Coach's Corner | Ben Fairchild: What Elite Strength Coaches Know About Youth Athletes That Most Parents Don't

Host Walter Beede sits down with Ben Fairchild, founder of Fairchild Sports Performance in Greater Houston and one of the country's top strength coaches for youth, high school, college, and professional athletes, on this edition of Coach's Corner, presented by Corvive — use code BLUEBOOK at checkout for 30% off your first order — and brought to you by Bluebook Media Group and Bluebook Sports. Ben pulls back the curtain on what actually happens when a thirteen or fourteen-year-old walks into Fairchild Sports Performance — and why what the parent thinks their kid needs and what the athlete actually needs are almost never the same thing. He breaks down why posture and mobility always come before velocity and exit velocity, why piling fitness on top of dysfunction cements long-term problems rather than solving them, and why the twelve-to-sixteen window is one of the last truly malleable stages of neurological development an athlete will ever have. Ben and Walter also dig into the danger of over-competing at young ages, the underrated mentoring dynamic of training alongside older athletes, and why the most important question Ben ever asks a parent isn't "are they working hard?" — it's "do they love coming back?" A must-listen for any baseball or softball family with a young athlete and a strength training decision to make. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices