12 year old daughter who doesn’t take any sport seriously is much more fluid looking when she runs and moves. I was doing ladder drills with him a while back and he couldnt get the rhythm of it and she walks up after watching us and runs right through it like it was second nature. I probably should just stay focused on his results because it’s working for him even if it is clunky looking.

He’s actually one of the fastest kids on his team, he just looks like he can run inside of a bucket. I think the main thing he needs help with is flexibility. Everything he does looks very compressed to his body. I looked into the flows program you mentioned and that might be exactly what I was looking for.

It’s not bad to expose him to mobility and strength stuff at this age, but the kid also just needs to continue to develop through different activities. Play tag, do tricks off the monkey bars, do cartwheels and flips (goes along with rolling and crawling). Sounds like coordination needs to get better along with other qualities, but he’s gonna hate you if he’s not having fun. You talk about ladders and no rhythm, hell even dancing or playing an instrument could help with that

Jeremy Frisch can be a good resource for this type of stuff

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If you watch a lot of videos on this particular IG account, there's tons of questionable technique and form with the lifts, which I do not advocate for, but strength is strength, just because a person's form isn't perfect or they bounce a bench press off their chest/belly with their hips several inches off the bench(this is something nearly 100% of his trainees seem to do, but I think a lot of it has to do with them trying to lift the most weight possible for the purpose of sharing it on IG, I'm willing to bet they don't train that way day to day)doesn't mean that lifter isn't strong. They're just taking on too much of an injury risk in my opinion, but I don't coach these kids. I can't deny they are strong, that's all I am trying to show.

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jared produces monster

to touch on the technique some

when you see them benching and the butt is off.....that is taught. its because they are training for athletics and he wants them to use leg drive. if they decide to go to a PL meet, they train different for 8 weeks or so before the meet. I teach the same thing, leg drive through the floor. i use tons of pin presses to drive strength almost exclusively using the static dynamic method similar to box squats. Jared uses crazy heavy tricep pushdowns with this weird technique to drive it. its unique

on the squats....most of his kids dont do regular squats unless they need to add mass. almost exclusively using box squats on a 12" box with a 4" soft foam pad (elitefts older blue pad model) so his kids are not used to doing regular squats

also on free back squats, he uses overspeed eccentrics where they slam down to use the stretch shortening cycle

with the young kids you will see them have some structural strength issues that come into play when they are doing the max effort stuff

anyways just wanted to clarify some of those things

jared is the best strength coach in the nation imo