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Four time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero played sports beside ice hockey until she got to college.  She urges parents to resist the increasing pressure on their child to specialize too early.

Four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero says the love of sport must come from within each child; it can't be from their parents. 

Four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero says she owes everything to her parents, whose support, not just in making sure she got all the equipment she needed and to practice but ate the right kind of food, was a key to her athletic success.

 

One way parents and coaches can help a child realize their full athletic potential, says four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero, is to explain what they may be able to achieve by setting goals and working hard.

Four-time Olympic women's ice hockey medalist, Angela Ruggiero, says parents should be realistic in evaluating their child's level of talent by looking at the big picture.

The best piece of advice four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero ever got was from her dad, who told her, since her dream was to play professional hockey, to always pretend when she was playing that a pro scout was watching her from the stands.  Ruggeiro's advice to young athletes: work hard, but have fun, because if the sport isn't fun, the athlete will get bored, but pushing yourself is the only way to get better.

Taking an athlete's gym on the road is easy, says strength and conditioning guru Mike Boyle, if they just bring along a few simple tools.

Most of the elite athletes he has worked with, says strength and conditioning guru Mike Boyle, did not specialize too early or play a single sport all year long, but took time off from sports or played lots of different sports. 

Plyometrics is an Eastern European name for jumping, popping, and throwing exercises which train an athlete's nervous system to become more explosive.  For young athletes, says strength and conditioning trainer and coach Mike Boyle, a little bit of plyometrics is good (around 25 to 30 jumps a couple times a week); more not so much.

To improve an athlete's speed (the ability to run from point A to point B), strength and conditioning trainer Mike Boyle says the simple answer is to run fast (wind sprints); to improve agility (the ability to run quickly from point A to point B and back to point A), Boyle says athletes need to build leg muscle strength (bigger "brakes").