I think one of the most fascinating aspects of coaching is the actual art of teaching locomotor skills to athletes. You would think I am referencing just the primary grade level athletes (k-3) but I am sadly grouping older athletes in this as well. The reason for this is because we have failed, as a country, to teach the most basic fundamental locomotor skills to our entry level athletes. This has left us lagging behind in the most elementary movement skills. The purpose of this post is to express my views on why it is important not to teach conflicting locomotor skills during the same session.

I can remember my first few days of teaching physical education back in 1989. I started my unit out by teaching all the students how to run, skip, gallop, shuffle, and other locomotor patterns. On the first day I can remember teaching kids how to properly gallop in all directions (forwards, backwards, sideways, and at angles). Because this is fairly easy foot pattern to perform the students had no issues learning this. But in the same session I attempted to teach them skipping. Most of the kids gravitated back to the galloping pattern. The reason, I believe, is because the gallop and skip are fairly similar in the fact there is a transfer from one foot to the other. But in the skipping pattern there is a transfer of the lead foot each time a skip is done, as where the gallop the lead foot stays in front the entire time.

I believe what happens is kids, when first being introduced to these patterns, can’t distinguish the patterns in their neuromuscular system- so they always revert back to the easiest neuromuscular pattern.

Over time, and hopefully within a couple days, these students will be able to easily perform one skill then go immediately to the other skill with no hesitation. This is what we ultimately want. But in the introductory stage we need to be aware of certain patterns that can be neurologically confusing.

If you want to teach multiple locomotor skills in the same session you can do one of two things. Teach skills that are basically the same foot patterns but due to direction, body position, and intent are different skills. The gallop and lateral shuffle or running and leaping are basically the same pattern but due to the intent of the body position and execution of the skill they have different purposes. The second reason is to do two totally different skills from a foot pattern standpoint and an intent standpoint. This way the students will not confuse them neurologically. An example of this would be to teach running straight ahead with shuffling laterally. There is no resemblance between the two patterns therefore students can learn each one effectively during the same session.

As I wrote earlier, the ultimate goal is for the student to be able to transition from one locomotor skill to the next without hesitation. Sport is about athletes moving in multi planar, multi direction, multi height, multi speed, and multi intent all within one play or series of movements. When we want a high level of skill proficiency we need to know when to back up and break down the locomotor skills independently before integration.

PS: When working with older athletes that lack the ability to properly perform locomotor skills use the warm up as a perfect time to implement these skills daily. This helps get the skills improved but it also is more acceptable during the warm up for most kids than to have a complete training session on foundational locomotor skills. Sometimes you have to disguise movement learning.