How do we put the fun in fundamentals?

In order to put the fun in fundamentals, the coach will need to ensure that the exercises that are run are exciting for the participants in order for them to stay interested. This will need to be done because the fundamental skills are quite hard to stay interested in when training as with speed and agility especially, the participants will become bored easily if they are just running or sprinting around a course. The fundamental skills are agility, speed, balance and co-ordination. When planning a session around developing these skills, I will need to be thinking about making them innovative and fun. This can be done by progressing the initial activity and throwing in new rules to mix up the game and keep it interesting but still on the task.

An example of this could be that during an Agility style course, they would start off doing simple runs round a course of cones and then maybe adapting it and bringing in a ball for a sport and adapting the exercise to fit that sport. For example if i were to use rugby as an example, I could place the players into teams and then make them play a touch style game, this would then get them thinking about the gaps that they can chose to run into and will improve their side stepping ability and also their ability to change direction quickly.

An example for speed would be to start off with sprints and working on their running technique in general to ensure they are reaching their top speed. I would then change this into a competitive situation and also try to involve a sport. Using football as an example this time, I would have the athletes run through a timed course whilst dribbling with a football at their feet. This would actually help to improve the athlete in all of their fundamental skills because they would be using their speed on the straight runs, agility to change direction, co-ordination to aid with dribbling and enabling them to keep the ball at their feet and then balance to help them with running with the ball and working with their co-ordination to try not to trip over the ball or fumble it away.

I think that overall the main aspect to take into consideration when planning sessions based on fundamental skills would be to make sure that the activities that are being planned vary in what they include.