Coaching For Tween And Teen Girl Athletes
Around the age of 14 girls are twice as likely as boys of the same age to quit playing the sports they've loved their entire lives. The benefits of playing sports through the high school years are many, and well documented. Sports provide physical health benefits, mental health benefits, and valuable life skills.
Tween and teen girl athletes are unique. They face unique situations and challenges with respect to time management demands, overloaded schedules, and sky high expectations everywhere they turn. Couple all of this with their changing bodies and ever present social pressures, it can be easy to see why some girls quit. Girls should be coached with all of this in mind, while allowing them to develop not only as athletes but also as people. My mission is to change the way we approach training young female athletes, to coach our girls well so that they have complete sports experiences that provide them with the tools they will need as they become the leaders of tomorrow.
Meet Coach Sarah
I'm a strength and conditioning coach, a personal trainer with a specialization in fitness nutrition, an assisted stretch and flexibility practitioner, author, and podcaster. I'm the Head Coach at Southshore Performance Training in Metairie, LA where coaching and training teenagers, mostly girls, is 95% of my job. I focus on training the whole client, not just the athlete, incorporating nutritional guidance, and mindset and recovery work into our programming using my MeNToR coaching paradigm. Mindset, Nutrition, Training, and Recovery, with two guiding principles: education and opportunity. I am the host of "Her Time" podcast, and the author of "The Teenage Athletes' Nutrition Journal." I've been featured on multiple podcasts, and also authored a chapter in the collaborative book "What's Next" about the specific issues facing teenage girl athletes and the importance of training teenage girls well. I was the 2024 winner of the Jack LaLanne "Pass It On Award", the May 2024 Todd Durkin Mastermind member of the month, and nominated as a Coach 360 Most Influential Coaches of 2024. I live in my hometown of New Orleans, LA with my husband and two kids.
Her Time Podcast
Her Time tackles the issues facing teenage (and tween) female athletes.
Girls around the age of 14 years old, are twice as likely to quit playing the sports they've loved their entire lives as boys of the same age. (Women's Sports Foundation) The physical health and mental health benefits of playing sports are many and well documented. In addition to health benefits, sports provide the perfect laboratory for honing valuable life skills such as time management, goal setting, and working together as a team to accomplish something bigger than oneself.
Interest in women's sports is at an all time high, and will only continue to grow. It is imperative that we give this next generation of women the tools they will need to succeed, in both sports and in life. Download and Subscribe to Her Time on Apple Podcasts or click here.
Books
The Teenage Athletes' Nutrition Journal is a unique approach to educating young athletes and their parents about how to best fuel throughout the day in order to achieve maximum performance. The Teenage Athletes' Nutrition Journal was featured as an Amazon Top New Release. It is available to purchase here.
What's Next is a collaborative book, compiled by Todd Durkin, involving 28 fitness and wellness leaders from across the globe, including myself, who came together to share insights about the direction our increasingly important industry is heading. What's Next can be purchased here.