AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Brianna Battles  00:01

Welcome to the Practice Brave podcast. I am the host, Brianna Battles, founder of Pregnancy and Postpartum Athleticism, and CEO of Everyday Battles. I’m a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, mom of two wild little boys, and a lifelong athlete. I believe that athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and this podcast is dedicated to coaching you by providing meaningful conversations, insights, and interview topics related to fitness, mindset, parenting, and of course, all the nuances of pregnancy and postpartum. From expert interviews to engaging conversations and reflections, this podcast is your trustworthy, relatable resource for learning how to practice brave through every season in your life. Hey, everyone! Welcome back to the Practice Brave podcast. Today, I’m here to talk about something a little bit different than my typical content. Although, if you have followed me for any many years, you know that I dose in what I call coach mom content, because coaching is truly the only thing that ever prepared me for motherhood and how I approach parenting. And while some things might be unconventional, a lot of what and how we have chosen to parent is based off of what it takes to raise healthy, well-rounded humans that are successful and that are competent in today’s world. It’s not just about raising good athletes; it’s about raising good humans, right? And that’s the focus of coaching. But ultimately, that is our focus as parents raising this next generation. So I have a lot of people that will reach out and ask what we have done so far raising our boys because both of them are very athletic and they enjoy moving their body, whether it is in sports or just like their lifestyle. You know, they live a very active lifestyle with their hobbies, with just the different sports that they play. It is embedded into just like how how they live, without us forcing them. Like they will ask to work out with us or on their own. They understand the benefits of playing sports. There’s just like a high level of sport and athletic and health IQ with my boys, and I’m really proud of that. It is something that we’ve been intentional about, but not because it’s been forced on them. I think it’s just like that slow dose of exposure and not forcing it, just making it part of like this is like what we do, this is how we live, this is what we believe, and then in other ways, like we do have some non-negotiables. So I’ve shared a little bit about that recently as a quick backstory. This is all on Instagram from the last. I would say, like, if you start looking in like mid end of June content on the Apriana Battles Instagram, I shared about a story with Chance, who is our eight-year-old, we were in Lake Havasu, where we’ve been going for years and years and years. We brought our boat down there, and Chance has resisted wakeboarding for a long time now. His brother, on the other hand, was into it years ago, and he’s Kate is four years older than Chance, and we try to like not compare the boys because they’re two totally different personalities. Again, both athletic, both driven. But Cade is like I would call him like a really like visceral, full send athlete, and Chance is more of our like cerebral and cognitive type athlete. So he had a lot of anxiety and fear attached to wakeboarding. Even though, as his parents, we know he would love it. It is like right up his alley with all the things that he really does and enjoys, and we know that he’s just like a slower, a slower start of a human versus his brother who just like you know dives in before like really even knowing what to expect, so we really try not to compare them. And Kate is not a is not a normal kid avatar to compare to, and so that’s why we like we’ve given Chance a lot of empathy and grace for like his own learning curve and readiness. But by this point in time, we were like, dude, you are ready, and it’s going to get harder to learn the older that you get. This is a part of our lifestyle. Like we are, we love to be on the boat.

Brianna Battles  04:22

And again, we know you’re going to like this, but because it was like screaming, fighting, kicking, like no, and like these total epic meltdowns. We’re like, oh, just like a battle you don’t always want to fight, right? Especially when you’re like, we’re on vacation. This supposed to be fun. Like, oh my god, it’s already like we’re already overstimulated. You don’t want to like fight it, but then at the same time, I was just like, I’m done with this. Like, I’m over it. Tough love is needed. Like, we’ve led with empathy. We’ve given you like different timelines of like your readiness. I know that you’re ready. You’re just now like acting out of fear, and that is not something that we’re going to tolerate. A huge theme of our household and businesses and everything. Is to practice brave. It’s not about feeling ready and being brave. It’s just about getting reps of practicing the act of bravery, and because that is a part of our ecosystem in our family, we leaned into that. And I said, fine. Like if if you’re not going to learn from Jared and I, then we’re going to like we’re going to get a coach, and that person is going to teach you. But this is what we are doing. In two hours, we’re going to be on the boat, and you’re going to have a coach who is with you, who’s going to help teach you because you refuse to learn with us. So we ended up hiring this this coach, just like a young, a young 20 something year old, you know, just wakeboard bro. And because Chance knew that that was happening, there was like a non-negotiable. Like this is what is happening. That he finally like he threw a tantrum when we first told him, went to his room, like had to like again had the meltdown, but then came out and was like, okay, fine, I’ll try it on. Okay, fine, and like so we worked with him in the living room, and then that led to working with him in the pool, with just like getting familiarity of like being strapped into the board, floating there with the vests on all of that stuff. So like that was like already progress. A big part of knowing your kid is knowing how to hack their brain, right? And I knew that. I knew that was chance. Like if he was melting down with us and like being like really resistant, if you brought in that third person where like he couldn’t be his like his true unhinged self, like that would help because I know like Chance is a great student. Like he locks in. He’s he’s extremely coachable because he like want he’s like people pleasing in that sense, but not with us. But like I knew that he is just like a very good student in general. Like that’s something we hear all the time from teachers, coaches, etc. So I knew, I knew that would be the thing, is like bringing an outside, outside force, I guess, and expertise where he had to lock in and he had to just like get over himself and try. So we we got on the boat and you know like he was nervous. He did have some tears when he got in the water, and I think it’s just like the anxiety of the boat pulling away, and then you’re kind of like out there removed and by yourself. But like the guy had gone over like just coaching tips and things like that, and like Chance has skied, he’s snowboarded, he has skateboarded, like all of that stuff. Like he is very competent athletically. So again, we knew like okay, he’s going to get this. It’s just, it’s getting over that mental barrier. Like you just like mind f yourself, and that starts so young. But if you don’t learn how to address that at a young age, it will troll you for the rest of your freaking life. You’ll create so many stories and narratives about like why you can’t do something, and you create a lot of excuses around that. And then again, that’s just not a mentality and belief system that we want to ever tolerate in our home, it’s fine to be scared, but you do not let that control you.

Brianna Battles  07:45

You don’t let that control like your, you know, your potential. Basically, like fear is not going to be the thing that blocks you. So after honestly, just a few tips and pointers, and even like giving Jared, like, okay, I want you to try driving at like this speed or whatever. We’re like getting up, then like shifting. Chance got up on the first try, like the first freaking try. Like we just told him, you know, stay in a ball, whatever. Like the little tips really helped. And I mean, he was up for like you know five seconds or so, got like the wobbles. But then that was enough of a W for him to be like, okay, I got this. And then we like, of course, like hyped him up, and like Cade was like, you know, Chance seeks Cade’s like approval a lot, and so we really have to be like diligent with Cade. Was like, you are your brother number one fan. Like, you make you need to hype him up like so much right now, which like he already naturally does. Cade’s really great hype man in general, but for this, it was like you need to make him feel like he is the coolest kid ever. So we, of course, all like lost our minds, hyped him up, and then that led to him going another time and another. Okay, another pointer. Like, just use. I want you to use one hand. We’re going to do this, and you’re going to like look this way or whatever it might be. Um, and I don’t know. By like the third or fourth attempt, he was going like he was going for a good period of time, and it’s like he just had to get out of his own way. And I think so many of us have experiences like that, but most of us don’t learn to deal with that kind of stuff until we are like much older. And you know, something, another sentiment that we say a lot in our family that literally lived on a post-it on my mirror for a very long time when I was in a shitty season of life was I will not be committed to my own struggle, and my boys roll with their eyes every single time I say that, every single time, like they’re just like, oh, shut up, mom, you know what I mean? But that is that is very much a belief system we have in our houses. I will not be committed to my own struggle. That does not mean we will not struggle. We will absolutely struggle, but how long are we going to be committed to it? I’m not going to be committed to it. Again, doesn’t negate the fact that we’re going to struggle and it’s okay to struggle. It’s just we’re not going to give it the energy to be committed to it. We’re going to give energy to doing something about the struggle and being proactive, right? So that’s really that. That’s. Just something that, like we, we just stand out. Like we’re like, this is what we believe. This is what we are doing. This is what we’re committed to, and what we’re going to tolerate. And frankly, what we won’t tolerate from these boys, and that does not come without them having autonomy. Again, like we can give grace and empathy, but also instill some accountability and challenge because something, and this is probably like a lot of people don’t like this sentiment, but like I think a lot of parents give their kids too much autonomy too early. It’s not that we can’t give them autonomy, but that is earned eventually over time and experience and exposure. So many parents are like, well, my kid doesn’t like jujitsu. My kid doesn’t want to do X, Y, or Z. They are too scared to wakeboard, and it’s like we allow them to have so much autonomy that we’re also now not introducing challenge. We’re not introducing struggle. We’re letting them dictate something that is more rooted in in fear and anxiety than anything else, like that’s the root of it. Especially when you know, like this is something this kid’s gonna like, and I know that. I know that they’re gonna happen if they just try. And like, okay, if they don’t like it, good.

Brianna Battles  11:14

You did something that you didn’t want to do. Like that’s also a valuable life lesson to instill. And I think it’s just always insane to me. Like I’ve coached at a lot of different levels, professional athletes to youth athletes. I’m coaching four-year-olds currently at jujitsu and teenagers and everything like that. I’ve coached professional athletes, college athletes, high school, literally everything across the entire spectrum, across a lot of different sports. Kids need to be held accountable. They do not always know what’s best for them yet. That’s the key word. Yet, it’s not that they won’t grow and have their own opinions and beliefs and be able to call some of their shots. But as parents, it’s our job to guide that process through exposure and through challenge and through belief early and often. And that is just something that gets looked over all of the time. It’s like, well, my kid doesn’t like to do this. Okay, is it good for them? What is it teaching them? What is it instilling? Like, we have to be able to challenge some of that and not let our kids be in charge yet. Again, they have to learn that first, and they learn that through exposure and a variety of experiences. Again, I get that that is not popular in today’s parenting culture. Frankly, even in today’s sport culture, a lot of kids kind of get to pick their pathway, but they do not have the the insight that so many of us, as well informed parents, do, and I think that’s why I want to keep expanding this conversation from the perspective of I’ve been coaching for 20 years. I really understand long term athletic development like so deeply in my chest. Lifetime of athleticism is not just connected to my pregnant and postpartum athletes. That is one catalyst season for women, but a lifetime of athleticism is instilled. It is instilled at an early age, and can be acquired at any point in our life. But as parents, if you’re listening to this podcast, I’m just going to assume that you’re already kind of bought into that, where you’re like, all right, yeah, I believe I want to be a healthy and the fittest version of myself. I want that for my family. Like you’re already bought into that belief system, yet raising kids to pursue this lifetime of athleticism and to instill that, like that, is not always intuitive for parents, and that’s why I feel that so many of us are, you know we’ve experienced pregnancy and postpartum a couple times through, and have like had to rebuild our relationship with our body, with fitness, with what it means to keep pursuing the own our own best version of ourselves, and across this quote lifetime of athleticism, we have walked that path, or at least we’re like we’re in it now. We believe it. We’re bought into that, and now the cycle keeps going because it’s on us to raise the next generation to have a different and dare I say better and healthier experience in sports, fitness, health, their body, all of that. But again, that’s not always intuitive because so many of us have had like our own challenging experiences with different coaches or different sports and different sport cultures, and like it’s just it’s layered, right? For so many of us, and we want to do a good job. We want to do a better job. We want to get our our kids what we did not have. We want to change their experience, and we know how positive sports can be. We know that sports teach what we can’t always teach as parents, or it just teaches it differently. It hits different. It it lives in them differently because it’s experiential. Learning to win and learning to lose, learning how to be a teammate and all of that, and like ride the emotional roller coaster that is sport. That is a variety of sports. Like that is something that is such a beautiful extension of parenting, and so to expose our kids to that, again, we we want to do like we want to do our best, but we don’t always know how, right? Because there’s so much conflicting information.

Brianna Battles  15:18

There is so much comparison to well, what this person is doing or what that person is doing, and so bottom line with this particular episode, I’m speaking to you as a coach first, a mom second, and a lifelong athlete third. Okay, because my coaching background, my master’s degree is in coaching, and again, I’ve coached a lot of different people across a lot of different sports, and I have seen and witnessed so many different patterns of behavior and outcomes, and and have been able to really like connect the dots between youth sports and long, long, long-term athletic development. We used to think that kind of ended at like 22 or when you were done with college, but no, no, no. It’s this lifetime of athleticism, but longevity and feeling capable and competent and strong in your body across the lifespan. Okay, so we do know that. And as a mom, Ingolcade just turned 13. Chance will be nine in August, and you know, I just feel so far that, if nothing else, they have a really solid foundation of their motor skills, of their sport and body IQ, and how to be the teammate. Like that, they already have both of them at eight and just turned 13. They already have that, so whether like if sports ended tomorrow for them, they both have already acquired what I hope we can just keep building upon. It’s already been positive, so that’s what I’m going to speak to from a parenting perspective. Because, and I really need you to hear this: the goal is to not go Division One or Pro. It’s not. That’s a excellent bonus and and benefit of of taking sports as far as you can. The goal is to instill a lifetime of athleticism to improve their experiences as little athletes navigating the world of sport and all of the lessons and valuable insight and experiences that only sports can deliver. That’s what we’re trying to instill in a really healthy way, so that our kids are not injured, they’re not burned out, they’re not quitting, and they’re not like trolled for life over some of the like toxic stuff that can be attached to different sports, right? Like, and all of us have experienced something like that, most likely, and if you haven’t personally, then you know somebody who like had a pretty negative experience in sport. And as parents, we cannot control everything our babies experience. We just can’t, but we are here to support them. We’re here to guide. We are here to be a lighthouse. We are here to just like do our best to facilitate the most positive experience as possible. And when it’s not a positive experience, we are here to be a safe place, a person who can provide insight, perspective, and wisdom. And we’re not going to get it right, including myself. Like I am not claiming to be a freaking parenting expert. Hear me on that. I am speaking to you today, again, from just a few different angles. Okay, the only thing I can tell you that I’m actually really good at is coaching, parenting. I’m still freaking learning, and being an athlete, I have lived many, many, many lives as an athlete. I played divisional and water polo. I coached at the collegiate level. I have done triathlons, lifting, CrossFit. I’m all different variations of lifting in sport, and now jujitsu started that after I became a mom. Currently a brown belt. So lifetime of athleticism, yes, I am living it. I’m walking it. I have again, I’ve lived many, many lives as an athlete. So I’m combining this perspective to bring to you different ways to raise athletic babies through the lens of everything I just talked about. Not d1 not pro, but through the lens of instilling a lifetime of athleticism. So let’s talk about. I actually did a series recently, just a building block series of like being a pregnant athlete, a postpartum athlete, an athlete mom, and then capped it off with now raising athletic kids. So this is what I would suggest as a lifelong coach, who also happens to be a parent raising little athletes, so let’s kick it off. I would suggest doing giving our kids exposure to multiple sports early and often. Sports help reinforce their motor development and overall movement patterns.

Brianna Battles  19:37

They learn to be a good little athlete and a better mover. So we want to experiment and with exposure to as many sports as possible, even if it’s brief, even if they only do a six-week basketball, like through the city kind of program. Great, that is six weeks of hand-eye coordination, learning how to dribble, learning how to run and dribble at the same time, how to aim, and then like develop. Accuracy, whatever it might be, like that is excellent early exposure. I personally, yes, I’m biased not just because I own a gym, but we did this way before. Like again, my boys, both of my boys, jujitsu kids started when he was four, so and he just turned 13. That was an excellent sport to give them exposure to. They are having to learn how to control their body, how to interact with others. It developed very versatile movement patterns and skill set. Was excellent. It was a team environment while still being an individual sport. You kind of get the best of both there. Obviously, gymnastics is really well-rounded sport that we can give them exposure to. That’s that was great. Definitely something that I recommend if you’re like I don’t even know what sport to start with, everyone tends to start with soccer. That could be a good sport too. We again, both my boys, they did soccer as well. But I really have a bias for a sport that just develops a well-rounded little athlete and getting them move in a variety of movement patterns and environments. So that’s what I would recommend there for starting your kids early and exposing often. I would also recommend participating in both an individual sport and a team sport. So this is helpful for developing their psychological development as an athlete. It’s we know if you’ve played both kinds, it’s a different kind of stimulus. When you’re, it’s just you. That’s a lot of pressure to absorb, but some people really like that. They like that it’s on them. Some don’t want that much pressure. They want to kind of share the load of the experience through team sports. And not only does it help with that psychological development of an athlete, it does help with the overall like management of emotions, of working with others, of being able to figure out yourself and not have to be reliant on others, both it is both. If you have a bias or your kid has a bias to an individual sport, also dose team sports, and vice versa. If they really just like love different team sports, also encourage them to do something that is an individual sport for their own self development as an athlete, and it’s mostly like that mental development. Like, yes, there’s like still like a cross section of like the physical development and team versus individual, but my perspective is for that psychological development as an athlete. Which, by the way, all of this is like we’re talking about developing athletes, but the bottom line is like we’re developing humans. We’re developing like successful, driven, confident humans, and sport instills that. So when I talk about like you know this is going to help develop their psychology as an athlete slash their development as a healthy, happy, confident young man, young woman. Okay. Um. Next point, a little bit redundant, but to participate in a martial art, I think this helps develop discipline and is extremely transferable to other sports and instills an element of self defense as a life skill. That is why jujitsu is a non negotiable in our family. It has been since they both boys were four years old. This is not about becoming the best jujitsu athlete. This is about you becoming a competent young man who knows how to defend himself and others. That is high on our value system as a family. We all train. Jared trained years before us, and then Cade started, and then I slowly started afterwards, and then Chance started. So it’s like this is something our whole family deeply believes in: being competent, because being fit and strong and tough is not enough to know how to actually defend yourself and others. And you hope to not ever have to use that, but it is a skill set that is not necessarily taught.

Brianna Battles  23:39

And I have a bias toward jujitsu again because most altercations end up on the ground. It’s not just about like who can throw a harder punch because honestly, like anyone on the street can throw like a really hard punch. It is about knowing how to control control yourself and how to control others, and do it in a way that prioritizes safety and restraint. So that is why I have a significant bias towards jujitsu. Again, even before owning a jujitsu gym, this is a life skill for my boys. It is a non-negotiable. Their participation may ebb and flow, and it does through other sports seasons like football, for example. For Cade is a very intensive season. There’s a lot of practices, so he might only train once a week, or you know what? He might have a few months where he doesn’t train. He might not train for eight weeks. That’s okay because you know what happens after that? He gets back into it and he starts to dose it during other sport seasons that aren’t training every single day. And it’s really important. It’s extremely important that my boys have kept with this sport and they’ve dosed it at different intensities and frequencies throughout the year, but they’ve always stuck to it because, again, it’s a life skill and it accrues over time, and it’s just something that is it instills something different than a lot of other sports. The next point is. To create contrast, you want to pair something that’s like more artistic or cognitive with something that is more aggressive and physical. Again, we’re developing different sides of like of that grit, of that expression in sport. So similarly, you want to contrast how success is measured in sport. This is a really important one. So something that is based on like esthetic or striving for like a perfect score. So think like gymnastics, where it’s like okay, they’re judged on what they look like and how perfect of a score they’re getting. Right, like they’re striving towards perfection. Same with dance. Like everything’s measured like through the lines and how perfect everything looks. Like right, so that kind of creates like a lot of self pressure to look a certain way, to perform a certain way, and it’s just it’s a hard thing to navigate when perfection is what they are holding the standard that they’re being held to, right? And this is not me hating on it at all, by the way. I think I’m a fan of literally all sports, okay? But sports like ice skating or gymnastics or dance have that as a priority in how success is measured, so I would suggest pairing it with a sport that’s a little bit more gritty, where there’s just like it’s not measured on perfection; it’s measured on being a little bit more scrappy, no right way of accomplishing the task or of of winning or being successful. So this might be pairing dance with rugby. It might be pairing cheerleading with wrestling. Again, it’s like it’s just creating that contrast. I don’t know what that’s going to be for for your kid, but I think it’s an incredibly important way to help develop like this well-rounded mental athlete. Again, we’re developing their psychology as an athlete, so they’re becoming more resilient. They’ve had more experience. They see themselves through different lenses instead of just like one one lens. And then choose sports that develop a wide variety of motor skills and movement patterns. For example, big fan of teaching your kids to swim at a very early age. I said this in another post about unpopular ways that we that we’ve raised our boys, but we put our kids in ISR swim lessons, it’s survival swim lessons when they were babies. I think they started at like six or seven months old, and knowing how to swim was a non-negotiable in our house. And those lessons sucked. It was like eight weeks, 10 minutes a day. It was expensive. It was a big commitment for both, both me and my boys when they were doing that. But they were both floating and knew how to swim to the side. They knew how to like turn over onto their back if they fell in with all of their clothes on, including like jeans and a jacket and a diaper and all of that stuff.

Brianna Battles  27:37

And they knew to like roll over and cry to get attention when they were babies, so I think knowing to swim is extremely important. Extremely important. Yes, I do have a bias. I taught swim lessons for an extremely long time. I grew up as a swimmer, and that transitioned into being a water polo player. The swim lessons were they’re just playing and they’re dancing and singing on the wall. Which yes, I taught. I did. I did. I taught that all through high school and college. Um, just not as effective. It’s just not as effective. So I knew when we, when the boys were really little, that that was going to be a non-negotiable. Was like they have to know how to swim, and it’s not because well we had a pool we didn’t. It was just this is a life skill, just similar to jujitsu. So that was kind of a tangent, but I like swimming for water competence and say overall endurance. But then we could also encourage something like mountain biking for balance, for the proprioception, for the reaction time, basketball for hand, eye, and foot coordination and accuracy. Like pick sports that are developing a wide variety of motor skills and movement patterns. Again, we can do that through like traditional sports and non-traditional sports. Next point is to delay sport and position specialization for as long as possible. This is where I think a lot of parents struggle because it is very easy to get sucked into, like FOMO, a lot of FOMO. Feeling like, oh my gosh, well, he really likes pitching. He’s very good at pitching. His coach wants him to do this and do that. So, like, we’re getting pitching lessons, and we’re just going all in on baseball and all in on pitching. The majority of kids who do that do not last past 13. They burn out. They get injured. They do not go on to play at a higher level, or they do not go on and play that position. And so you put so much emphasis and focus on pitching. And this is literally one example of all of the examples, guys, that it doesn’t develop versatility as an athlete. And most kids that are pitching at eight years old are not pitching in the major leagues years later. That’s just not how that works. So prioritize long-term athletic development. This helps reduce injury and burnout and improves their sport IQ. It creates transferable skills, and a versatile athlete creates the best specialized athlete eventually. And I’m going to say that part again because I think this is where so many parents feel like they’re you know they they feel the pressure to narrow to one sport, they feel the pressure to narrow to one position, or just focus on like a couple of these positions and throw in a lot of money and time to these specific lessons and getting better at this. All of that can be complementary. Like if your kid loves pitching and they want to get better at pitching. Cool, do that, and dose a lot of other stuff too, so that you are developing a well-rounded athlete. That is going to be the thing that makes your kid a better specialized athlete when they’ve actually developed and hit puberty and matured and have narrowed in on the sport that they even like. So again, our goal is to keep them in sports. And just because your eight-year-old really loves, really loves soccer right now, does not mean that that eight-year-old is going to grow into a 14-year-old who still likes soccer. And a lot of times, what we see is they don’t because they got burned out, because they got hurt, because they’re managing this or they’re managing that, or their parent is losing their shit on the sidelines, and they want nothing to do with that sport anymore. That is a story that we see. We don’t see stories of kids that start really little in one position and end up playing all the way through and going pro. That is an extremely, extremely small percentage. Okay, next point. Even after our kids narrow their sport preference, keep them involved in active hobbies to create contrast and an outlet for cross training.

Brianna Battles  31:26

So, for example, this could be they play football, and that’s a sport that they’re wanting to do all through high school, or you know maybe middle school. That’s like really they just love football. Great. They’re also going to be playing tennis for fun because they need an outlet, a physical outlet that exists outside of football. Maybe they play water polo. I had to use my bias sport here, but they’re also like lifting four days a week because we know okay, like there’s no high impact in water polo. They need something that is going to load their joints and get them stronger and help with their bone density and things like that. So again, this is talking about kids when they’re a lot older, when they’ve really kind of narrowed down to their preferred sport. Even then, and I know I’m not there yet, so I have the right to change my mind and just you know all of that stuff. That’s my disclaimer. I’m the intention and goal is for both my boys to be multi-sport athletes for as long as possible. Hopefully, all the way through high school. Hopefully, even if they really prefer just one sport, it will be still dosed with other sports too. Even if it’s not like as competitive and it’s a lot more recreational, fine. They’re going to be doing a lot of cross training because that keeps them healthier. That reduces their risk of injury. That helps with their with their mental health in sport and the pressure that they can put on themselves naturally when it comes to focusing on like basically putting all your eggs in one basket. So again, this is going to be a high priority in our family, I’m not there yet, but we are getting closer to a stage with Cade again. He just turned 13. He’s going into seventh grade. His a lot of his sports have shifted to playing for the middle school. He’s doing football, football, wrestling, basketball, rugby, baseball is kind of a question mark because he’s at this like in the weird in between age, and then he might might want to like dose track in there, and then of course jujitsu, that’s like six sports right there. We are coming up on an era where he’s going to have to start to narrow slowly over time, so we can’t balance all of those even like logistically, with having Chance, who also is into like multiple sports, I am one person. I can only get to so many places at the same time. But again, developing a well-rounded athlete is the thing that’s going to make a better specialized in their sport athlete long term. We also want to encourage them to learn from multiple coaches and have positive voices of influence throughout their life. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I have worked with athletes who were they had the same instructor, the same coach, the same teacher for well over a decade. This we see this all in gymnastics, or in dance, or in even like jujitsu or MMA, karate-I don’t know-all of those things, right? Where they have like one consistent coach swim team, you need a different voice of influence and leadership style for your kid to be exposed to. Even if you have a really great coach, but a lot of the times that one voice is so critical to their development as an athlete. It becomes their inner voice. It’s like yes, we as parents have a heavy influence, but I think all of us right now, if we close our eyes and we thought back, we can remember the coaches that either spoke life into us or who sucked the life out of us, who. Like lit our fire, or who extinguished the fire, and if you do not have exposure to multiple voices, then one narrative becomes the only narrative. And I think it’s just really important to just have exposure to different coaching styles and energy styles because if your kid does go on to play, and again, I coached Division One, I feel like I saw every single coaching style possible, they’re going to be in for shock when they go and they have exposure to a coach who’s different than the one that they’ve had growing up.

Brianna Battles  35:28

So, like, do everything you can to expose them to different leadership styles, communication styles, coaching approaches, strategies, whatever as possible. I just really would recommend doing that. Next point is introduce strength training at a young age, so they learn to control their body and then learn to control their body under appropriate load and various stimulus. Everyone’s saying, “Well, how early? This really kind of depends on your kids, but my boys have been in the gym with me since they were babies. They were in my belly, and they grew up on the gym floor, in my garage, all of that stuff. So they were like moving and copying me at a very, very, very early age, like as toddlers. So as they got older, and I could like teach them to squat without looking like an awkward baby deer, and they could do that. Like they would just do their body weight stuff: squats, push-ups. Can you hang from a bar? Can you do a pull-up? All of that is weight bearing. That is developing their movement patterns and their skill set, which is incredibly needed. And then you can slowly start to load that when you know that they’ve they have a really solid foundation of being able to control their own baby deer bodies. Then we can like okay, let’s give you a 10 pound dumbbell or kettlebell. Can you goblet squat that? How does that feel? Yeah, so it’s like you. Then we can scale that, just like we would any other person who goes from being a newbie to slightly more experienced, or anybody who’s going from like deconditioned to getting them a little bit more conditioned. It’s all like those are all really simple ways that we can just expose our kids to learning to control their body in space. Nothing frustrates me more than, and this is where I see it. It was like eight years old, where I was like, “Holy shit! Like Chance played on a team. I’m not even gonna say what sport it was. He played on the team, and I was just like, dude, none of these kids have had a ball thrown at them ever in their life, and it shows. And they’re eight, and it’s not just like, oh, like every single kid is unathletic. It’s not that because like athleticism is definitely a spectrum. I’m fully in my soul. There is a sport for every kid. There is. You can say that my kid is a nerd. They only like this or the only like that. There is still sport for them. There’s there is. You just haven’t found it yet. It could be badminton. It could be wrestling. It could be jujitsu. It could be tennis. It could be pickleball. Like I don’t know what the sport is. It could be archery. Like it could be like a Winter Olympic sport. I don’t even know. Like it could be curling. Who cares? There is a sport for your kid. I feel as if this is my tangent point. It is our responsibility as a parent to find the physical outlet for our kid to enjoy. But it became so apparent watching this particular team play that I was like, these parents have done such a disservice to their kid by literally never throwing a ball at them. They don’t know how to catch. They don’t know how to throw, and that is a fundamental movement pattern. It is not even about being a good athlete. It is about being like competent in your physical skill set. It’s just it’s so hard to watch because you know like we’re setting our kids up for failure in their intramural stuff at PE, playing with friends, going to college, and wanting to do anything active-like you don’t want to feel like this uncoordinated, awkward person. Again, you don’t have to be good, but like, do you know the fundamental movement patterns that get developed at a young age? It is our responsibility as parents to help dose that and introduce that because, frankly, they’re not even always getting that in PE anymore, like that’s another huge. That’s a whole other podcast conversation. Is just like the state of PE, at least in the U.S. is just it’s not what it was for us when we were growing up.

Brianna Battles  39:13

So again, that was a big tangent on my introduced strength and training at a young age part. But it is our job to do that to instill movement patterns, and yes, sports can teach it. Sports like gymnastics and and jujitsu are incredible for that, but also like play catch with your kid, kick a kick a soccer ball with your kid. It does not have to be hard. You don’t have to be good, but you gotta like play. Play is what teaches, and I just want to like wrap this up because I know I’ve I’ve talked a lot. I didn’t even share like a lot of the unconventional things that we do as parents that are more like parenting and like less athletic focused. But there’s a lot of carryover there. Carry over there again because coaching is the only thing that has ever prepared me to be a parent, and it’s not easy. And I don’t know if I’m getting all of this right. And you don’t know like. That’s why I have been hesitant to talk about any of the steps. I’m just like, oh no, man, I’m still in it. I’m still in it, but I am ahead of a of some of you, and I’m in it with you, and I can share a perspective that is not just attached to parenting, because again, the goal for us as parents is not raising the next Division One All Star athlete with you know some kind of incredible NIL deal. Like if that happens, freaking cool, and it’s not about our kids going pro. It’s just not for like 99% of us. That is not the goal. The goal is to raise a child who develops really healthy relationship with fitness, with their health, their body, their sport, and the lessons it teaches, so that those things stay with them throughout a lifetime of athleticism, not just during their formative years. It is about setting them up for a healthy future, for the possibilities that exist, for the athlete that they’re able to unlock at whatever point in their development. Don’t count them out. Like even your kids that maybe aren’t as inclined. Again, there’s something for every single kid, and it’s going to instill what we just always can’t as parents. And that’s why it is so incredibly critical to to lean into sports. And I know that I just sound like a bro mom saying that. And yeah, I do. I absolutely, absolutely have a huge bias. This is this is something that my entire life has been attached to since I was five years old. Swimmer, water ball player, got my degrees in kinesiology and coaching, and then I went on to coach in a million different levels. And now I’m raising athletic boys. Like yes, I am immersed. My business reflects that, and opening a jujitsu gym reflects all of that. I have an extreme bias here, and I feel it’s it’s actually reinforced my perspective even further. About like, man, I love the work that I’ve been able to do over the last decade working with athlete moms, supporting female athletes through pregnancy and postpartum because those are these catalyst seasons for everything to come, for them to feel competent and confident in their body and what it can do, and that you’re still an athlete, that it’s not over, that you can pursue this lifetime of athleticism, that is heavy on my heart. That will always be a big part of my mission, and I’m praising this next generation of little athletes, and I see how transferable this messaging is. Everything that I believe with my whole chest about what I have taught female athletes and all the coaches who have gone through my certification through the years about is this lifetime of athleticism. It’s not just like your physical ability to perform X, Y, or Z during pregnancy and postpartum. It’s like no, no, no. Like let’s look at this through this lens of longevity, lifetime of athleticism, and now I’m through those seasons. And a lot of people that have like gone through, kind of like grown up with me in this business and in this stuff. If you haven’t turned the corner, you’re going to start to turn the corner.

Brianna Battles  42:55

Where you’re on the other side of pregnancy and postpartum, and now you find yourself raising this next generation of little athletes, and you want to do good by them. You know more. You can do better, right? Know better, do better, kind of thing. We can change the trajectory of their experience as an athlete. You can keep them healthier, happier, more confident, have better experiences, help them manage the variety of experiences that they that they have. Because we can’t control everything. They’re gonna they’re gonna have hard hard lessons that are gonna be learned, and it’s so valuable that sports can teach some of those hard lessons. And we are there to hold space as parents for them. We’re not there to coach them and joystick them and control every element of their life. We are there to provide accountability. We’re there to provide support. We’re there to instill belief, and we’re there to like hold space with a lot of emotional intelligence, and again, when you do that through this lens of a lifetime of athleticism, not just their current sports season, not just the current coach that they have, not just the current position that they really like playing or the sport they like playing, but about developing this well-rounded, mentally and physically resilient athlete with a versatile IQ and versatile movement pattern efficiency, that’s going to set them up in so many ways that extend far beyond sport. So, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If this is something that you’re like, you know what, I like this topic and I should yap about this more. Let me know because I do feel, I do feel a pull. To be honest, I’m speaking just like so so candidly here. I do feel a pull like that. This is it’s a lens. Like look, there’s a ton of information on youth sports and and youth sport development, but the lifetime of athleticism is the thing that is that runs through and through. Like that’s been the mission for the last 10 years. It’s been a sentiment I’ve expressed for the last 10 years, and now I’m seeing it firsthand with my boys, firsthand as a parent. I’ve obviously seen it in a lot of ways coaching, and so that’s like what helped like like really dial in that perspective and coaching philosophy and approach and all of that. But instilling it in our kids is just like that’s always intuitive, and I’m using my experience. As a coach to help guide what I’m doing as a parent, and I’m not here to say that I’m doing everything perfectly because I’m not. There’s so much that I’m like learning as I’m going, and there’s obviously a lot of layers to it that are different when it’s like your kid versus an athlete that you’re coaching. So that next from parenting, absolutely not. But I’m doing my best to just raise healthy, athletic, confident boys so that they can go into this world and win. Not about winning in sports; that will just be a great vessel for them. But I want them to go into this world and be successful, happy, healthy young men. So, and I think that’s all of our goal, right? Hopefully, that is it for this podcast episode. Again, if you like this, please like tell me. Like, I would love some feedback, and because obviously it’s a little bit different than the stuff I normally talk about, but it is something very close to my heart, something I’m living right now, and something that I I do enjoy sharing about. So, thank you guys for listening. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Practice Brave podcast. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review and help us spread the work we are doing to improve the overall information and messaging in the fitness industry and beyond. Now, if you are pregnant and you are looking for a trustworthy exercise program to follow, I have you covered. The Pregnant Athlete Training Program is a well-rounded program for pregnancy, with workouts for each week that are appropriate for your changing body. That’s 36 weeks of workouts, three to four workouts each week, and tons of guidance on exercise strategy, we also have an at-home version of that program.

Brianna Battles  46:44

If you are postpartum and you’re looking for an exercise program to follow, the eight-week postpartum athlete training program would be a really great way to help bridge the gap between rehab and the fitness you actually want to do. From there, we have the Practice Brave Fitness program, which is an ongoing strength conditioning program where you get new workouts each week and have a lot of guidance from myself and my co-coach Heather Osby. This is the only way that I’m really offering ongoing coaching at this point in time. If you have ever considered becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, I would love to have you join us. Pregnancy and postpartum athleticism is a self-paced online certification course that will uplevel your coaching skills and help connect the dots between pelvic health and long-term athletic performance, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. Become who you needed, and become who your online and local community needs by becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach. Thank you again for listening to the Practice Brave podcast. I appreciate you, and please help me continue spreading this messaging, this information, and this work.