Welcome to Novanta Sports Performance. As a new company in a rapidly growing industry, we want to begin our journey in the world of athletic development by telling you a little bit about ourselves.
Novanta Sports Performance is a company that is built on a commitment to supporting the athletes’ journey towards athletic excellence by adopting a systems based approach. Our team is comprised of a group of professional coaches whose goal is to have a positive impact in athletic development for betterment in sport, and life.
Fundamental to our training philosophy is the development of Physical Literacy and Fitness through a framework we believe puts our athletes on the right path for success. We often hear the term “physical literacy”, but what does it actually mean?? Physical Literacy can be defined as “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life.” To put it more simply, physical literacy can be described as having the physical confidence and competence to be able to perform a variety of different activities, in a variety of different ways in a number of different settings. When describing it in terms of “movement”, we want our athletes to be able to “move” more frequently, in a many different ways, and be adaptable in different environments. Having more “tools” in your “toolbox” will provide the young athlete with more “movement” solutions to different “movement” problems they will incur throughout their athletic careers.
Now that we understand Physical Literacy…..what is “fitness” and how does it fit into our development philosophy? From a Fitness perspective, this is where we look at physical characteristics such as speed, agility, strength, power and aerobic capacity. Athletes express these physical characteristics within the context of their sport and physical activities. Simply put, youth athletes will display “fitness” while dribbling a ball, jumping up with an opponent to win an aerial dual, dive low to stop a shot and accelerate quickly to launch a counterattack. Although “fitness” is very important to success in sport and could arguably be the difference maker between winning and losing, we believe this to be only one piece of the puzzle.
So how do we put this all together? How does these two components contribute to developing an athlete??
Athletic Development can be viewed as a journey. It is a journey where we begin by laying down foundations, emphasizing those foundations, and building upon those foundations relevant to the athlete’s growth and maturation. Key to our foundations are fundamental movement patterns – squat, lunge, hinge, push & pull – and fundamental movement skills – jump, run, throw, catch, kick, strike, agility, balance & coordination – which are present in everyday physical activity and sport. We apply our 7 Key Features to movement to ensure that the athlete has a solid base or “physical literacy” to draw from when expressing movement in different domains. Once we have a good foundation to work from, we can then apply fitness and fundamental sport skills to that foundation. If we look at it in terms of “movement” and “fitness”, we want our athletes to have a very solid foundation of movement competencies from which they can then express fitness characteristics to the best of their ability. In a nutshell…..efforts to improve physical literacy must place an emphasis on movement skills, general patterns and physical fitness. Fitness emphasized in the absence of movement, and movement emphasized in the absence of fitness could limit the extent to which the young athlete develops his or her physical literacy. Being physically literate has a number of benefits including participation in physical activity and associated health benefits across the lifespan. The benefits of physical literacy though aren’t limited to physical health. It also improves academic performance, cognitive skills, mental health, psychological wellness, social skills, and healthy lifestyle habits.
We at Novanta Sports Performance believe that our holistic approach to physical preparedness allow us to design, and implement, programs that will enhance athleticism relevant to the growth and maturation phase, and training age of the athlete. Through education, exercise interventions, and coaching expertise, we provide solutions that will enhance athletic potential, improve sport performance and reduce injury within a competitive environment!!
We are excited for what the future holds!!!
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