Why should you get involved with the Youth Strength and Conditioning Association?
There are so many other things going on in life, so many things to take care of. Why should I listen to Brendan and the YSCA?
In short, we need your help to solve a challenging problem that we are all facing.
This is 100% your choice. But before you make your mind up I would like to ask for three minutes of your time to explain the situation if i may…
The Problem
Unless you’ve been living under a rock in recent times you will be fully aware of the obesity epidemic in the western world.
Alarmingly it is getting worse not better. We look to our young to predict our future, and from a health and wellness perspective I’m afraid to say it doesn’t look good at the moment.
Public health England share this statistic recently…
“19.1% of children in Year 6 (aged 10-11) are obese and a further 14.2% are overweight.
Of children in Reception (aged 4-5), 9.1% are obese and another 12.8% are overweight.
This means a third of 10-11 year-olds and over a fifth of 4-5 year-olds are overweight or obese.
The UK’s growing obesity crisis means that by 2030:
74% of men in UK will be overweight
64% of women in UK will be overweight.”
Source: Public Health England https://www.noo.org.uk
We cannot sit back and watch this unfold
It is hard to fathom the severity of this situation. We really are swimming against the tide at the moment.
Sometimes there are things that matter more than the day to day and I cannot imagine a society where 3 in 4 people are obese, yet the statistics tell me it’s only 12-15 years away! If we continue at that rate what does 2050 look like? What quality of life will our grandchildren experience?
We have to take a stand and offer solutions here. That’s entirely why I founded the YSCA as I saw a viable pathway to make an impact on the health and wellness of young people.
We have already seen positive results in communities where our coaches are operating even though this project is only recently underway.
“Education before motivation”
I suppose I would say that being the founder of an education company, but hear me out…
There are four stages of learning ladder which are:
- Unconscious incompetence
- Conscious incompetence
- Conscious competence
- Unconscious competence
If we move someone up the ladder from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, they then at least have a choice to make about if they want to change or not. We do that by educating people, which is why education has to come before motivation.
As much as motivation is clearly important two quotes spring to mind to highlight why education must always come first:
Firstly, from my colleague Nick Winkelman:
“Is being motivated by the somebody external the same as being motivated internally?”
If we tell people what to do but not why they should do it the impact is lost. Furthermore if the same people realise why it’s important themselves (likely through being educated) and find that motivation internally our job is about showing them the correct path rather than forcing them to do it. A far more efficient option I would argue.
Secondly, a tongue in cheek quote from renowned business coach Brad Sugars:
“If you motivate an idiot they just do stupid stuff faster!”
The competence isn’t there to generate results from the effort. Let’s get this the right way round because we can’t afford to get it wrong!
The Youth Fitness Opportunity
For the fitness industry the youth obesity problem represents one of the most exciting and certainly the most impactful opportunities for socially motivated entrepreneurs, coaches and passionate people.
Here in the UK we tend to follow the trends of the USA when it comes to health and fitness.
– We have been through the bodybuilding and aerobics craze following the Americans.
– We are seeing the boutique gyms come in the UK through following the trend in North America with the likes of Soul cycle, Equinox and others.
– The awareness of parents, schools, and children themselves to the issues we face is growing and I expect more and more emphasis to be placed on getting children moving in the coming years.
It’s no good having the tools to do the job but not being able to apply them. The application comes through having a sound business plan, the mindset to make a difference and the community to support you along the way.
As a young coach I threw myself into course after course and learnt tons of information. However very often the information was not applicable because I did not understand how to get in front of people and apply those learnings.
That’s why all of our education is centered around business and personal development as well as the technical skills required to do this job.
The YSCA Why
Our main immediate goal with the YSCA is to build a workforce that can educate communities. We do this through the pathway. Our Youth Pathway course encourages phased learning starting from Youth Assistant, going into Youth Coach and then the Youth Specialist which forms the full pathway.
Providing solutions to society’s problems is what entrepreneurship is all about and this is exactly why the YSCA was founded. It’s early days but we are already seeing the green shoots of impact coming through. I fully believe these will grow into trees and we will provide the infrastructure and the momentum to contribute to the change that is required.
We can’t do it alone, that’s why we have partnered with UK Active and are working with Jack Shakespeare and his team there. We recently delivered the movement session for 11-16 year olds for National Fitness Day in partnership with UK Active and Disney across 2000 schools. The work that UK Active is doing with the government and key stakeholders is fantastic, I would encourage anyone reading this to make contact with them and get involved.
Before I leave you today I ask you to consider this…
Now you have read this article you have a choice to make. The information is fresh in your mind, you understand the challenges we face as a society, will you make a decision to get involved with us and be the change required to impact the next generation in a positive way?
I hope you will.
My best as always,
Brendan
Follow me @brendanchaplin on all the usual platforms.
