ABOUT

I built the guide I wish every parent of my athletes had.

I'm Marian Pitel. Since 2013 I've worked as a strength and conditioning coach in Bratislava — with professional and Olympic athletes, and with children taking their first steps in organised sport. I'm also the father of two.

Here's what I kept seeing. Parents have more influence over a child's sporting life than any coach — and they're handed the least trustworthy information of anyone. They're told to specialise early, to push through pain, to treat a ten-year-old like a small professional. Much of it is wrong, and some of it does lasting harm. So the parent is the person I want to help. Help the parent, and you help the child.

I'm not a professor. I'm a practitioner who never stopped studying. I'm an EXOS Performance Specialist and FMS-certified, and I've learned directly from some of the best in the field — Ben Prentiss on strength and conditioning with NHL players, Tim Gabbett on load, Jean-Benoit Morin on sprint mechanics, Johan Lahti on hamstrings. In 2023 I spent three days at a youth-development conference in Vienna built on the LTAD principle — long-term athlete development. What struck me most was the approach of Arsenal's academy: develop the person first, the footballer second. It changed how I coach.

I don't coach my own two children. I give them a ball, a bike, some rings to hang from, and I try to stay out of the way. That's harder than it sounds — and it's the most honest test of everything I teach.

My coaching has four priorities, always in this order: safety, fun, learning, then social development. If a child leaves training safe and smiling, everything else becomes possible. That belief runs through everything here.