Sure, there are some bright spots. Some parents who have a vision and stick to it despite overwhelming social pressure. There are those kids who seem to always gravitate towards contribution and adding value. But the vast majority has little guidance other than their impulses and youthful desires for pleasure, abundance, and ease. Do we settle for this, or will we fight to give our youth the skills, mindset, and vision to thrive?

What Education Must Become

Our education system can’t really claim it intentionally creates any sort of culture or vision. As the most permeating source of cultural influence, schools hold immense power. Yet, collectively, they have refused to stand up and lead the movement to create a heroic generation.

Despite this, public education remains one of the greatest sources of community support and positive relationships. At its best, it highlights displays of humanity, love, and unity in society. Go to a Friday night football game, and you might get chills from the sense of community and displays of mutual respect. There are few places where you will find such a collection of people with such loving and giving hearts. Every campus is full of selfless leaders, passionate about making a difference and striving to do so, despite little incentive and overwhelming obstacles.

Working in the public education system is complicated, and at times paradoxical. Our school board’s obsession with politics, perception, and appeasement have led them to stagnation and to miss tremendous opportunities for radical, positive cultural changes.

For instance, we acknowledge that it is the duty of the village to develop the children. Our villages should be preventing the massive complexes of fast food that have arisen around schools like a wall. Instead, we bring them into the schools and throw their advertisements up on all our sports complexes. Childhood obesity, juvenile diabetes, and heart disease all continue to skyrocket, and we make moves that only further entrench habitual unhealthiness and pain.

Schools are meant to be the authority in human development. But this requires schools to first demand of themselves to become that authority. There would need to be systematic and constant professional development. After achieving mastery of the path to human physical, mental, emotional, and financial development, it would then be the prerogative of the schools to educate parents and the culture at large.

The development of easy outlets for professional development and constant possibilities for promotion and advancement would trigger an influx of talent into the education system. Schools should attract our best trainers, our best nutritional advice, and our best economists, if they are meant to develop a great generation.

Take the Handcuffs Off of Educators

Our current situation makes this seem less and less likely. So what are we to do? First, we must understand the current climate. With an understanding of where we are, we can develop new paths of inspired education that work to supplement the current standard, and inspire new possibilities for post-graduation. Furthermore, parents, trainers, coaches, and all who work with youth can understand their role better, and fill in the gaps.

Public education is full of all manner of professionals. The bulk them do their best, but too often fall victim to societal trends and convenience. They’re handcuffed by curriculums that teach a mile wide and an inch deep, and district policies that promote more cell phone distraction and less accountability. Institutional pressures dim the light in our best and brightest educators, and reward mediocrity and the status quo.

We see a similar climate in early athletic development. Too many in youth sports and athletic training are ignorant to the fundamentals of physical development; motivated by money more than the best interests of youth and their families. Rather than establishing a constructive culture, we work within current societal trends of sedentarism, overspecialization, and quantity over quality. Rather than taking on the responsibility to develop the best generation possible, we cower and choose the path of least resistance.

Image is Everything in Education

Education, like any political entity, has become a façade of smoke and mirrors. School lunches become healthier, but only by an obscenely absurd standard of health, and only if you ignore the fried chicken biscuits and PTA cookies sold in the halls that make up the bulk of school day eating. Image has become everything, so schools and school districts lower requirements to boast about higher passing rates. Students passed the Texas High School STAAR tests last year if they got 39% in Biology or 44% in history.

Graduation rates rise, but only after standards are lowered to pass undeserving students. These students might have learned more if they’d ever been allowed to fail. In an effort to get more kids over the low bar of standardized testing, teaching skills is replaced with teaching rote memorization.

The façade is everywhere. In Texas, a new school evaluation system ranks top-achieving schools at a C in “Post-Secondary Readiness,” because the school itself does not pay high costs to become a TSI testing center. Why? Because it’s very expensive, and students can go to the local community college less than two miles away. But hey, image is everything. Schools now will waste that money to become TSI testing centers, at the expense of far more beneficial investments.

Similarly, athletic departments compete to pass hundred-million-dollar bonds so that their athletic facilities can rival D1 colleges. More often than not, these absurdly nice training facilities come without any sort of qualified, experienced coaching staff. Terribly unsafe and unproductive exercise persists. Kids get hurt, are made to train in outrageously ridiculous manners, but hey, at least they get to do so in a really cool weight room!

Far more benefit would come from paying a modest salary to a certified professional to run athletic performance programs. Try as you might to push this obvious truth, and as much as districts boast to the public about their focus on safety, smart’s just not as sexy as a new stadium.

We Must Fill the Gaps

As a society, we’ve forgotten our duty to create a healthy, ethical, strong generation. Rather than stand up for values like integrity and honesty, we justify any misstep and point to some misconstrued definition of fairness. Rather than instilling willpower, love of learning, and creativity, we choose entitlement, and check off boxes to create inflated graduation rates. Rather than instill healthy habits, physical mastery, active play, and mental focus, we opt for fast food, increasing sedentariness, decreased nutritional and physical literacy, and a submission to constant mobile phone distraction. Rather than skills of analysis, synthesis, problem solving, and mature, open, solutions-based conversation, we opt for political correctness, simple knowledge regurgitation, and superficial understandings.

We offer a stagnant, stay-between-the-lines vision to our youth. We do not stand up for what we say we believe. We are not boldly chasing dreams or creating an inspired future. We do not look at the human and ask what principles lead humans to thrive. Our youth deserve better. Our parents deserve better.

We must begin to actively promote physical, emotional, and psychological health. Without a strong foundation in these areas, the house will begin to crack and splinter. These should be the core curriculum, not an extracurricular nicety. I believe this starts with P.E., health, and recess, and that it continues with intentional development of mental skills.

We must seek the means and support to help our children thrive and live lives of growth and contribution. In future articles, I will focus on the habits parents can develop to help create mentally and physically healthy kids. I will also present what an inspired curriculum might look like.

There is immense opportunity for public and private entities to provide a holistic education that will fill in the gaps left by our current system. We need a path for health, physical training, mental training, financial training, philosophy, and ethical code creation. We spend millions on things that just don’t matter. It would be a better investment, by far, to train the skills that will change perceptions and create the framework for a truly great life. 

It can’t all happen at school, either:

Parents, You Are the First Coach

The post Filling the Gaps in Education with Physical Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The temptation is to turn baby-sitting duties over to the video games and cartoons while you guiltily sneak in a home workout or an overdue email. Sending your kids to the park across the street seems a case for parent neglect and reckless endangerment in this age of media-induced paranoia. However, for your child’s growth, health, and development there is no greater gift you can give them than the room to explore, play, and discover free from your ever-present safety net.

I’m not advocating letting a 5-year-old walk through city streets alone, and I certainly don’t think that you open up the world to a second grader without precaution or check-ins. I’m saying know your environment. If you live in a small town or suburb, teach your kid how to walk across the street to the park or local school. Go with them at first and reemphasize all of the safety procedures (looking both ways, etc.) you’ve taught them their entire life. Wean them off dependence and empower them to be active guides of their own life. Find a park where you can read while your kids play and get settled close enough, but not so close that you are tempted to watch them the whole time. Seek out friends who your child could play with outside. Open up your backyard to a world of free play and exploration without constant check-ins. I know your fear is compounded every time you turn on the news, but this is only news because it’s rare. Furthermore, the cost of not letting the kids play is much bigger.

An empty playground in the summer time is a crime against childhood. [Photo courtesy Pixabay]

The Kids Need to Go Play

Children need play. Childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes are at record highs and free play is a fundamental part of the child’s cognitive development. Play is a child’s natural inclination and it may be their most formative activity. According to Dr. Jane Hewes, chair of the Early Childhood Education Program at Grant MacEwan College, free play is the building block for the “intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life.” It fosters childhood creativity, and develops skills in abstract thinking and problem solving. Dr. Hewes goes so far as to link different types of free play with the specific academic and social skills they develop. For example, building things correlates with math skills, scientific reasoning, and problem solving skills. Children need the room for undirected play without the rules and guidelines of adult society.

Unfortunately, we’re losing spaces for this play to take place. The monkey bars and swings are coming down in favor of less challenging and safer (aka boring) playground equipment. We’ve become so afraid that life will happen that we don’t see the risk in not offering our children the opportunities to be children. What’s more, less of the real estate is kid friendly. In her book Kith, Jay Griffiths shows that places for children to play have decreased nearly 90 percent since 1970. She asserts, “today’s children are enclosed in school and home, enclosed in cars to shuttle between them, enclosed by fear, by surveillance and poverty and enclosed in rigid schedules of time.” It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child. It seems clear that our villages are failing badly.

Accept a Little Risk Now, or Big Risks Later

We live in a world where every cut “might need stitches” and where parents equip 5-year-olds with cell phones, “just in case.” Our nation was made great based on the principle of freedom, but freedom comes with risk. Life is about moving, playing, jumping, and exploring. These activities are riskier in the short term than sitting and watching TV, but the long-term costs are far less. What is the risk of sedentary lifestyle? Increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, deep veined thrombosis, orthopedic issues, and the list goes on. What are the risks of soda or pop tarts for breakfast? Kids don’t feel as good, they don’t perform as well in school, and their habits set them up for futures of pain, poor health, and poor self-esteem. These fears seem to pale in comparison to the news story about the kid who hurt himself on a trampoline, but given the choice, I’m going to play crack the egg.

It is the same with adults. My wife recently dropped a 35-pound plate on her toe. Now she’s in a boot for 8 weeks. Everyone’s response when they see her is a sardonic “that’s why I don’t lift.” A week after that accident, she was back in the weight room, boot and all, fighting to stay on track. She’d take the same risk a million times, because she knows what physical training has done for her. It’s this spirit that brings her success and happiness and this commitment to exercise which will keep her strong, healthy, and happy late into our lives.

Likewise, I’ve had parents approach me fearful for their freshmen to begin training with me. I always tell them that they should be more afraid not to have their child strength training. The year before I worked with our football program, we had 76 injuries that resulted in athletes missing a week or more in our football program. Two years later, the program had only 29. The weight-room, a place with obvious risks, has far more ability to enrich your life than do harm.

There are bright spots in this uphill battle against play and risk. Ohio based Strength Coach, Grant “Rufus” Gardis, offers training for young athletes that place emphasis on free play. His 10-to 12-year-old class starts each session with free play. They choose a game, make the rules, and play with no interference by Gardis. Though he has plans for bodyweight exercise, plyometrics, technique training of the Olympic lifts, and running, if the free play keeps an intense spirit with intense effort they will play for the entire 90-minute session. He uses play to de-stress and set the tone for great work. If play is spirited than it does more for these athletes development than anything else. More trainers and PE teachers should consider building opportunities for free play into workouts.

Send Them Out to Play

From frequent feedings, to noise, to constant badgering for something to entertain them, kids can be an efficiency nightmare. So when they are finally drawn into the aura of TV or video games, it’s easy to thank your lucky stars for these moments of solitude and let them fall into the trance. These conveniences have a place for youth and I’m not here to demonize. Still, I implore you, let your kids play this summer. Let your 8-year-old walk down the road to the park. There will be 20 paranoid parents there already.

I know what you’re thinking: trampoline, monkey bars, child abductors. I have to be vigilant in protecting my son from this dangerous world. As Swedish diplomat and Nobel Prize winner, Dag Hammarskjöld said, “It is in playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.” It’s time you attack the real threat to your children: the sedentarism that is a threat to their health, happiness, and development into creative guides of their own life. 

Help your kids move more this summer:

Athletic Training for Pre-Adolescents

The post Protect Your Kids From the Danger of Taking No Risks appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

No institution has more influence on habit formation than the public education system. So you would think America would be invested in creating positive health habits in their primary habit factories. But if aliens were to come to our planet, they’d be confused by what they found. They’d have to assume humans in America, for some reason, sought to program their youth from the very beginning for lives of poor health.

We aren’t just failing to teach our kids healthy habits. We’re actively forcing the opposite on them.

Inside the Bad Habit Factory

Take a walk through today’s education buildings. Students arrive at 7am or earlier, sleep-deprived. Often they haven’t eaten breakfast, and their fatigue and hunger combine to make them unable to resist the smell of cookies and fried Chick-fil-A wafting through the air. If that doesn’t get them, the vending machines will.

Students trudge to class, where they are glued to their seats and reprimanded if they attempt to get up. This pattern repeats, one hour at a time, all day. Their only reprieve from this immobile trance is when they walk to their next class, with eyes fixed on their cell phones, or while at P.E.

P.E. stands for Physical Education, but that could not be a greater misnomer. Little learning about human movement or health will take place. Long gone are the days of climbing ropes and being exposed to worthwhile sports and competitions. In today’s P.E., students routinely spend their time in jeans walking the track, or being given the option to either play pick-up basketball or sit and watch in the stands.

Where are the P.E. teachers? They, also, are sitting and watching. 

But don’t blame the P.E. teachers. At a certain point they were beaten down by low societal expectations, and it became overwhelming to swim against the current. They are just a product of a system that has been devaluing P.E. for years. Most schools today require only one year of P.E. at the high school level. Our societal de-emphasis on health has created the current model.

Parents Aren’t Helping – Or Being Helped

School behaviors are an extension of society at large. They can be traced to parents, who have more influence than even the schools on sleep, eating, and texting habits. But the parents aren’t the root cause, either. After all, they spent their childhood in the same bad health habit factories – public schools.

And parents have precious little time to set positive examples, as they work unconscionable hours to provide for their kids, who are busier and more expensive than ever. If your child is an athlete, you’ve no doubt booked him or her with every specialist on the Internet. Your evenings are spent running to club practices, hitting lessons, quarterback coaching, or whatever else today’s parents/marketers/sports agents think they need to do to get their kid to the next level.

This specialized, guru-crazed culture has created kids with amazingly concentrated skill sets, but distressingly poor general athletic ability.

Our kids sit all day at school, eat poorly, play video games or text in any free moment, and then spend twenty hours a week with skills coaches. The result is kids who are less athletic and much more likely to have overuse injuries. As Eric Cressey explains, compared to ten years ago, today’s kids are “…less likely to be able to skip, to do a clean push up, to do a solid bodyweight overhead squat. We’ve dramatically detrained our kids.” Then we throw them into intense specialization and overuse of specific body parts.⁸

Former Atlanta Braves pitcher, John Smoltz, even referenced this in his Hall of Fame speech, where he pled with parents to re-evaluate how they bring up young baseball players. Smoltz says of kids: “They don’t go outside, they don’t have fun, they don’t throw enough – but they’re competing and maxing out too hard, too early, and that’s why we’re having these problems.”⁴

Sitting Themselves to Death

There is more at stake here than just youth athleticism and overuse injuries. The habits we teach in schools are creating health epidemics far more pervasive and costly than tobacco use. Yet unlike smoking, these habits are either ignored or accepted.

Our schools reinforce habits that are killing us faster than cigarettes once did. Sitting for more than two hours consecutively increases the risk of heart disease (America’s number one killer), diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome, and a host of postural problems. Perhaps more than any other subject, our schools are making kids experts in sitting for long periods of time.

A 2010 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that our students sit, on average, 85 percent of their day.¹ All the while, between 2002 and 2012, prescriptions for ADHD medications increased nearly 50 percent.²

Our kids need to move. Our culture is failing them. 

In what world could we excuse ourselves for this indoctrination of our youth? It might sound drastic, but with the knowledge we now have, how is a reinforcing a student’s daily soda, cookie, and sitting habits any different than selling cigarettes in the vending machine? Culture is nothing more than the sum total of societal habits. We need a cultural change in the expectations of the school’s responsibility to promote health and wellness.

This could be an actual photo of a school lunch in any school in America.

Teach Our Kids How to Live

The argument in favor of change in our dominant school culture is overwhelming, but where do we begin? It starts with approaching P.E. and health as core subjects, essential to the life of every student. 

Students should be taught health from a young age, with a focus on eating balanced meals, drinking water, and avoiding soda and candy in excess. Elementary education should focus on showing students the benefits of proper nutrition and lifestyle habits. There should be dire warnings of the dangers of unhealthy lifestyles, similar to the anti-cigarette movement.

At some point during their secondary education, all students should be taught to cook and plan healthy meals. P.E. should teach students how to move. Gymnastics, tumbling, and introduction to sports should be common from a young age. Specific tests like the functional movement screen (FMS) should be commonplace, in addition to other general benchmark tests, like push ups. As students reach high school, non-athletes should be required to be in P.E., and P.E. classes should become more specialized and focused. This gives students the chance to try more activities and progress them to mastery.

Eric Cressey speaks of a 39-year-old client who grew up in the Soviet Union. This man, despite living a sedentary lifestyle, was still able to do a muscle up and a “pseudo-gymnastics routine” on a whim.³ His body had learned kinesthetic awareness, proprioception, and a joy in movement, which will benefit him his whole life. How many American adults could say the same?

Change the Landscape in Education

We need more than a change in how we look at teaching health and P.E. We must re-examine how we think about the entire school day and the options presented to students:

• Vending Machines: What snacks are being sold in the halls? It makes sense that hungry students will visit the vending machine. An obvious step is to remove sodas and candy and replace them with water, mixed nuts, dried fruits, and other real foods.
• Lunch: School-provided lunches should be a high priority for educators. A sugar crash is a recipe for unfocused students. We have to put more thought into what our children are served at lunch. Chef Jamie Oliver has worked very hard at getting this message out, and his plan can be found here.
• Standing Desks: Standing desks are a common-sense solution to prevent students from being forced to sit all day. There are many success stories of schools making this switch. Kelly Starrett has an organization to fund these special desks.
• More Recess: Many schools have made the switch from one recess to three, or from two to four, and all report the same findings. Concerns about losing that instruction time are alleviated when the students are far more focused and productive in class.⁵ Nothing inspires creativity in kids and is more natural than play. Finland has become the poster child for frequent fifteen-minute recesses, and their schools routinely rank at the top of international education tests.⁶

Health education from the earliest age is vital to combating the crises facing our adult populations.

Change Will Be Painful, and Worth It

A Stanford study in the 1960s showed that no attribute predicted future success more than self-control.⁷ This is important to understand, because these reforms will be painful at first. People will complain as the instant gratification of sitting all day and eating sugar is taken away. But the rewards will be overwhelming. People will be healthier and happier, rather than controlled by their cravings.

Health and physical vitality should not just be taught in school. They should be the keystone habits by which all other study skills are taught. It’s time to create an empowered, excited generation of young people who are equipped to live long, healthy, happy lives. What could be more important?

More Articles on Youth and Health:

• School Isn’t Just for the Mind—It’s Also for the Body
• Overuse Injuries Prevalent in Multi-Season High School Athletes
• Don’t Race: The Cost of Early Athletic Specialization
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- To 18-Year-Olds.” Kaiser Family Foundation. Accessed March 09, 2016. 

2. Chai, G., L. Governale, A. W. Mcmahon, J. P. Trinidad, J. Staffa, and D. Murphy. “Trends of Outpatient Prescription Drug Utilization in US Children, 2002-2010.” Pediatrics 130, no. 1 (2012): 23-31. 

3. Cressey, Eric. “Why We’re Losing Athleticism.” EricCressey.com. April 25, 2014. Accessed March 09, 2016. 

4. Schwartz, Nick. “John Smoltz Warns Young Players about Tommy John Surgery in Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech.” USA Today. July 26, 2015. Accessed March 09, 2016. 

5. Licata, Elizabeth. “Texas School Triples Recess Time And Sees Immediate Positive Results In Kids.” Scary Mommy. Accessed March 09, 2016. 

6. Walker, Tim. “How Finland Keeps Kids Focused Through Free Play.” The Atlantic. June 30, 2014. Accessed March 09, 2016. 

7. Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2012. 

8. “Physical Preparation with Eric Cressey.” Robertson Training Systems. February 8, 2016. Accessed March 9, 2016. 

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post It’s Time to Reform America’s Bad Habit Factories appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Just a fraction of an inch difference in finger placement and release of a curveball can make the difference between a Major League pitcher, a decent high school pitcher, and a Friday Night Beer League player.

But how do we encourage the development of fine motor control, especially when so much of it is task specific? Here are three ideas for simplifying fine motor development in kids, inspired by the Montessori approach to learning and skill acquisition.

1. Provide Materials

Whether we’re talking about fat crayons, oversized buttons and buttonholes, or “comfort grip” utensils, the whole market for overly thick, oversized children’s materials actually discourages the development of fine motor control.

The Montessori system has the opposite approach. Pencils are of normal size, or even of smaller than average size if possible. Eating utensils are also smaller than adult utensils. The use of small items means the materials fit into children’s hands in a similar manner to how we expect them to fit into our hands as adults. With these tools, children can learn the motor patterns and muscular control that allow them to have fine motor control of the full-sized items later on.

“The Montessori idea of realism ensures you will use the most effective and age-appropriate tools to develop basic skills and also improve fine motor control.”

You can apply the same ideas for athletics. Youth basketballs are normally smaller sized than their adult equivalents. To encourage fine motor skill development in sports, use youth footballs, soccer balls, and other sports equipment that are similarly scaled down.

RELATED: Inexpensive, Easy Ways to Prepare the Fitness Environment for Kids

2. Repetition

Much of fine motor control is actually unconscious. We don’t think about each individual curve and line as we sign a document, because the appropriate level of fine motor control has been so established that signing a paper has become an unconscious act.

Bruce Lee commented on this level of skill in his discussion of the three phases of learning martial arts.

1. A punch is just a punch. While usually thrown with little skill and bad mechanics, the action is natural and unconscious.
2. The conscious skill phase, when a punch becomes more than a punch. The martial artist is consciously thinking about hand placement, targeting, and body control. While the mechanics and technique might be better than they were in the first phase, there is often a robotic quality to the actions, and they rarely flow.
3. A punch becomes just a punch, but now it is technically and mechanically sound.

This idea goes beyond the sphere of martial arts. The same idea applies for children and their fine motor skills. Encouraging repetition, as much as the child wants and can handle, will ingrain the motor patterns and fine motor control needed for later performance of the skills in game situations.

LEARN MORE: 4 Training Lessons We Can Learn From Bruce Lee

3. Strengthen the Entire System

Developing overall strength will allow for greater fine motor control in kids. The basic premise is that the lower percentage of total muscular power needed to complete an action, the greater amount of motor control possible.

You see this in sports all the time. Pitchers are pulled from baseball games not when their fastballs are slowing down, but when their pitch placement gets wonky. Heavyweight boxing matches usually go from crisp, technical punches in the first few rounds to sweaty hug-fests by round ten. The rare occasions when players do display amazing examples of skill and motor control in the later stages of events are usually hailed as extraordinary.

“In general, the stronger and fitter the overall system is, the better fine motor control can be achieved.”

For sports that involve the use of the hands and forearms, there are numerous ways to develop strength. In Montessori classrooms, we often use clay in art projects. Students are encouraged to form, shape, and pinch the clay using just their fingers. They start with soft clay and work their way up to firm clay. While this activity is meant to develop strength for handwriting, it can also be used for developing the hand strength needed to throw a football.

Even for sports skills that involve other body parts and functions, the same principle can still apply. Building stronger legs gives basketball players that extra cushion for performing spin moves in the fourth quarter, and gives running backs the ability to cut more sharply late in the game. In general, the stronger and fitter the overall system is, the better fine motor control can be achieved.

Foundational Training Can Help

It is axiomatic that before a difficult skill is attempted, lower level skills must first be mastered. Figure skaters do not start doing triple toe loops without having first mastered turns, spins, and other basic skills.

LEARN MORE: Foundational Training for Youth Athletes: Are You Doing It?

Foundational training is slightly different, in that we take it down even one level more, building the most basic versions of the skills and doing them in a challenging way. While skills are diverse based on the needs of the goal activity, foundational skills exist regardless of the sport you play.

Foundational Training is built upon the idea that the body moves in certain planes and patterns consistently. Currently, I use eight different patterns in my foundational training teaching:

1. Squat
2. Hip Hinge
3. Vertical Press
4. Horizontal Press
5. Horizontal Pull
6. Vertical Pull
7. Twist
8. Abdominal Flexion

By training these basic foundational movements, you can build the systems for later basic skills training. The Montessori idea of realism ensures you will use the most effective and age-appropriate tools to develop basic skills and also improve fine motor control.

In the end, fine motor control remains an elusive subject. Coaches search for it, athletes treasure it, and trainers try everything they can to make it possible. Incorporate these hints into your own training and when working with your children, and watch the fine motor skills improve.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post 3 Tips for Developing Fine Motor Control During Childhood appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Playing Through Pain

In an article written by Jan Brogan called, Athletes Play Through Pain at Their Own Peril, Celtics chief medical officer, Brian P. McKeon, was interviewed. McKeon stated that, “Part of what makes an athlete an athlete is the ability to play through pain.” I respectfully, but absolutely and vehemently, disagree with this statement.

I was recently working with a young client who told me about his latest baseball tournament. The big news was not how he played or whether or not his team had won or lost. The big news was about the injury that happened to one of his teammates. The child’s teammate (and notice, we’re talking about children here) had been complaining of shoulder pain for the last three months, every time he threw the baseball. The parent fully acknowledged the child’s shoulder pain, yet took him to every practice and every game.

During this three-month period, the boy continued to practice and to play ball. He was not taken to a medical professional, nor was he even referred to one. The coaches were also aware of the child’s pain, yet allowed him to continue practicing and playing in tournaments, all with the parent’s permission.

During one of the tournaments, the child fielded a ground ball to centerfield and attempted to make the throw to home plate. In doing so, the child tore his labrum. How did everyone find out about the torn labrum? Because the parent finally took the child to the orthopedic surgeon, who diagnosed the tear.

Hearing this story, I was struck by the ability and responsibility of parents, coaches, and trainers to prevent injuries. I was also frustrated by their lack of action and responsibility. There are too many benefits of playing youth sports to enumerate here, and I don’t argue that. I acknowledge that when athletes play hard and train hard, they are at greater risk of injury. But why would you put a young and injured athlete in a vulnerable position to play when he or she is already injured?

Here are a few of my own recommendations for parents, coaches, and young athletes.

What Parents Can Do

As a parent, the onus is on you to safeguard your child’s health, safety, and wellbeing from avoidable injuries and unsafe and irresponsible practices. You have a right to question coaches and trainers when it comes to your child’s health, safety, and well-being. If you are afraid that the coach will not play your child if you question his or her training methods, then you might need to find a new coach. If you are afraid to tell the coach your child needs to rest or recover from a potential injury, for fear of the coach’s reaction, then he or she is the wrong coach for your child.

Parents have the right to know a coach’s credentials and experience levels. According to to a report by Safe Kids, a global nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to preventing childhood accidents, “Many sports injuries are preventable, but continue to occur because of misconceptions about sports safety, uninformed behaviors by parents, coaches, and youth athletes, and a lack of training.”

In 2012, Safe Kids combined the results of separate nationwide online surveys regarding sports safety training. Of the surveyed 750 parents, 92% relied on coaches to keep their kids safe, with only two out of five parents (38%) knowing how much sports injury prevention training their child’s coach had. If you have concerns or questions about the training methods a coach or trainer is using for your child, you not only have a right to ask, but you have a responsibility and an obligation to your child to do so.

This does not mean that you have the right to monopolize the coach’s or trainer’s time. It does not mean that you have the right to question every single stretch or warm-up activity or every session. It does mean that you have an obligation and responsibility for your child’s health, safety, and well-being at all times.

What Coaches Can Do

By virtue of the fact that you are a coach or a trainer, there is an implied trust, by parent and athlete, that you have more knowledge and experience in the sport than the average person. Along with this implied trust, coaches and trainers have a responsibility not only to the athlete, but also to the parent, to conduct safe practices, to offer a safe training environment, and to safeguard the athlete from preventable injuries.

Given the age and experience level of a youth athlete, there are many times when a child cannot discern between soreness from working out and an actual injury. However, it is incumbent upon coaches and trainers to listen and act accordingly when a child complains of an injury.

What happens when the parent continues to push an injured child to play or to practice? As in the opening example of the ballplayer, coaches are often pressured to play injured children. Safe Kids reports that out of 752 coaches nationwide, almost half of the coaches reported being pressured, most notably by parents (but sometimes the child), to play an injured child during a game.

William Levine, orthopedic surgeon and head team physician at Columbia University, and chairman of the steering committee for STOP Sports Injuries, voiced his agreement in the Boston Globe interview:

While soreness and muscle ache are part of athletics, playing through serious pain is never a good idea. Certainly not for student athletes, not for weekend warriors. Even in professional sports, it’s almost never a good idea.

Regardless of the outside pressure they may receive, it is the obligation of the coach or trainer to protect the child’s safety.

What Young Athletes Can Do

If we recall the opening example of the injured ball player, what consideration, if any, was given to the child? The youth athlete also has an obligation to safeguard his or her health, safety, and wellbeing. But this is a very difficult situation to put a child in. Social pressures from teammates and peers and pressure from family and coaches often dictate what an athlete does, and it’s harder for young athletes to take charge of their own wellbeing.

In Jan Hoffman’s article, Don’t Tell Coach: Playing Through Concussions, athletic trainer Dustin Fink from Mount Zion High School in Illinois stated:

There’s a machismo to sports, whether you’re male or female. It’s most often seen in professional sports, where they are celebrated for being warriors and champions, for doing everything they can to stay on the field and play.

This message filters down to parents and children, and children wind up practicing and playing with injuries. But the onus is on us, as parents, coaches, and trainers to safeguard the athletes in our care, especially young athletes who are more vulnerable and easily influenced by social pressure. Coaches and trainers have the additional experience and knowledge of a sport. By virtue of this knowledge, it is absolutely our responsibility and obligation to have the health, safety, and wellbeing of each child at the heart of all we do, every time.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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A Real Life Problem

Yesterday, I was working with one of our newest students, a four-year-old boy. He had plenty of energy, but when it came time to working on rotational movement, or any movement at all that required core strength, his ability was low at best. When we were working on punches and kicks against the mitts, I assumed it was due to lack of technique. After all, technique can often make a large difference in applied power.

However, when it came time for us to work the basics of falling down, I found he was unable to bring himself from a lying position up to a seated position without rolling to his side and using his arms to assist in the action. Repeated demonstrations, guided practice, and hints to use the legs didn’t help. He just couldn’t get his upper body from the floor to a seated position without using his arms to assist him.

Finally, I asked him why he was having so much trouble. He looked at me and told me that at his previous preschool, he had been told by his teachers (and reinforced by his parents) that children his age were physically unable to sit up directly. He had been taught that due to his age, it was impossible – that he was so weak that he could not do it.

The internal rage I felt at this response – especially as I watched my son, who is a year younger, completing the full motion with no problems right next to this student – led me to recognize the most harmful thing that we as parents or coaches can ever tell our children.

Stop Saying “You Can’t”

“Impossible.” “You can’t.” Whatever expression you use, you’re putting mental shackles on your child that might never be broken. I am not speaking of the word, “no,” which often has good applications, especially when you’re laying out safety rules. But “impossible.”

Living where I do in Japan, I hear the Japanese translation, muri, almost on a daily basis. Women saying that lifting heavy weights is impossible, even though I show them pictures of one-legged women doing deadlifts, and 99lb Asian women doing 100kg lifts. Men stating they could never squat or bench press what I do because their DNA makes it impossible. Ironically, one of the world record holders for the bench press, Daiki Kodama, is Japanese. And Japan won a silver medal in women’s weightlifting in London. But never mind that. Such acts are impossible.

Parents, break those shackles, and see how much your child can grow, physically as well as mentally. There is a reason my son is able to use a leverage machine to bench 20kg at a body weight of about 15kg. It’s not his DNA or any special diet we’re feeding him. It’s because when he first wanted to follow his daddy into the weight lifting area, he tried copying me. Instead of telling him it was impossible for him to do, I let him try for himself, knowing that the safety catches on the machine would not allow him to put his joints into an extreme range of motion, and seeing that his form was, overall, better than some of the adults I’ve coached.

Each and every day, the impossible is proven possible. Athletes are running faster, lifting more, throwing farther. We had an “impossible” 49-year-old world light heavyweight boxing champion, and an “impossible” seventeen-year-old professional golf champion, all in the month of April. Science and technology that was once considered the realm of Star Trek is now available for less than $200.00 in your local store. Social barriers once deemed as huge as the Great Wall of China are broken. What hasn’t been shown to be possible?

What to Say Instead of “Impossible”

If you are a coach or parent, let’s eliminate “impossible” from our coaching vocabulary. Instead, let’s try using these terms:

• “Not yet” – Hey, today perhaps you can’t do it, but in the future…
• “Try” – Yoda was wrong. There is try. “Try” comes before “Do.”
• “Change this” – Perhaps the child has the ability, but there is a lapse of technique that is holding him or her back. It’s not that the task is impossible, but just the current approach is incorrect.
• “You can try again” – We often learn more from trying and failing than success. Help your children learn from their mistakes, then encourage them to apply what they learned the next time.

So parents and coaches, watch yourselves. You may be inadvertently handcuffing your children, and perhaps even yourselves. Remove the handcuffs of your own mind, please.

Photo 1 courtesy of Dan Halpin.

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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That doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy a bunch of expensive workout equipment for kids. You’ve probably heard the cliché about kids enjoying wrapping paper and boxes more than the toys inside. The same thing holds true for gym gear – it doesn’t have to be fancy. Collect these five objects to add to your gym and create fun workouts for young children.

1. Tire

A small tire is an excellent gym toy for young kids. They can flip it, push it, jump in and out of it, and even try to drag it for a real challenge. We have a small tire that weights about twenty pounds, and it’s perfect for our five-year-old daughter.

2. Punching Bag

My husband has a large muay Thai bag in our garage, but it’s a little challenging for our kids. Instead of spending a lot of money on a kids’ size bag that our children will outgrow quickly, we made a cheaper version with an old rug, duct tape, old clothes, and a trash bag. It probably cost a total of ten dollars. Teach your child a few different kinds of punching and kicking combos, turn on the Rocky soundtrack, and enjoy your workout while she enjoys hers.

3. Rocks

I love rocks. They’re free, they’re everywhere, and you can find a huge range of weights and sizes. Use smaller rocks to toss into and a bucket or circle to improve your child’s throwing skills, or use larger rocks for atlas stone carries and other strongman-style exercises.

4. Bucket

Fill a bucket with water and see how fast your child can walk without spilling any water, or put some rocks inside for a scalable carry. You can teach your child basic strength exercises like deadlifts, bicep curls, and rows with a bucket.

For another strongman-inspired exercise, teach your child to do duck walks with a bucket of water or use a large, empty bucket to perform a mini-variation of the keg toss. Challenge your child to throw the bucket as far as possible, or set up an obstacle for him or her to throw the “keg” over.

5. 2×4 (or a Log)

A 2×4 makes a great balance beam. If you have wood planks of various sizes you can put them together for a longer balancing challenge. Introduce different balancing skills like standing on one leg, walking on tiptoes, shuffling from side to side, or carrying an object while balancing. For more of a challenge, use a log instead of a beam. We also like to use logs for a mini-version of the caber toss.

6. Imagination

Your kids will enjoy playing with these objects, especially if you’re working out with them. But sometimes getting kids to move and be active takes some effort, especially when it’s hot outside. If this is the case, they’ll need a little more motivation.

Enter the imagination. Integrating the realm of fantasy and creativity into gym time will make exercise more like fun and less like drudgery. Imaginative play isn’t just fun for kids – it also plays a significant role in cognitive development. As noted in a study in Early Childhood Research and Practice:

Even if play has not yet been demonstrated to be the cause of long-term school success, the evidence is very clear that it is an integrated coexisting component of young children’s developmental progress…In sum, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the many connections between cognitive competence and high-quality pretend play. If children lack opportunities to experience such play, their long-term capacities related to metacognition, problem solving, and social cognition, as well as to academic areas such as literacy, mathematics, and science, may be diminished. These complex and multidimensional skills involving many areas of the brain are most likely to thrive in an atmosphere rich in high-quality pretend play.

So while your child is making physical gains, they’ll also be using their minds and doing what young kids do best: playing pretend. One of the most effective ways to combine physical exercise and pretend play is to give your child a mission. Tell them a story and invite them to recreate the story in their play.

The Hero’s Quest

Here’s an example of how you can use the five tools I described earlier in this article to create a fun adventure course for your young children.

The king’s golden bucket of mead has been stolen by the mischievous nymphs who live deep in the forest. You, Prince/Princess [insert name of child], have been chosen to retrieve the golden bucket and save the king from his distress. But in order to save the kingdom and the precious mead, you must follow these seven steps very carefully, and as quickly as you can.

You Will Need:

• Punching bag
• Ten rocks of various sizes
• Tire
• Chalk
• Bucket full of water
• 2×4 beam or log

Steps to Complete the Mission:

1. Go to the castle of the forest nymphs. The door is guarded by a giant ogre (punching bag). To get past the ogre, you must fight him for one minute without stopping. After a minute, he will fall into a deep sleep.
2. The ogre is not dead. He is only sleeping, and he will come after you as soon as he wakes up. Collect the boulders (ten rocks of various sizes) on the ground and pile them against his door so he cannot pursue you.
3. You will see an enchanted onyx stone (tire) lying on the ground, right outside the ogre’s door. You must move the stone into the enchanted circle (outline of tire with chalk) in front of the nymphs’ chamber door. But the stone will not move until you jump in and out of it ten times.
4. Once you have broken the enchantment, flip the stone across the floor until it lands in the enchanted circle. This will open the invisible door so you can sprint to the kings’ mead.
5. Hurry! The nymphs have woken up and turned into rabid wolves. Run as fast as you can to the king’s mead (bucket full of water).
6. Carry the mead across the bridge (2×4 or log) that goes over the lake of fire. Don’t forget, you are still being pursued by the dogs. Once you are across, toss the log and throw the dogs into the fire below.
7. Pick up the mead and carry it to the king. You have completed your mission – congratulations!

In our family, we like to call this “hero training.” Is it a little dorky? Maybe, but only if you’re a prudish grown-up with no imagination. Our five-year-old and three-year-old accomplished the mission with great enthusiasm and ran it several times before mom and dad got tired and wanted to go inside.

What activities are you doing to keep your kids active and fit during the summer?

Photo 5 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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This constant mantra hammered upon me every day as I grew up. My classmates taunted me mercilessly for being fat, often crossing the line from verbal taunts to physical assaults. The teachers either condoned the commentary or looked the other way while knowing the pain I was in. My most searing memory is of being pegged in the head with a football by a classmate while I tried to crab walk through a sand pit in seventh grade physical education class. The teacher laughed along with the other students. I retreated into academics, and also into an increasingly bulky and loose fitting wardrobe of darker and darker clothing. By the time I started junior high school, I didn’t have a single pair of shorts or pants that were not black or dark blue.

My parents, while loving, didn’t help too much. A common tactic to comfort me after being harassed was to take me to Dairy Queen. It was like giving vodka to an alcoholic. My behavior fluctuated between desperate pathetic attempts to gain attention and an assumed faux arrogance. I felt if I couldn’t be accepted and loved by people for who I was, then at least I could push everyone else away and protect myself through isolation. And of course, inside a monster was building the whole time, a rage that wanted to unleash itself upon the world in response to all the pain I was in.

There are boys like me in every school in America – the loners and the misfits. In speaking with some of my classmates years later, I learned many of them had similar feelings, even those who were popular, so I know I wasn’t alone. It’s hard growing up as an American boy. We’re told to “free our minds,” and when we try to, we’re told to sit down and shut up. Physically, we’re told a man is supposed to be as strong as an ox, as lithe as a panther, and as powerful as a grizzly, all while having the body of a Greek god. Mentally, we’re told to be confident and knowledgeable, without ever being taught that the first step to gaining knowledge is admitting that you lack it. Emotionally, we’re told boys don’t cry, and then we’re told we have no heart when we don’t cry.

These physical and social pressures put on boys turn most of our psyches into twisted stuff straight out of Hannibal Lecter’s basement. Sadly, for too many boys, they never find their way out. For a few, the results are violent – think Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and the list goes on and on. In milder cases, our release is to take it out on those weaker than us, thereby ensuring at least somebody is more miserable and insecure than we are. There are a thousand ways we try to establish this pecking order, for no other reason than to provide some security to our egos. But this behavior perpetuates the cycle, with one generation teaching the next. It’s what damn near broke me.

What saved me? A 1977 Oldsmobile. Specifically, a 1977 Oldsmobile hitting my right leg at about twenty miles per hour, flipping me into the air, and breaking my right leg in four places when I was a month shy of my thirteenth birthday. In rehabilitating my leg, I was allowed for the first time to use a weight room. Starting with a ten-year-old Universal Machine and eventually growing to use the high school weight room, I found the weights were the perfect medicine for my insecurity. While perhaps the weights didn’t love me, the weights also never taunted me or called me names. The weights cared about one thing and one thing only: could I pick them up and put them down?

As I slowly added more and more weight to the bar, I noticed the beginnings of a change. I was able to feel self-worth again. It felt cool to be the only kid in high school who could put 405 pounds on the squat (even if nobody else cared and the squat was two inches high). I was able to pour all of the poison that was eating away at my soul into the iron. When my classmates were out on Friday and Saturday nights, I was doing squats and bench presses. When they were out on the lake drinking beer, I was doing wind sprints and rows. I was able to tame the monster inside me. This release allowed me to take a moment to examine myself, to ask myself the questions that every teen should ask. “What do I want to be?” and “Can things be better?”

Mind you, this self-examination didn’t stop the bullying or the taunts, and I admit my personal process has been long. It took until I was well past my teen years, well into adulthood, to find my answers. It’s been hard to accept who I am, but there have been important things that helped. First, my wife, who stood by me through weight gain, weight loss, foolish pursuits, massive screw-ups, and measures of success. They say that love heals all wounds, and while it may not be true for everyone, it has definitely helped me. Second, I moved to Japan. Here, no matter what, I’m not going to fit in, and that fact helped me realize – fitting in just doesn’t matter. I am who I am, and the only people I have to worry about pleasing are my wife, my son, and myself. And yes, my son helped complete the picture. His unconditional love, his excited cries of “Daddy!” as he runs down the hallway in order to give me a hug, and his silly little laughs of pure joy have helped me to the next level in my self acceptance.

I’m still a work in progress, and I don’t know if I will ever finish this work. I’ve come to accept that I want to squat more, to deadlift more, and to train MMA not because I need to prove anything to anyone, but rather because I enjoy the challenge. Is there still inside me that seventh grade boy in the sand? Is there still the teen full of rage? Of course. And I’ve come to love those personalities inside me. I love them because it was their trauma that fueled my desire to make change. I love them because they serve as warnings of what not to do to others. I love them because they motivate me to work with children, to help them through the difficulties of youth as best I can, and to show them their worth and their potential.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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I Don’t Want To Eat That: 6 Tips on Making Healthy Eating for Kids Not So Difficult (David Varnes)

In Kid Speak, words like “vegetable,” “healthy,” “nutritious,” and “balanced” are equivalent to words that just can’t be printed on this website. What can a parent do?

Comic Books Inspire Healthier Eating for Kids (Becca Borawski Jenkins)

Childhood obesity is of growing concern in the United States. The number of children medically categorized as obese is rising every single year. What can comic books do to help?

5 First Foods for Paleo Babies and Toddlers (Nicole Crawford)

When it comes to good nutrition, it helps to start ’em young. Here are my five favorite first foods for babies and toddlers. And by the way, rice cereal is not on the list.

The Best Tactics for Teaching Your Child to Eat Well (Jeff Barnett)

A new study looked at different tactics used by parents to get their children to eat well, and determined which were most effective. Cleaning your plate turns out not to be the best idea.

Goodbye Cheerios, Hello Chicken: One Family’s Attempt at Paleo Eating (Nicole Crawford)

One day I realized that my baby liked Cheerios more than vegetables, and I knew something had to change. Here’s what worked and what didn’t for our family’s version of the “paleo challenge.”

4 Factors That Help Your Child Eat Healthier (Jeff Barnett)

Mexican American children are 60% more likely to be overweight. Scientists studied a population of Mexican American kids to determine what parenting methods could lead to better eating habits.

Kids Are Fatter, Sicker, and Slower – What Can We Do About It? (Eric C. Stevens)

We have a responsibility to protect children – all of us. We have to step up as a society and care for our children and get them well.

The Deadly Ways Excess Sugar is Stunting Your Child (Jonathan Precel)

You know sugar is bad for you, but do you know what excessive sugar intake does to your child? And that it is as powerful as cocaine addition? Find out how sugar affects the brain of your child.

What Processed Food Is Doing To Kids and How We Can Change It (Nicole Crawford)

By now you’ve probably heard to avoid feeding your kids a lot of processed food. Here are a few reasons why and also some tips for weaning children off highly processed, low nutrient foods.

5 Ways You Can Help Prevent Childhood Obesity (Fred Fornicola)

Being overweight has an enormous impact on children, physically, mentally, and emotionally. What can we do to change the obesity trend? Here are 5 ideas you can implement with the kids in your life.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Tuning into these unique aspects of a child’s personality is one of the most critical aspects of parenting. When you understand a child’s character, it’s much easier to decide which activities he or she should be involved in, and that includes choosing a sport. The fact is, not all kids are attracted to the typical team sports they have access to at school. As a result, your child might develop the “I don’t like sports” syndrome. Unfortunately, by not playing sports, a child might miss out on the many benefits of youth athletics, including:

• Strength and coordination
• Teamwork
• Self-discipline/accountability
• Self-esteem
• Academic success
• Less involvement in drugs and alcohol
• Stress relief
• Obesity prevention
• Social skills

Fortunately, even if your child isn’t so hot on the typical team sports, like soccer, volleyball, basketball, and football, he or she still has options. You just might have to think outside the box a little bit. Here are some ideas for children whose personalities fall on the eccentric side of the athletic spectrum:

The Knight in Shining Armor: Fencing

If your romantic child spends a lot of time dueling with the neighbor kids, fencing will be right up his alley. Not only will he get to use a sword, but he will also be able to reap the physical benefits of fencing. Though it might seem like an easy sport from the outside, fencing requires balance, coordination, and strategy. It’s also a competitive sport, so your child can reap the benefits of a little friendly competition if he decides he likes it.

The Comic Book Geek: Martial Arts

A comic book is a perfect combination of drama, action, and conflict resolution. Martial arts encapsulates these three qualities like no other sport. And as Eric Stevens noted in his recent article, martial arts also instills a sense of focus and stillness in children that often carries over into life and even homework.

The Focused Perfectionist: Highland Dance

Does your child hold precision, accuracy, and structure above all things? Does she have the focus and determination of a war general, even when it comes to the placement of her veggies and meat on the dinner plate? If so, she must try out Highland Dance. Unlike other forms of dance where choreography varies, in Highland Dance there are only so many dances and combinations of steps you can do. That means it’s all about memorization, precision, and skill – as well as immense stamina and leg strength.

The Jack-Of-All-Trades: CrossFit Kids

Maybe your child is too much of an athlete. He can’t decide which sport he wants to play and just loves physical activity in general. If that sounds familiar, I recommend checking out CrossFit Kids. These programs emphasize overall athleticism and incorporate gymnastics movements, bodyweight exercise, and age-appropriate strength training. Click here to find a CrossFit Kids program in your area.

The Animal Lover: Equestrian

After researching the physical and mental benefits of horseback riding, I’m seriously considering getting my own daughter (who loves horses and all animals) signed up for lessons. Riding horseback requires balance, coordination, and flexibility. Interestingly, it has also been shown to be beneficial for children (and adults!) with cognitive or behavioral conditions, such as autism or ADHD. To learn more about this aspect of riding, visit the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International website.

The Young Thoreau: Rock Climbing

If your nature-loving child would rather run naked through the fields than spend time in the gym, he might enjoy rock climbing classes. A lot of rock climbing gyms have camps for kids and also offer lessons. Rock climbing will allow your child to do an outdoor activity and also build strength and endurance. Many gyms also have rock climbing groups that compete on the national level. You can learn more at the USA Climbing website.

Whatever you do, don’t think just because your child is uninterested in typical school sports that he or she isn’t athletic. Who knows? You could be raising the next Olympic bobsleigh champion.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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What Is the Question for Which Testing Provides the Answer?

In youth fitness, we need to first determine the question to see if we are on the right track for the answer. What is fitness? The definition has changed since many of us were in school. Fitness at one time included health-fitness (cardiovascular endurance, muscle endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, and body composition) and skills-fitness (speed, power, agility, balance, and coordination). Those students with age-appropriate health-fitness and skills-fitness performed well on fitness tests (remember the President’s Council fitness tests?). The goal was to have all students be proficient in all fitness attributes.

The modern definition of fitness includes only health-fitness in an effort to be sure our children don’t grow up with the same chronic conditions that plague adults, like obesity, low-back pain, and heart disease. The trouble is there is no longitudinal data to support this approach and who has ever heard a third grader state he or she wants to play, exercise, and participate in sports to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease?

Testing for Physical Literacy

Shouldn’t the goal of youth testing (if testing is at all valid) be to help give kids the skills they need to be physically active for a lifetime? We should focus on developing kids’ motor skill competence and self-efficacy of movement, which are important components of a construct known as physical literacy.1,2 Physical literacy, as defined by Whitehead, is “The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activities throughout the life course.”This sounds like a much more worthy purpose than seeing if the results for third graders on the back-saver sit-and-reach (an admittedly invalid test as a measure of low-back flexibility) reduce low-back pain when the students are in their fifties.

Interestingly, the types of skills that lead kids to want to continue to be physically active, exercising and playing sports, are in the skills-fitness category, not the health-fitness category (although the development of muscle strength goes hand-in-hand with the development of proficient motor skills). One other important point to consider is that growth and development for youngsters is non-linear, which means they may progress, then not progress, then progress again. This is especially true during developmental benchmarks such as growth spurts. Imagine a student who has good flexibility, then his legs grow two inches, he gets tested for flexibility, and his arms don’t quite reach the same mark. Has he lost flexibility? Of course not. So testing should be considered an educational tool that is a snapshot of one particular point in time. Testing cannot be used to predict future superstardom, but should be used to educate students on the value of physical fitness, how physical fitness contributes to increased physical literacy, and how students can improve elements of physical fitness.

Testing for Talent Identification?

What about testing for sports talent identification? Early identification of talent sure sounds promising. Just imagine if vertical jump performance in fifth grade led to an automatic NBA or WNBA contract. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. What if the athlete is early to mature and his or her vertical jump maxes out in ninth grade? What if the athlete gets hurt from overuse in eight grade and burns out, choosing never to play basketball again?

And, going back to fitness testing in schools, the President’s Council tests no longer exist as we remember them (the reasoning is a fantastic article in and of itself). Any reference to skills fitness testing is now supposed to happen after school for those participating in the after-school program. Really? This means we are excluding all kids from reaching their potential by selecting only those athletes participating in the after-school program. This is, of course, contrary to the development of physical literacy for all kids and the tenet of education to provide equal opportunity for all students to gain the knowledge, skill, and attitudes to be physically active for a lifetime. What can be done?

Test for Fun and Adherence

We need to engage children and youth in the process, and we certainly don’t need to parade them in front of their classmates to do this. Who better to help develop a meaningful physical fitness program than the kids themselves? It sure beats trying to justify reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease in third graders. A well-designed and implemented physical fitness program that takes into account measuring progress toward physical literacy will have the effect of reducing cardiovascular disease and increasing lifetime physical activity because the kids take ownership of the program, thereby increasing their intrinsic motivation to participate. Likewise, because kids are taking ownership for their physical literacy, they will engage in activities that will improve health-fitness and skills-fitness by incorporating the most important element of youth fitness programming – fun.

References:

1. Stodden, D., & Goodway, J. D., “The Dynamic Association Between Motor Skill Development and Physical Activity.” Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 78(8), 33-49.

2. Whitehead, M. E., “Physical Literacy: Philosophical considerations in relation to the development of self, universality and propositional knowledge.” Sport Ethics and Philosophy, Vol 1 No. 3, Dec 2007.

Photo 1 by unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 3 courtesy of CrossFit LA.

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Basic #1: Sleep 

There does not seem to be enough hours in the day for adolescent athletes to accommodate long school days plus activities. With homework and studying, commute time to and from school, and commitments to sports programs and activities, something has to give. Unfortunately, for young athletes, that “something” is usually sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, adolescents (ages ten to seventeen) need between 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep per night. Yet, the average adolescent gets only 7-7.25 hours of sleep per night.²

Most are familiar with the outward signs of sleep deprivation – grouchiness, sleepiness, etc. – but how else does the lack of sleep affect young athletes? To begin with, growth hormone is released during sleep. This hormone is necessary for the stimulation and repair of muscles and tissues, building bone, burning fat, and aiding in the body’s repair and recovery. Lack of sleep stresses the body and encourages the production of cortisol – the stress hormone. Cortisol can inhibit the recovery rate of athletes, lead to insulin resistance and weight gain, lower immunity and bone density, and interfere with learning and memory. The fact that sleep deprivation alone can hinder recovery time and muscle and tissue growth, affect learning, and increase the chances for health-related problems is indicative of the absolute necessity of getting enough sleep, every night, for the growing athlete. Back to basics.

Basic #2: Cross Training 

With rising cell phone usage and the availability of electronic games, children do not go out to play as they once did. When a sport season is over, the tendency is for young athletes to return to a more sedentary lifestyle, rather than maintain their fitness or activity level (competitively or recreationally). Coaches and trainers should encourage cross training, both in-season and off-season.

Cross training encourages year-round activity and can help increase the overall strength level of the young athlete, while allowing for physical and mental recovery (avoiding sport burnout). With many young athletes specializing in one sport, year round, the risk of injury increases, as the repetitive motions of the sport stresses growing joints, muscles, and ligamentous structures. Even if an adolescent trains for one sport, year round, the importance of cross training cannot be emphasized enough. It is especially important for adolescent athletes to recognize that the greater their training intensity, the greater their need for recovery. By alternating sports or physical activity through cross training, the young athlete will achieve a higher state of fitness, while allowing the body the rest it needs to recover properly. Back to basics.

Basic #3: Nutrition

In this era of fast foods and convenience foods – all of which are readily available, easily purchased, and instantly gratifying for young athletes – coaches and trainers must educate adolescent athletes on proper nutrition. Recognizing the varying needs of individual athletes, the science does not change: a young athlete’s diet should consist of carbohydrates, protein, and fats, in the proper ratios. Fast food and convenience foods may very well contain carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, but they are full of additives, flavorings, and preservatives, which negate the nutritional aspects of the food and are often more detrimental to a developing athlete than they are beneficial. Back to basics.

Basic #4: Hydration

Water comprises approximately 55-70% of our body. Because young athletes produce more metabolic heat and cannot cool their bodies as efficiently as older athletes, they are at an increased risk for dehydration, as well as other heat-related illnesses. Water should be the first and foremost hydrating liquid for a young athlete. Water acts as a cooling agent for the body, carrying nutrients and oxygen to the cells in the body and protecting vital organs. Coaches and trainers need to ensure that young athletes have water and are drinking it during activity. Because younger athletes are more likely to consume flavored drinks rather than water, they are less likely to replenish their body with water as they sweat. And, as they are not used to drinking water on a daily basis, they are less likely to recognize the symptoms of dehydration.

While water intake will vary according to the athlete, the event, and the circumstances, four to eight ounces of water for every fifteen to twenty minutes of exercise is a good starting point. Touching upon but not delving into sports drinks, the electrolytes found in sports drinks can be beneficial in regulating the young athlete’s nerve and muscle function and replacing electrolytes lost through sweat. For adolescent athletes enduring physical activity for more than sixty to ninety minutes at a time, or for young athletes who practice in high heat and humidity, sports drinks can be beneficial in replenishing lost nutrients. The bottom line, however, is that water is essential, and it is necessary for an athlete to perform optimally. Back to basics.

With the constant barrage of external stimuli surrounding young athletes, sports offer an opportunity to step away from mounting societal pressures. Coaches and trainers can help mitigate societal stressors and keep young athletes healthy through education and encouragement to get adequate sleep, to cross train, to practice good nutrition, and to properly hydrate with water. Back to basics.

References:

1. National Sleep Foundation. “Teens and Sleep.” Accessed 10/12/2014

2. Mindell JA. & Owens JA., “A Clinical Guide to Pediatric Sleep: Diagnosis and Management of Sleep Problems.” (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2003)

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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