Fit 2 Finish ― Keeping Your Soccer Players in the Game

The number of kids who love to play soccer has exploded in the last decade. Unfortunately, so has the number of sports injuries. Why? More games, more competitions, and early specialization have all contributed, but so have our methods of training them. High pressure to perform along with an increased volume and intensity of training has combined to hamper young soccer athletes. They favor one side, overuse one muscle group, and do it over and over again. This is a recipe for injury.

In Fit 2 Finish, Dr. LeBolt takes a sport scientist's eye to the training of our soccer-loving kids. She distills the gems of two decades of coaching and injury prevention training to display the methods that have worked to make her athletes safer, healthier and more effective, all while never losing the fun. Coaches at all levels can apply the Fit2Finish principles to every facet of their coaching: warm up, skills and drills, game play, post game routines, recovery, rest and preparing for the next game. Fit 2 Finish is the training manual and the game plan for the coach who's first objective is to keep kids healthy and in the game.

Yes, we must address the 'too much, too early' in today's youth sports, but while we go about changing the culture, the kids who are currently in it need saving. Today's coaches can start now by taking the Fit2Finish method straight to their practice field. If strong, balanced, healthy, high-performing athletes are what we're after, then Fit 2 Finish will get us there.

Wendy Lebolt coached rec and travel soccer for the Chantilly Youth Association and Chantilly Soccer Club. (1999-2010 head coaching and all star coaching, After 2010, she focused on expanding Fit2Finish, During the time she was coaching she consulted and worked with outstanding coaches including Braddock Road Youth Club, VISTA, Reston Football Club, McClean Youth Soccer, and Olympic Youth Development. None of these as coach but working with outstanding coaches.Dr. LeBolt founded Fit2finish, LLC in 2001 to address the crisis of injuries in youth sports, particularly to female soccer players. To her work she brings advanced degrees in exercise physiology, a decade of college teaching in the sport sciences, fifteen years of soccer coaching, two decades of sports parenting and a lifetime love of athletics. She has trained thousands of young athletes and teams in the Washington, DC area and mid-Atlantic region and speaks regularly to groups of coaches, parents and athletes about healthy sports and injury prevention. Wendy has published hundreds of articles and columns on topics related to health, wellness, fitness and sports performance. She writes weekly for Soccerwire.com, blogs at Fit2Finish.com and posts regularly to her inspirational blog, The Kinesthetic Christian. She lives in Herndon, Virginia with her husband and their three almost grown daughters.