A never-ending debate in many sports, but especially in weightlifting, concerns when a young athlete should begin training in the discipline. There are two schools of thought in this area and now is a good time to take a look at each one.

Many decades ago when I first started training, the general consensus was that a man had to be fully grown, say around 17 or 18, before they could think of starting a competitive weightlifting program, i.e., finished puberty. (If you were female you needn’t have asked in the first place at the time.)

Even then it was often recommended that prospective lifters do a year of general bodybuilding training before tackling the more challenging Olympic lifts. Back then it was still possible to produce world champions with such a late start few others started any earlier. No one was getting an unfair jump on the others. It was even common to see people taking up the sport in their 20s.

As the sport developed in the late 20th century it was soon realized that a person had to start younger if they wanted to hit the elite levels. This is true of weightlifting and it is certainly true of most other sports nowadays. When you stop and think about it starting to lift at 17 can seem ludicrous.

Can you imagine if somebody had suggested to Mickey Mantle that he not play baseball until he was out of high school? How about telling the Williams sisters that they weren’t old enough for tennis even in their senior year of high school.

This way of thinking probably was a result of the ideas that weightlifting was purely a strength sport and that mature strength would not develop until someone was fully mature. Heavy training would surely damage teenage bodies even as farm youngsters were expected to do heavy work at an early age. It is hard to imagine their pop telling them to take it easy when doing their chores.

Elite Youth Athletes

As the late 20th century war on, it was apparent to even casual observers that elite level athletes were being produced at younger ages. This could be seen most dramatically with gymnastics and figure skating among others.

It took a bit longer in weightlifting but it did occur eventually. Probably the biggest stimulus to this was the recognition of teenage world records in 1960 and the holding of the first Junior World Championships in 1975. While the Western world did have younger weightlifters, it was rare for any to approach that level.

This was not so in Eastern Bloc where the sport was much more organized and junior competitions were common. But with the establishment of the Junior Worlds, the Western countries now had something to shoot for so the average age of weightlifting registrations started to go down.

As a result, there were a lot more 15 and 16 year-olds who showed up for competitions. One thing that shocked weightlifting around the world was the 1983 emergence of a 15 year-old junior world champion.

Naim Suliemanoglu stunned the world with his long string of junior and senior world records. Since no one jumps to World’s level with very little training, every coach in the world started to wonder just when did this young man start training if he could be a world record beater at age 15?

There is no other conclusion but that such a lifter would have to have started even before puberty had set in. Conventional wisdom had always recommended waiting until puberty had ended.

It was eventually discovered that indeed these lifters were starting quite young and were very experienced competitors by their mid-teens. While many coaches were now eager to start training lifters at younger ages than previously thought possible, there were some who wondered if this was a good idea.

Those in the latter group argued that there were exceptions and this should not be used as a template for all young lifters. They were probably right to some degree as shorter lifters such as Suliemanoglu probably finished puberty at earlier ages compared to their taller peers.

Another argument was that such early starts at specialized weightlifting training were not really necessary. It was pointed out that individual results eventually even out after a few years.

The early bloomers would reach their point of diminishing returns early while the late bloomers would then finally catch up. This is true in many cases but those who favored earlier training had another argument.

The Role of Non-Specialized Training

Some believe that it is better for young athletes to spend their pre-pubertal and early puberty years in a wide variety of sports which would give them a better athletic foundation of which to build on later when they do decide to specialize.

They further argued that too early a start date can result in a lot of young athletes burning out with regard to their enthusiasm. This is especially true with those athletes who had a greater need for social contact with peers. They would be more drawn to team sports which have always been more highly valued by the kids themselves, their parents, and educators due to their ability to teach various aspects of teamwork and sportsmanship.

This idea certainly has some validity especially if one comes across someone who has not been so socialized and then decides to try a more solitary sport like weightlifting. Egos can get out of hand with those who never learned to share with teammates. I’ve seen this many times and indeed such lifters would’ve benefited from some team sports experience.

Those who advocate for an earlier start concede that results may indeed even out over the years but there are still some advantages to their position. One of the major ones is that early starters early were able to maintain mobility, stability and flexibility as they progress to the sport.

Most 10 to 12-year-olds still have very adequate flexibility and they do not lose this if they train regularly and work at maintaining it. This is especially important since school requires long hours of sitting at a desk with little physical activity. By the time a male student is a high school senior, he has lost much of his original suppleness.

Even those who play football, basketball, or hockey do not have need to be all that flexible. Therefore, if such a student decides that he wants to be a weightlifter there will usually have to be some remedial flexibility work needed. This will take time that could be better used in more direct strength training.

You may have noticed I said ”male” in the last paragraph. With the advent of women’s weightlifting we now have a couple of interesting situations. For one, if a girl waits until a later age to start in most cases she is not as handicapped as a boy with regard to flexibility.

Women are generally more flexible than men so they have an easier time taking up the sport and quickly learn the positions. Another advantage females will have is that they generally go through puberty earlier (and finish earlier) so they will be more physically advanced in development at the earlier ages (12-13).

Of course this advantage will eventually be negated by the males’ greater testosterone, but it does give them a little edge in the early teen years and may help with keeping their desire strong.

Starting Young Promotes Psychological Advantage

Probably the major advantage of early starting though is psychological, not physical. Weightlifting involves lifting heavy weights overhead while jumping underneath to catch them. It looks pretty scary to the average, untrained individual who has never had any iron overhead.

In contrast, it has been observed by parents that small children often have no fear of that which they should fear. They can be little daredevils. That same child by the time he hits his late teens has got far more brain cells working (hopefully) and will not be as foolhardy. For good and bad, these tendencies do affect performance in weightlifting.

A good lifter must eventually get over his or her fear of the barbell if they are to be successful. This fear must be overcome by all lifters but it is much more difficult for an 18 year-old who has never lifted before.

Not so with the youngster who has been lifting since he or she was 10 years old. They have has lost that fear and they also have tremendous confidence in their abilities. Those in gymnastics are very aware of this.

How many 20 year-olds would want to do a mid-air flip on a balance beam? Not many, unless they are crazy. But a girl who has been doing this since she was 5 years old will think nothing of it. Most Chinese lifters have been perfecting their technique since late childhood and have no fear of the barbell.

Youth Has Its Advantage

The question about when to start weightlifting for youth is difficult to answer. However, after years of watching 16 and 17 year-olds lifting weights that are only a few kilos off senior world records, it appears that the early starting side of the debate is carrying the day. This is certainly true all of the countries that produce elite weightlifters. The competitive environment of weightlifting and their ability to recruit athletes leaves no other choice.

However, in those parts of the world where virtually professional weightlifting cannot be carried out to any great extent, we still have a situation similar to that which prevailed many years ago. There are many coaches would love to recruit some promising 13 year-olds but this is difficult in a country where there are other sports that are far more culturally supported and have a much easier time recruiting athletes of any age.

While we have made some strides in recent years we just cannot compete with football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and hockey. Those are the glamour sports that are able to skim the cream of the athletic crop—at least up to high school.

We may still have to be content with gleaning those who realize that their retirement day in team sports will coincide with high school graduation. We will still have to try to fashion weightlifters out of a lot of athletes who have not previously lifted seriously until college. It can only be hoped that any athletic experience they do have will hold some experiential benefits for them.

The post Young to Really Young: Beginning Olympic Weightlifting appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Youth sports are now big business. That may sound crazy, but it’s true. Every year parents spend exorbitantly to give their children as much opportunity as possible, or at least to keep up with everyone else. Once common, three-sport high school athletes are a rare-to-extinct breed in this world of year-round seasons, skills coaches, showcases, and strength and conditioning gurus. Even with a growing industry built on exploitation, many youth athletes still wonder how to navigate this world. In particular, how to best choose a sports performance trainer?

Strength and conditioning, like most fields, is full of good and bad apples. Consumers must be aware of incompetent posers spouting nonsensical, baseless training philosophies who fumble through gimmicky methods that they do not understand.

This sounds harsh, but parents must prudently approach trainer selection. YouTube makes it easier than ever to throw together several flashy exercises in ways that do more harm than good. Social media allows anyone to gain a larger audience and create a loyal following thrilled to have their ego stroked by trainers who post about them constantly. Select organizations and parents are, in effect, paying for a babysitter who gets the kids moving.

Trainers who know only the “cool” exercises, who don’t understand the fundamental principles of strength and conditioning will not make athletes better in the long run, and they could actually make them worse. Almost everything makes youth athletes stronger, faster, and better conditioned in the short-term. This is the beauty of training young athletes with low training age: timing and genetics are on your side. As they progress past baseline competencies, it becomes essential to account for other training variables and to program towards specific outcomes.

While this is not a piece about training science or periodization, parents must understand that more training is not necessarily better for adaptation. Incompatible, poorly timed, or poorly executed training methods can negate good work and reinforce patterns that make injury and overuse likely. There is a difference between training and working out. Beach Body may be great for fat loss in your 30’s, but it’s a terrible high school athletic development program.

Training Principles Over Workout Methods

“As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no a shortage of really good strength and conditioning coaches, but many are confused about how to find them and how to know the difference between good and bad. As a parent, this can feel overwhelming. How can you make a well-informed decision about who should train your child without immersing yourself in studies of bio-energetics, physiology, and training principles?

When looking for a qualified strength and conditioning coach, look for a few certifications. I am partial to the CSCS and the CSCCa certifications. Both do a phenomenal job preparing trainers to train for athletic performance. Great additions that include practical application, not just book study, are the RKC, SFG, and USAW certifications. Unfortunately, trainers with numerous certifications might have slipped through the cracks and fail actually coach in the manner they were taught. Likewise, there are a million other routes to develop tremendous sport-performance coaching ability. A trainer can intern under a master like Mike Boyle, Mike Robertson, Eric Cressey, Exos, or any of the other tremendous training facilities. There are also exceptionally good trainers with a NASM, ACE, ISSA, or other certification. Certification is a good starting point, but not the end all be all.

Find a Chef, Not a Cook

I would insist on some sort of credential other than participation in college athletics or even in “the league.” In my experience, former athletes are the most common trainers and the least qualified. I do not necessarily blame these men and women. I understand why they think that they are trainers. They know how to do the exercises and have been through all the workouts. However, following a chef’s commands or recipe does not make you a chef. Likely, you would be lost if the chef were removed. Chefs understand cooking principles and all possible variables and combinations. These former athletes are not chefs. They are dangerous because they know only ingredients, but have no cookbook, no recipe. They triple the sugar, cut the flour in half, and forget the yeast.

Simplifying the Process for Parents

I’ve created the following questionnaire to score trainers on how qualified they are to train your son or daughter. If insulted by your insistence on these questions, the trainer might not be a good fit. You are looking to hire, so approach this decision as an interview. Some of these questions may not seem applicable to your situation, but they are still essential to determine the trainer’s competency and ethics. I have included possible answers. Do not let the candidate see these. Rather, make an informed decision as to which answer his or her response most reflects.

The Definitive Guide to Selecting a Sports Performance Trainer

1. My son/daughter trains at school with his/her team a few days a week. How will that impact your training in regards to frequency, duration, intensity, etc? Do you need to know what nights he/she practices and plays games?
   1. Good: Any response that mentions the need to account for all training stressors and that communicates a need to understand the school team’s workouts. He or she should mention the need to communicate with the coaches.
   2. OK: He/she makes it clear that this is important and that he/she will be certain to always communicate with your son/daughter about planning.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Any nonchalance about other training.
2. His/her sport demands speed. How can he/she become faster?
   1. Good: Any response that mentions strength relative to body weight or “relative strength.” Any response that talks about sprinting and jumping (but not as conditioning). Any response that talks about getting stronger. Any response that concedes that while speed can be trained, genetics are a limiting factor.
   2. OK: He/she vaguely mentions strength and power, and/or running sprints and jumping.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: If he/she mostly discusses conditioning. Speed must be trained at max output with full recovery. Anyone who hears the word speed and thinks conditioning is not qualified to train your son or daughter. Also sleds, parachutes, and box jumps are often gimmicks. He/she should know that they must be reserved for short distances and lower reps at max output.
3. What would the first session with you look like?
   1. Good: Focuses discussion on evaluation, baseline, teaching, etc.
   2. OK: Vaguely mentions assessment.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: “Exhausting! He/she will hurt all over!” While soreness is likely, particularly at first, an emphasis on exhaustion is a very bad sign.
4. How soon will you have him/her lifting heavy and maxing?
   1. Good: A response that recognizes that your son/daughter needs to demonstrate safe movement patterns over a few sessions with low to medium weights. If your child is younger than 15, it may be completely unnecessary to lift heavy. If the trainer doesn’t believe it important for your son/daughter at this junction that may be a very wise decision, just as it could be true that heavy lifting would be very beneficial.
   2. OK: Vague, but references a need to assess.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Anything extreme. From “it will be the first thing we do” to “athletes should never lift heavy.” Demonizing strength training, regardless of sport, could be a very bad sign.
5. How much rest would he/she have between sets? Say, between sets of three squats.
   1. Good: Two or more minutes. Exceptions might include mention of cluster training, supersets, etc.
   2. OK: Vague, but mentions a need for rest between sets
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Less than 90 seconds. If he/she talks about “sport specific” time intervals and “functional training” here, they likely don’t understand basic strength training, the foundation of speed and power. “Sport-specific” is another buzz word that often indicates substituting gimmicks for an understanding of training principles.
6. (Follow up to above question) What would you have him/her do during that rest time?
   1. Good: Any mention of breathing exercise, mobility exercises, a small number of jumps, or activation exercises.
   2. OK: Nothing. While I don’t love the idea of paying for a lot of downtime, it is better to rest between sets than to rush sets and ruin progress.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Any reference to conditioning.
7. I saw (make up a famous sports athlete) doing really cool ladder drills. What do you think about ladder training for footwork?
   1. Good: Any response that recognizes ladder drills fit in the warm-up and as early coordination training, but don’t have much benefit long-term. “Footwork” is a buzz word that often means very little. Another acceptable response might be: “I’m not a big believer in ladder drills”
   2. OK: Vague response that acknowledges the use of ladder drills, but does not make them out to be any sort of “holy grail”.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Insistently proclaims how great his/her program is for footwork. Goes into great detail about all the ladder drills he/she knows and how much of his/her program is taken from professionals. It is very easy to find videos of professionals working out. Copying their program is a recipe for disaster.
8. I’ve been taking him/her to CrossFit and doing lots of box jumps so he/she should be really powerful already, right?
   1. Good: Any response that notes the difference between conditioning and power. A good trainer will probably mention how unsafe it can be to do box jumps for conditioning and will probably mention needing to account for any future CrossFit sessions.
   2. OK: A respectful inquiry as to whether you plan to keep taking him/her to CrossFit workouts.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Enthusiastic support for high-rep box jumps and a promise to continue them in your son/daughter’s future training.
9. What are your suggestions about nutrition for him/her? (Nutritional demands will vary greatly depending on goals and current background. However, a few things are fairly constant and a few responses are major red flags.)
   1. Good: Any remark that humbly notes the limitations of a strength coach’s expertise, while recommending a balanced and moderate approach that features lean meats with fruits and vegetables. Beans, nuts, and whole grains are also probably good suggestions. He/she should not mention dieting or starting with a ton of supplements, although suggesting whey protein is fine. He/she does not mention counting calories or purchasing expensive eating programs. Advice focuses on long-term habits rather than quick fixes.
   2. OK: He/she notes the importance of nutrition but recommends speaking to someone more qualified.
   3. Possible Deal-Breaker: He/she pushes counting calories and pretends to have an idea of exactly how many your son/daughter needs each day. Promotion of numerous supplements is also a red flag, particularly if they are all from the same company.
10. Should I worry about recovery or overtraining?
    1. Good: He/she discusses the importance of eating a balanced diet, sleeping eight or more hours a night, avoiding overtraining, and having balance and relaxation in their lives. Add a bonus point if he/she brings up recovery practices like stretching or meditation. Add another bonus point if he/she mentions the challenges of overspecialization and playing the same sport year-round.
    2. OK: A vague yes.
    3. Possible Deal-Breaker: Anything along the lines of “Nah, these kids are resilient. When I was their age I’d run a few miles in P.E., then go lift after school, and then play a varsity basketball game.” While I agree that it is possible to thrive in fatigue and to reach exceptional levels of stamina, advice like this ignores the principles of progression and adaptation.

Scoring

Add up all the points.

• 20 – 30 Points: Consider hiring as long as you also got a good feel for his /her ethics and ability to connect with your son or daughter.
• 10 – 19 Points: Approach with extreme caution. Perhaps he or she is great but struggles to communicate or understand the questions well. A simple plan can be brutally effective, but I’d eliminate this candidate if there were more than one responses that graded as “Possible Deal-Breaker”.
• 9 or Fewer Points: Why are you still standing there. Don’t walk. Run!

The post The Definitive Guide to Picking a Sports Performance Trainer appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In my original Middle School Block 0 Program, the posterior chain was only trained with bridge variations and supermans. Looking back, I was wrong to set it up that way.

The bulk of youth in the modern era have completely forgotten how to move, and have lost all sense of what their body is doing in space (proprioception). Teaching them to hip hinge can be a daunting task, particularly if you’ve been hinging for years it came naturally to you.

In my original Middle School Block 0 Program, the posterior chain was only trained with bridge variations and supermans. Looking back, I was wrong to set it up that way.

You have to teach the hip hinge to all athletes, preferably before they get to high school.

The priority for kids in middle school and earlier should be teaching better movement patterns. The hip hinge is the backbone of the athletic position, and from it, almost every athletic play begins.

It’s from this position that you optimize weight distribution for safe, powerful agility in any direction. It’s from the hip hinge pattern that you better understand the squat, and lay the foundation for any decent training program.

The Basic Athletic Position

The typical scenario youth coaches find themselves in is one coach and 40+ athletes.

I recommend starting kids in a grid of lines where each athlete is five yards behind the athlete in front of them, and five yards from the one to their left and right. From here you can control, instruct, and assess each of them most efficiently.

Start the athletes with feet shoulder width apart. Ask them to look straight ahead to the horizon and retract their shoulder blades. Teach this so that you can begin to simply cue: “retract.”

Now ask them to soften their knees. Teach them with visual demonstration that the shins remain close to vertical, as the hips and knees both flex slightly.

Once the athletes have shoulders retracted, eyes ahead to the horizon, and softened knees, cue them to “bow.” Most athletes are now in an athletic position. Don’t over-cue an athlete who got it mostly right; just let them stand there being awesome, and let them know about it.

The common faults are:

• The Squatty Hinge: Too much forward knee flexion over the toes
• The Electrocuted Hinge: Overly stiff legs with no knee flexion
• The Reachy Hinge: Reaching their head and shoulders forward towards the ground. These athletes have no concept of bending using the legs, and are often the toughest fixes.

Have athletes hold the bowed position while you patrol the room looking for reachy, squatty, or electrocuted hinges. For those struggling, I find the best fixes are:

• Reset. Help them pull their shoulders into retraction and try again.
• If they have retraction but are squatty, put one hand on their shoulder and one on their knees, and push the knees back so that they find the hinge.
• If they are electrocuted, softly push on the back of their knees to soften them. Bring their shins vertical and call their attention to this. Then put a hand on their shoulder and one on their knee to slowly maneuver them into the bottom position.

At this point, most athletes should be in a decent athletic position.

Progress to the Full Hip Hinge

The full hip hinge maintains shoulder retraction while pushing the hips even further back, to the extent of the athlete’s range of motion.

This must be taught well before any deadlift variation, kettlebell swing variant, and certainly before any Olympic lifting.

I introduce this with the concept of the “tired athlete;” the universal resting position in games where an athlete rests their hands on their knees with their hips fully flexed and shins vertical. This is a decent starting point for the bottom position of the hinge.

Get the athletes there, tell them to retract their shoulders and take hands off their knees, but maintain the position. Cue them to “swim” their arms back, as if they were holding a bar tight to their shins (a little foreshadowing).

Now take them all to a long wall, like the perimeters of a gymnasium or outside of a building. Have them get their backs to the wall and set up a foot-length from it. Cue them to look ahead, retract, soften their knees, and bow, reaching their butt towards the wall.

Some will simply fall back with all their weight on the wall. Restart them, this time explaining that they are to reach back under their own control and get to a point where they are just barely tapping the wall.

Explain that they are not hugging the wall, just “flirting” with it. Go through all the cues again, and have them hold the bottom position of the wall tap hip hinge.

Patrol the room, looking for the squatty, reachy, and electrocuted faults, and using the previously mentioned solutions. It helps to pull your squatty hingers another inch away from the wall.

On your directive, have the athletes push through their heels to wedge their hips forward into extension. Cue this as “push heels and thrust.”

You need to put them through many reps to make this bottom position automatic. Have them hold each time to get a feeling of the mild stretch through the hamstrings.

Some athletes will have shorter hamstrings, and may not be able to get as far without lumbar rounding. They must only go to the extent of their range of motion.

For the super-strugglers, there are some one-on-one fixes you can run through. My first go-to is to place a bench in front of the knees and have kids grab a dowel rod or PVC pipe and hold it tight to their back.

The dowel rod must remain in contact at the head, thoracic spine and hips.

Their knees must remain in contact with the bench. Have them slowly practice the hinge here, and with focus and intent, they will learn the movement.

Young Athletes Must Be Taught to Hip Hinge

There is no way to jump, land, change direction in the open field, or train power without a strong foundation in the hip hinge.

It will be the foundation of their deadlift, and the battery of power movements including proper jump technique, medball throws, kettlebells, and Olympic lifts.

Pay close attention to teaching this pattern with three distinct phases. There is no benefit to adding load to the hinge pattern without a strong emphasis on loading the hamstrings, retracting the shoulder blades to maintain spinal integrity, and pushing through the heels, rather than pulling with the arms.

There is no upside to loading a poor movement pattern—only pain. When teaching and progressing, slow the athlete down. Youth learn at different rates, but all can learn and improve this skill with repetition and focus.

The post Young Athletes Must Hip Hinge appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

When we talked, he expressed a hope that I could offer common sense, progressive, training programs built on the block zero model I use with our district’s middle school and new high-schoolers. His hope was that parents of Pop Warner players might temper their unhealthy training practices if given a plan created by someone at the next level.

Today’s Kids Need More Than a Training Plan

While I wished to help, I was baffled by where to start. Everything I could offer would be a drop in the ocean; a band-aid for a gushing wound. I would only be able to treat symptoms, while ignoring deeper causes that would continue to fester. The problem, as we discussed, was that global change must happen in the way parents approach their kids’ physical health and their role as parents. The best training program in the world won’t make much difference, otherwise.

Without full-scale philosophy change, we’ll continue to raise the least healthy generation ever, constantly plagued by physical limitations and the mental anguish of superficial entitlement. We have taught our kids to expect everything in life to come easy, and youth athletic development trends compound that expectation. Cultural norms doom them to chase comfort and quick fixes on the road to unfulfilling outcomes.

Making our youth into better athletes should come as a pleasant side effect of proper youth development. It is not the goal. We must rethink our expectations and roles to best prepare our youth for athletics, work, and life.

Can We Turn Couch Potato Kids Into Athletes?

How do we approach the very real concerns of this Pop Warner coach? Let’s start with the idea of conditioning. Each summer, I create detailed training plans for our athletes. By rule, I can only be present for six weeks of optional workouts. As summer has nine weeks before football starts, I write up conditioning to fill in the off-weeks. While our football program has produced some successful athletes, I’d estimate less than 15% actually do the conditioning on days where we don’t offer organized training. I’d expect far less willpower, attention to detail, and general ability to keep themselves on a schedule from Pop Warner kids. And that’s okay; they’re only in elementary school, and honestly shouldn’t be occupying their summers with strict training regimens anyway.

The fact that elementary school kids need a conditioning program is a monument to the disturbingly soft, sedentary lifestyle most kids lead. However, the solution is not structured training plans. It is to remove the phone from their hands. Sell the video games, ban the TV for 23 hours a day, and get their butts outside and playing! Their days should be spent playing basketball, soccer, and Wiffle ball. They should be at the park all day, playing tag, climbing, running, chasing, fleeing, and partaking in a million other active explorations. The parent’s job is reapplication of sunscreen, bringing them water, fruits, and lunch, and setting up the sprinklers when they want to cool down.

This is the childhood that creates great athletes who enjoy their sports. When this becomes the cultural norm, we’ll stop having problems finding kids in good enough shape to play Pop Warner football.

Kid’s Conditioning: Go Play Outside

Parents, you must be the agents of change. There are significantly more roadblocks, nowadays. We have seen a significant reduction in our available play spaces. Despite evidence to the contrary, incessant media saturation has convinced us that the world is more dangerous than ever; that kids can no longer ride a bike to their friend’s house, and that every third person is an abductor. To hear some people tell it, making your kids go outside in the summer without air conditioning is akin to child abuse. So parents opt to keep their kids safely coddled inside the house, and reserve their movement for sport coaches and adult-supervised play places.

Rather than create children’s conditioning plans, I recommended that the Pop Warner coach organize community free play times, where coaches and parents show up with a Frisbee, a ball, and a field, and let the kids go. They’ll figure it out. They might even scrape their knees playing king of the hill. Don’t interfere! It’s all good training. My high school athletes play weekly, and I build it into our training programs. Football is a violent form of tag, so we emphasize tag variations. We do relay races with fireman’s carries, bear crawls, cartwheels, and wheelbarrow runs. Let them be kids. Let them be human. Let them go play, and the conditioning largely takes care of itself.

Build Better Human Beings

The bigger issue in youth sports is in the over-pageantry and removal of values. We have a “what’s in it for me?” culture, which is destroying education and all human development arenas. It’s damaging to individuals, and society at large. We emphasize instant gratification and the immediate outcome, and obsess over how cool we look. If the kids aren’t doing it, the parents do it for them, badgering coaches and educators about why their kid isn’t getting special treatment.

The values of sport include delayed gratification, teamwork, and contribution. People thrive when they focus on process adding real value. We must praise and affirm values that will bring contribution and fulfillment. For Pop Warner, or any youth athletics organization to really make a positive impact, development of character must be as important as athleticism.

This should be what you market to parents. Many of them are looking for it. Leave the names off the back of the jerseys, skip the participation trophies, and stop it with the third-grade all-star teams. Decisions must be made based on values and from the perspective of human development, not propping our kids up like a professional sports franchise just to say we’ve given them more.

What Are We Preparing Them For?

The great irony in all this is that this same culture that is causing our kids to be so out of shape they can’t play little league sports without conditioning is pushing sedentary middle school and high school athletes into overspecialization and a nightly barrage of skills coaching (and then we wonder why they suffer overuse injuries). Parents believe that their kid deserves all the best coaching money can buy, even at the cost of academics. They’ll spend the equivalent of a year’s tuition annually to different “experts.”

The vast majority of our kids will be done with competitive athletics by age 22. What then? Are they ready for post-athletic life? Will they look back on athletics as a place where they learned invaluable lessons and had a great time, or was it eternal drudgery that convinced them they were god’s gift to the world, only to leave them forgotten and crashing back to reality. The only antidote to entitlement and extremism is for our parents and developmental institutions to doggedly stand up against this insanity. We have to be willing to ruffle some feathers.

We want so badly to give our kids the good life, that we forget the good life is only possible through struggle, growth, and maturation. The whole point is to create a values-driven, growth-oriented, contributing, autonomous member of society. Providing and protecting are roles, especially early in a child’s development. But they must be balanced by a willingness to let them experience difficulties and setbacks.

The complete lack of physical and nutrition literacy is the source of some of our biggest problems today. This lack of education enables our culture of youth exploitation. We think getting tired is training, and more is better, so we force our kids into hours of private coaching, and perpetuate a world where kids don’t play enough to develop athletically or personally, yet compete constantly. Parents spend thousands of dollars to burn their kids out, while refusing to spend a few dollars more per week to provide nutritious food or education that awakens the child to a desire for deep growth. The answer to these problems isn’t a clever conditioning program; it’s a shift in the culture.

The post Can We Turn Couch Potato Kids into Athletes? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Years ago, Dan John wrote a very good article on accumulation and intensification. He defines accumulation as, “actively seeking and learning new sports, lifts, moves, ideas, and games.” Intensification, he defines as, “doing what you say you need to do.”

Intensification should be the primary focus of any person after the age of 18. You have a goal to lose 15lbs of fat? Great. Stick to your diet and make sure to exercise consistently. On the other hand, accumulation should be the primary focus of any person under the age of 18.

Why Youth Need to Accumulate

Youth today are missing the knowledge, body awareness, control, and strength to perform basic human movements. There are numerous reasons for this, but the result is that most kids don’t have the strength to do a proper push up or pull up, and don’t know the difference between a squat and a hinge.

The goal of a trainer or physical educator should be to pass on this transferrable knowledge that is useful for a lifetime; something kids can take with them beyond high school and use as adults.

How to Teach Accumulation to Youth

We need to set up a plan, a month by month schedule on systematically teaching the youth.

Let’s use a school year as a template:

August and September: 

• HKC movements: goblet squat, swing, get up
• Bodyweight movements: push up, pull up
• Loaded carries: farmer’s carry, suitcase carry
• Groundwork and tumbling
• Flexibility and mobility for the hamstrings, hips, biceps, and pecs

October and November: 

• RKC movements: single arm clean, single arm overhead press, snatch, double KB front squat
• Barbell movements: back squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press
• Loaded carries: single arm rack carry, single arm overhead carry

December: 

• Review

January and February: 

• Barbell movements: clean and jerk, snatch
• Bodyweight movements: L-Sit to handstand, front lever

March and April:

• Barbell and kettlebell complexes
• Assessing and programming for the future

May: 

• Review

The Goal Is Not Elite Youth, But Healthy Adults

This is by no means a perfect plan, but can serve as a template of how to systematically teach youth a wide range of strength training movements. The goal is not specifically to create elite-level lifters, but to prepare them for the future by helping them accumulate as many skills as possible.

Whenever you get lost, always come back to our mission as trainers, coaches, and parents of the youth. That mission is to give our youth as many tools and skills as possible, so they are prepared to live active, healthy lives as adults.

Don’t have an advanced facility to train your kids? No problem:

Chasing Rabbits to the NFL: Lessons from Muck City

Headline photo credit: Craig on Flickr | CC BY 2.0

The post A Lesson Plan for the Youth Athlete appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

More Work Isn’t Better Work

The foundation of this business model is the simple fallacy “If I do more, I’ll be better.” “Trainers” and “coaches” swoop in, eager to point out that if the athlete is unwilling to put the work in (i.e., pay them), other more committed athletes will pass them by and get noticed by recruiters. It takes a mature parent to see the truth. In many circumstances we’re paying extra money only to break our athletes down and make them worse. Here are a few of the examples I’ve encountered with athletes I train:

• Volleyball clubs have moved their start date up to one month into the high school season. High school teams practice Monday through Friday, with games Tuesday and Friday. Club practice is also twice a week with long tournaments every weekend. Homework, sleep, the impact of repetitive jumping and landing or elbow pain are all irrelevant to many coaches. Their primary concern is their business, so they tell parents, “If your daughter wants to get recruited she needs to play for me like these other girls did.”
• Baseball pitchers who have been pitching a few days a week from January through August are coming into September to pitch in fall leagues and weekly showcases. After pitching hundreds of competitive innings, they are forced to pitch all out for recruiters and their radar guns. These pitchers are confused when I bring up an arm maintenance plan. Two words: Tommy John.
• My football program is the most advanced and intense I train. Everything is considered from relative intensity to neck strength to which days we use a single leg lateral, linear, or vertical movement. Recently, one of our most talented players was going to some guy’s house to get “extra work.” This young man works very hard in our program. He also is within his track season. This third-party trainer didn’t make any attempt to see what program the athlete was already following. Instead, he ran my athlete through a battery of KB squat swings (whatever those are), tire flips, sledge hammer slams, and battle ropes until my eager young athlete was on the verge of losing his lunch. The trainer claims to be an expert in “functional strength,” but as a result of his training, my athlete has lost ten pounds he couldn’t afford to lose.

If more than one person is coaching or training your child, are they working together? [Photo credit: Pixabay]

Nothing about these examples are in the athletes’ best interest. I’ve never received an email from a trainer asking me to send a copy of my program and yearly periodization breakdown. These “trainers” may not know they’re making the athlete worse and more prone to injury. It goes back to the most basic tenant of training: General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which means to apply an appropriate degree of stress on the body and then give the body time to rest and recover and it will be stronger. Inadequate recovery or over-training will lead to exhaustion and body breakdown.

This is why schools must hire qualified strength and conditioning coaches. If the coaches do too many things wrong, they will severely limit their athlete’s development, or worse. There is only so much adaptation available to the body, especially with limited sleep and poor nutrition. What work is done and when and how it’s done must be monitored. Extra work not aligned with the program philosophy will only take away from any past training. With a good plan, athletes are less likely to be injured and will be stronger, more powerful, and faster.

Let Kids Play, Whether They’re Going Pro or Not

Our screen-dominated society has created a generation of kids who are less athletic and have a far less-developed general skill set. This leads to more injuries and a lower ceiling for athletic development. No matter their technical skill, athletes can only get so much out of a body that does not know how to move correctly. Our kids can’t skip, but they are seeing pitching coaches three days a week from age 10. They can’t bear crawl, or do a push-up, but they play volleyball 6 days a week, 10 months a year. A culture that has de-emphasized general physical development and our intense focus on early specialization is a recipe for a burnt out kid whose future is littered with injuries.

John Smoltz used his hall of fame induction speech as a plea to parents to stop early specialization and year-round one sport play. His message: Let kids experience sports for the joy of experiencing sports-let them play. This philosophy will make them better athletes with a greater likelihood of reaching the “next level.” Of the nearly 300 athletes taken in the 2015 NFL draft, nearly 90 percent were multi-sport high school athletes. An ESPN poll of more than 128 current and former NFL quarterbacks found that 122 were multisport high school athletes and 70 percent played 3 or more sports.

And it’s not just football. The world-dominating U.S. women’s soccer team was polled and found to have competitively played more than 14 other sports on their way to soccer stardom. Amy Wambach credits her legendary ability to box out and go up for headers to her time playing high school basketball. Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin built a college World Series champion program from the ground up. He believes playing multiple high school sports is one of the best things high school baseball players can do to develop athleticism, avoid injury, and bring a likeable personality to the clubhouse, and he recruits accordingly.

PARENTS MUST ARM THEMSELVES WITH INFORMATION AND BE THE MATURE PRESENCE THAT LOOKS OUT FOR THEIR KID’S BEST INTEREST. 

A parent’s job is not to get their student a Division 1 scholarship or minor league tryout. Parents are not sports agents. Yet far too many make a full-time job of ensuring that all their son or daughter’s free time is spent with private lessons, club practices, and training camps. The question that must be asked is: What is actually important when raising this generation?

Many parents and athletes are simply not in touch with reality. The vast majority of athletes will be done with their competitive athletic careers by age 18. Even if they play in college, after four years they’ll have to get a job. What have you done to prepare them for that transition? Will they look back at their athletic careers as a time of amazing friendships, life lessons, and a foundation for a future of joy in physical activity? Or was it eternal drudgery and battling with injuries? Honestly, their perception and preparation for life is mostly up to you.

If your kid’s annual program consists of football, football, and football, you aren’t helping them. [Photo credit: Pixabay]

Take Care of the Basics Before Shopping for Extras

Before you’re tempted to pay for all the extras for your athlete, make sure you’re meeting their basic needs. Students need eight hours of sleep and three solid meals a day with nutritious snacks in between. These two things will make far more impact to their athletic performance and happiness in life than another training camp. Families should have meals together at least a few days a week. Few things are more essential to the social, moral, and educational development of your child.

If the basics are covered and you want to move forward with paying an outside trainer or skills coach, ask prospective trainers how they will work in congruence with the work your son or daughter is already doing. Ask them if they will contact the sport coach to see what is being done each day. If they appear disinterested, or tell you this isn’t important, walk away. Fast. They want your money and nothing else. A good trainer will never put athletes at risk just to make a sale.

An effective training session does not drain the athlete of everything in their tank. Instead, it seeks to stimulate a targeted adaptation while ensuring the athlete is better for the next training session or performance. If your son or daughter is an eighth grader and their first day with a trainer is not teaching relevant skills and instead features a gauntlet of tire flips, it’s time to fire that dude, and quick.

Don’t Pay Extra to Make Your Kids Worse

The culture of showcases and year-round leagues may be a tougher nut to crack. It’s time colleges honestly examine these organizations and determine whether they are good or bad for our youth. I encourage colleges to collectively boycott showcases and recruiting from select leagues at certain times of year. Showcases are only of any interest to the smaller, less competitive leagues. College recruiters are good enough at their jobs to find talent without these operations.

It’s time we push back against the industry that has developed around youth sports, which so often strips athletes of their passion and parents of their dollars. We need mature, ethical, qualified people in the lives of our youth. More is not always better. Please help your athletes find balance and joy in their athletic development and please do not pay to make your athlete worse.

What is the message we’re sending our kids through physical training?

What Your Kid Needs to Know About Exercise

The post The Exploitation of Youth Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Adults often complain that younger generations are entitled; that they lack resilience and independence, and are apathetic about world affairs. All these are very real concerns, but they are not the fault of the kids. If these traits are generational, they are consequences of a culture we bring children into through parenting trends, teaching methods, or exposure to pop culture.

But before I lose you in a yawn about how “in my day, things were different,” let me get to the point: the weight room is a microcosm of life. A lifting program taught to youth with proper implementation may be the most valuable education students ever get. Lifting teaches lessons that permeate all life. Here are five I’ve noticed working with the younger generation.

There are unlimited lessons to be gleaned from your time spent sweating with plates and bars.

1. Humility

Nothing is more humbling than your first day working with a good strength coach. Whether it’s uncovering a host of mobility needs or realizing that there is a correct way to squat, honest self-evaluation is the first step in any program and it is essential in life.

In the mind of every 8-year-old boy is a dream of going to the NFL. Dreams are fantastic, but at a certain point they must be tempered with reality to uncover the candid truth about the steps needed to chase down those dreams. You cannot hide from the truth in the weight room. Can I lift this weight? Is he squatting more than me? Can I broad jump my height? The feedback is undeniable and immediate.

2. The Need for Honest Feedback and Goals

Clear standards and feedback are essential for development. However, kids today are shielded from honest criticism. Youth rec soccer leagues hand out trophies to every team, even to those who didn’t win a single game all season. Many leagues even advocate not keeping score.

Teaching kids to enjoy the game and maintain self-esteem is well-intended. But removing comparison from sport deprives them of the amazing life lessons of how to compete, how to persist through frustration, and most importantly, how to lose and win with grace. In one of life’s many paradoxical truths, learning humility is a prerequisite to feeling pride and accomplishment.

Many youth are petrified of failure because they have never been allowed to experience it. Self-esteem is vital, but it can’t be created from handouts. Confidence is a byproduct of the hard work it takes to achieve goals. Self-esteem is the result of evaluating yourself against your peers or your former self and feeling good about the comparison.

Competition is not a curse word. With the right priorities, competition is the fuel that has propelled nearly every great accomplishment. The weight room offers a structured environment for competition to flourish. The competition may not always seem fair, but fairness is an illusion that holds you back. There are no victims in the weight room, just people trying to be better today than they were yesterday.

3. Patience

Every athlete plateaus. Six months into a program, the impressive leaps in strength and power that you were making slow down or stall completely. No matter how hard you work, these plateaus will be a constant presence throughout your training career. Even harder is watching others continue to make gains while you’re stalled out.

To survive these times, you must learn to break your goals into small steps and focus on the process of reaching each one. These incremental wins eventually stack up through persistence and consistency.

If a 315lb deadlift is eluding you, loading 315lb on the bar and pulling with all of your might day-in and day-out won’t make the bar leave the ground. You need to take a step back, re-evaluate your form, tempo, assistance work, nutrition, sleep, and other variables to come up with a plan to attack your goal. It may take time, but if you focus on the process and remain patient, success is likely.

The goals you set in the weight room will require patience and tenacity to achieve.

4. Persistence and Toughness

There will be days when the weight room is the last place you want to be, and yet you punch the clock because you’ve built good habits. You’ve learned to override the desire for instant gratification and gut through because you have clearly defined goals. That level of maturity is a beautiful consequence of time spent in the weight room. More often than not, your habits and support system will get you through the door, and sheer toughness will guide you through workouts.

The legendary marshmallow test proves that willpower is the greatest indicator of future vocational success. The days when you grind it out are the days where you are made. The ability to skip the easy route and delay gratification because you know what you want is the key to success in all areas of life.

5. Play

I tell my athletes that it’s not what you do, but how you do it that will separate you from the rest. Everything from form and tempo in training, to the spirit of play on the field can be seen as an opportunity for self-improvement. At the end of the day, athletics are games. The greatest progress in any endeavor comes from people who find the ability to play. 

Embracing the spirit of play is necessary for long-term success in the weight room. The same holds true for any career choice, parenting strategy, or home improvement project. Remember when building a fort was the coolest thing you could do? Let that spirit overflow into every area in your life. My wife and I just found a tetherball pole on Amazon for $40. Our friends make fun of us, but we don’t care.

Lifting Transforms More Than Just the Body

The high school team that I coach recently had a strength testing day. Their first time we did it, they carelessly rushed through sets and had no clue what weight was on the bar. For the next three months, we set expectations, worked off of percentages, and built confidence as we worked toward the next test.

When that day came, they were like a completely different team. Every athlete was focused on beating their previous test, and they not only knew what weight was on the bar, but also what their teammates were doing. Barbells were lowered with form, under control, and with great confidence as they attempted weights they had never tried before.

WWE great Triple H (Paul Levesque) once said, “The gym teaches you everything you need to know about life.” Truer words were never spoken. In a society where youth focus on little more than 140 characters and parents get lost in the rat-race, maybe it’s time we all take a second to get back to the fundamentals of life. What is essential? Maybe it’s the gym.

More Ways the Gym Trains the Mind:

• Stop Apologizing for Your Goals
• How Tough Is Your Mind?
• Is Perfectionism Holding Your Training Back?
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo 1 courtesy of The Training Hall.

Photo 2 courtesy of Cara Kobernik.

The post Life Lessons From the Weight Room appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Before you become outraged, hear me out. This article will identify appropriate reasons that your child may be sitting out, how to use sitting out to your child’s advantage, and when and how to speak to the coach about your child sitting out.

On the Bench

We have all heard the phrase that some coaches or leagues like to use, “If you pay, you play.” This may be the reason you chose your child’s coach or team, or it may be the reason you speak to the coach about your child sitting out.

The pay-and-play mantra may well be appropriate for those youth athletes starting out in a sport, for summer or weekend camps that introduce sports skills, or for clinics that emphasize certain skill sets. But this mindset is not appropriate when there is a noticeable difference in the playing abilities of athletes, when there is a glaring difference in sports specific skills between athletes, and when there is an obvious difference in the physical size and development of athletes.

“Benched or not benched, there is a time and place for a child to play, and a time and place for a child to sit.”

When is it appropriate for youth athletes to sit out? There are certain circumstances that warrant time on the bench:

• Switching teams or coaches. If your child has recently switched teams or coaches, then he or she may have to first prove his or her skill set. It may take a few practices or games before your child is getting his or her usual playing time.
• Your child may no longer be the star. Youth athletes develop at various rates, both physically and mentally. Even if your child was the star last year, that does not guarantee he or she will be the star this year.
• Attitude. Does your child have a good attitude toward the coaches, team, sport, referees, and other teams? If not, you can expect that the coach will pull your child, no matter how good of an athlete he or she is.
• Grades. Many coaches require their athletes to bring in their report cards. Some coaches, especially on travel teams, require the athlete to maintain a certain grade point average. If your child is not meeting those standards, then he or she may sit out until those standards are met.
• Unsportsmanlike behavior. With parents, teams, and coaches all fighting, the line has to be drawn. Bad sportsmanship is the fastest way to earn a spot on the bench, and rightfully so. Bad sportsmanship should not be tolerated. Ever.
• Missing games or practices. Does your child frequently miss games and practices? Does your child let the coach know? Missing an occasional practice or game for legitimate reasons is acceptable. Missing practices or games because your child wanted to go to a birthday party and forgot to let the coach know is not acceptable.

• When your child is injured or sick. It is the coach’s responsibility to sit an injured or sick child out of the game until he or she is fully recovered, no matter what the child or parent says. Case in point: As a strength and conditioning coach, I worked with a young baseball player who, after a four-day baseball tournament, was complaining of elbow pain. After the usual recommendations of seeing a doctor, resting, and icing, the child had a diagnosis – repetitive stress injury. The child was supposed to completely rest his arm for two weeks, and then get a reevaluation. Even with a doctor’s note stating the diagnosis and prescription, the father asked the pitching coach and me to continue working the child’s arms for strength. I did not train the child during this prescribed period of rest, but the pitching coach did. The result? A torn growth plate for the athlete with months of pain and rehabilitation.
• When your child’s abilities do not match the team’s or the opponent’s. When an athlete’s physical, mental, and athletic development is slower than the team’s, there is a good chance the athlete will be hurt. It is the coach’s responsibility to keep the child safe, and play him or her in positions or situations that will mitigate injury.
• When your child does not have a clear understanding of the game or strategy. Is your child new to the sport? Is your child a confident player? Some coaches will have the child observe the game for a short period of time before they play. Case in point: my youngest daughter started soccer at the age of eleven. She did not fully understand the rules and was the only one who had never played soccer before. The coach sat her out for most of the first game so she could watch. The assistant coach sat with her and explained the plays. Sitting out was appropriate. As my daughter gained more experience and understanding, she sat on the bench less and less.

How to Use Sitting Out to Your Child’s Advantage

As harsh as this sounds, there are some advantages to your child sitting out. You just have to look for them.

• Learning the game. As stated in the example above, newcomers may need to observe the rules and strategies of a sport to gain self-confidence and an understanding of the game before playing.
• Building a team. Every athlete needs to learn how to be a good teammate, through supporting the team and the coach. Additionally, when starters sit the bench, they can gain understanding and appreciation for their non-starter teammates.
• Fueling the fire. Sitting the bench may make the youth athlete work that much harder in practice and at home. It may give athletes the motivation, drive, and commitment needed to make them a starter.
• Reminders. As cited earlier, sitting out may be the result of misbehavior on the athlete’s part. Actions have consequences on and off the playing field. Sitting out might be the reminder the child needs to correct misbehaviors or to rise to the standards of the coach.

When to Talk to the Coach

While the coach has the ultimate say over a child playing or not, children and parents have rights, as well. If your athlete makes all the games and practices, yet still remains on the bench, it is time for the athlete to address the coach.

“The coach should be direct and answer the athlete with practice tips, while addressing areas to improve.”

A good way for your child to start the conversation is, “Coach, what can I do to improve my skills so that I can start playing in games?” The coach should be direct and answer the athlete with practice tips, while addressing areas to improve. If the child does as the coach has asked, yet still remains on the bench, it is time for the parent to address the coach.

Embracing Life Lessons

Benched or not benched, there is a time and place for a child to play, and a time and place for a child to sit. Just as youth athletes learn life lessons on the playing field, they can also learn life lessons on the bench, as long as they get their playing time in.

Read more about youth athletics:

• 3 Steps to Nip Youth Performance Anxiety in the Bud
• The Real and Present Danger of Overtraining Youth Athletes
• 5 Ways to Develop the Fighting Spirit in Youth Athletes
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Bob Howdeshell, “BENCHED,” Sports Parents. Accessed May 3, 2015.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Youth Athletes on the Bench: It’s Not Always a Bad Thing appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This article will define repetitive stress injuries, discuss their causes, address the means to prevent these injuries, and identify the common types of repetitive stress injuries.

Stress Injuries, Defined

Repetitive stress injuries (RSIs) occur when too much stress is repeatedly placed on a part of the body, resulting in inflammation, muscle strain, or tissue damage. RSIs are also referred to as overuse injuries, and can include over one hundred different kinds of injuries and illnesses that can vary in severity.

Previously thought to only be an adult injury, repetitive stress injuries are on the rise for youth athletes. But, unlike adult repetitive stress injuries, youth RSIs are usually associated with sports-related activity. According to The Journal of Athletic Training, overuse injuries in youth are a significant healthcare concern, with fifty percent of pediatric patients admitted to sports medicine clinics for chronic injuries.

“RSIs occur gradually, when a repetitive motion is repeated so often that the body does not have enough time to heal between playing.”

RSIs occur gradually, when a repetitive motion is repeated so often that the body does not have enough time to heal between playing. Overuse injuries can affect muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and growth plates. For adolescent athletes, overuse injuries most often occur at the growth plates, which are the areas of developing cartilage where bone growth occurs.

The growth plates are weaker than nearby ligaments and tendons, so repetitive stress can lead to injury of the growth plate. The areas most affected by RSIs are the elbows, shoulders, knees, and heels, all of which contain growth plates. While overuse injuries can occur in any sport, some RSIs are more common in certain sports. One of the more common known overuse injuries for baseball players is Little League elbow, which is caused by a repetitive throwing motion.

The Cause of RSIs

The Journal of Athletic Training states that an estimated fifty percent of overuse injuries in physically active children and adolescents are preventable, if people were only aware of the causes. There are several commonly recognized causes of RSIs, and it is essential that coaches, trainers, parents, and athletes are aware of these.

One of easiest preventable causes of RSIs is using the wrong equipment for the sport or using equipment that does not fit properly. As discussed earlier, adolescent athletes seem to be the most susceptible to RSIs, largely due to adolescent growth spurts. Therefore, equipment needs to be checked regularly, to determine if it is in good condition and if the equipment still fits properly.

“The areas most affected by RSIs are the elbows, shoulders, knees, and heels, all of which contain growth plates.”

Poor nutrition can also lead to RSIs, and conversely, good nutrition plays a pivotal role in preventing RSIs. Proper nutrition is essential for developing strong bones and muscles, for the repair and recovery of muscles, and for providing fuel for athletic performance.

In addition, coaches and trainers need to be aware of RSIs due to training errors (quick jumps in intensity or increases in weights) and/or excessive training. Coaches need to be exceedingly aware of poor mechanics – these are the leading cause of RSIs. Improper mechanics and techniques can put pressure on tendons, bones, and joints, and when done repeatedly, can lead to a variety of overuse injuries.

The Types Of Injury

According to Dr. Mary L. Gavin of Kids Health, there are several common types of overuse injuries:

• Sever’s disease is one of most common causes of heel pain in youth athletes and often occurs during adolescent growth spurts.
• Bursitis is inflammation of the bursa, which is a fluid-filled sac that acts as a cushion for a joint.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome is swelling that occurs inside a narrow “tunnel” formed by the bone and ligament in the wrist.
• Epicondylitis is a condition characterized by pain and swelling where the bones join at the elbow.
• Osgood-Schlatter disease is a common cause of knee pain in teens undergoing a growth spurt, causing inflammation where the tendon from the kneecap attaches to the shinbone.
• Patellofemoral syndrome is a softening or breaking down of kneecap cartilage.
• Shin splints are pains along the shin or front of the lower leg.
• Stress fractures are tiny cracks in the bone’s surface caused by rhythmic, repetitive overloading.
• Tendonitis is the tearing and inflammation that occurs in the tendons.

The Prevention of RSIs

Yes, RSIs can be prevented. While the coach or trainer is responsible for the conduct of practices and games, the parent and the athlete also have a responsibility to help prevent overuse injuries. Dr. Gavin offered these suggestions to young athletes:

• Before any sports season, have a physical examination and address any issues or concerns with your doctor.
• Always warm up and cool down with appropriate stretching exercises.
• Wear the proper clothing and equipment for your sport, including safety gear.
• Make sure equipment fits properly and is used correctly.
• Drink water before, during, and after your workouts.
• Vary your day-to-day activities, rather than doing the same activity every day.
• If you are experiencing symptoms such as pain, swelling, numbness, or stiffness, stop and seek medical attention.

So, What’s the Good News?

There is good news. While RSIs can be serious, the risks of these injuries can also be greatly decreased for youth athletes. It is the responsibility of all – coaches, trainers, parents, and athletes – to recognize the causes of RSIs, take measures to help prevent them, and accept responsibility for their prevention, so that youth overuse injuries can be drastically reduced.

Read more on youth and development:

• More Than Just A Funny Bone: Preventing Growth Plate Injury
• Severs Disease: The Pain of Adolescent Growth Spurts
• 7 Reasons Youth Athletes Need to Strength Train
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. “How are Overuse Injuries Different than Other Injuries?” Stopsportsinjuries.org, Rosemont, IL. Accessed 5 April 2015.

2. “National Athletic Trainers’ Association Position Statement: Prevention of Pediatric Overuse Injuries,” Tamara C. Valovich McLeod, et al.  Journal of Athletic Train. 2011 Mar-Apr; 46(2): 206–220. doi:10.4085/1062-6050-46.2.206. Accessed 5 April 2015.

3. “Overuse Injuries in Children,” Reviewed by members of POSNA (Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America). December 2012. Accessed 5 April 2015.

4. “Repetitive Stress Injuries,” Reviewed by Mary L. Gavin. Jan 2014. Accessed on 6 April 2015.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Preventing Repetitive Stress Injuries In Youth Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Fighting spirit can overcome economic backgrounds, educational deficiencies, and even physical and mental limitations. But, how do we develop fighting spirit? Before looking at five great strategies to build fighting spirit in children, I’m going to give you an example of why it is important.

Identifying the Despair

In one of my first judo tournaments in Japan, I had the chance to observe the children’s divisions, which were organized by club rather than school teams.

One team in particular stood out. The players had beautiful technique. A throw executed by one of them was almost an assured ippon victory. But as I watched, I noticed a disturbing trend. If a match went longer than a minute or two, the players from this club routinely lost. It wasn’t a matter of conditioning. I knew the players were in good shape. It was a lack of fighting spirit.

“Fighting spirit is an essential strength we need to develop in our children, not just for their lives in sport, but for their lives in general.”

Despite cheering coaches and an initially aggressive attitude, if the player couldn’t win quickly, despair set in. You could almost read their minds. “Why is this guy still standing here? I’ve hit him with the best I have, and I haven’t won. Why can’t I win? I can’t win.”

From the instant that look came over a player’s face, I knew the match would change. More than once I leaned over to my friend and said, “This kid is going to lose. He’s done for.”

The rest of the match followed a predictable pattern. The once-confident player became extremely defensive, trying every trick in the book to delay, stall, and hang on rather than to win. When asked how I could predict so many losses on players who were at the time dominating their matches, I simply explained the players from that club lacked fighting spirit.

5 Ways to Build Fighting Spirit

Fighting spirit is a strength that means more than just the willingness to engage in adversarial combat. That’s bullying and belligerence. It’s more than perseverance, as mere perseverance can mean taking a beating without ever trying to succeed or improve.

Fighting spirit is an essential strength we need to develop in our children, not just for their lives in sport, but for their lives in general. Here are five tools you can use to build it.

1. Set High Expectations

Les Brown, a famous motivational speaker, repeatedly says in his speeches, “Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.”

Expect the most out of your children, and help them expect the most out of themselves. I’ve seen children who perform in school years above their grade level. I’ve seen kids who can lift weights adults deem impossible. All this merely because the child expects he or she can. Have high expectations for your kids, and even if they miss, they can end up at a higher level than if you keep your expectations low.

2. Let Them Fail Sometimes

Losing sucks, every adult knows that. Because of that, certain groups advocate encouraging self-esteem and the concept of “losing” has been removed from many areas of a child’s life. Soccer and baseball games no longer keep score, and some schools no longer grade tests. These challenges of little consequence are removed, all in the name of promoting children’s self-worth. The result of this is that when life does deliver challenges that do have consequences, the child’s mental muscles aren’t ready for the strain.

“For now, encourage children to pursue their dreams with all their heart.”

Let your kids get familiar with the strain needed for true success, and if they fail sometimes, so be it. Let them learn from loss and develop the skill set that comes with critical evaluation of performance. Let them learn how to come back from a loss and to know the self-esteem that comes from true achievement, not false puffery.

3. Encourage the Dream

Currently, my son has a dream. When he gets older (maybe ten, maybe 100, he’s not sure), he wants to be a firefighter who also drives an excavator, while moonlighting as Batman, and becoming the strongest man in the world (watch out Hafthor Bjornson).

The realistic adult in me wants to say his dream is impossible. But, I also realize this sort of dreaming represents him setting a high goal for himself. Sure, the odds of him becoming the strongest man in the world are roughly one in seven billion. Sure, Batman exists only in comic books and on film. But, who knows what he could become?

Don’t worry about counting the cost now. There will be time enough for that later. For now, encourage children to pursue their dreams with all their heart.

4. Encourage a +1 Mentality

While my son may have dreams of being strong and I expect big things of him, I also know that handing him an Atlas stone and telling him to lift it now would be useless. On the other hand, challenging him to lift one more kilogram than last time or to try one more new word than before in his schoolwork lets him feel the challenge is within reach.

“Gains are gained through effort – hard effort.“

For whatever it is for your children, encourage them to be a tiny bit better than they were before. The accumulation of these constant small increases, regardless of the area of study, will lead to huge gains in the long term.

5. Recognize Effort, Not Results

Gains are gained through effort – hard effort. This is true whether we’re talking about the back squat, math, or how to cook a perfect steak. If your child tries with all he or she has, regardless of the result, give him or her a hug. Let your children know you are proud of their efforts.

At the same time, if your child didn’t try, then note it. Let him or her know that you expect better next time. Without putting your child down, encourage him or to try harder next time. Encourage your children to analyze what went wrong and consider how they can prevent it from happening again.

Spirit Is Crucial

In a perfect world, fighting spirit might not be necessary. In the real world, fighting spirit is needed to be successful. Even if your goal is to make the world a utopia, you must have fighting spirit to shape the world to your will. Nobody stumbles their way into a perfect life without effort, regardless of the anecdotes you may read.

Encourage your children to develop their own fighting spirit, to grow their mental muscle. Hopefully, their strength and spirit will make them as successful as they could ever want.

Read more about youth athletes:

• 3 Steps to Nip Youth Performance Anxiety in the Bud
• Foundational Training for Youth Athletes
• Biological Versus Chronological Age in Youth Sports
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Adolescent Growth Spurts (AGS)

According to the book Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity, published by Georgetown University, a temporary decline in coordination and balance may occur during puberty because of rapid growth. In many cases, this decline is not only demonstrated through sports performance, but also in regular physical activity. This experience can be frustrating for coaches, trainers, youth athletes, and parents, particularly if this decrease in athleticism is interpreted as a lack of skill or effort.

“Based on sports fundamentals, AGS training should focus on movement-based strength, overall fitness, speed and agility, plyometric work, and instilling confidence.”

Knowing that adolescent growth spurts (AGS) and the accompanying athletic awkwardness are normal in this phase of puberty does not make it any easier for the youth athlete. As well as physically affecting sports performance, AGS can also affect athletes socially and mentally. It can also have detrimental effects on core strength, postural control, and performance – including skill, speed, coordination, and agility – as athletes struggle to adjust to their rapidly growing and changing bodies.

Youth athletes need to know they are not alone in experiencing a lack of coordination and balance during and after growth spurts. In her article, Hockey Training During the Adolescent Growth Spurt, Kelly Anton explains:

At their fastest, boys grow by four inches a year and girls by two-and-a-half inches a year. As height increases, the center of gravity lifts. This happens so quickly that the brain does not get a chance to calculate the new rules for balance. On average, boys grow fastest between 14 and 15 and girls grow fastest between 12 and 13. Girls finish their growth spurt at 18 while boys need another two years before they finish growing at about 20.

Adolescent coaches and trainers recognize the physical changes that occur during AGS can decrease overall skills, speed, coordination, and agility. Coaches, trainers, parents, and athletes must also be aware of the athlete’s susceptibility to training injuries, especially during and after AGS.

How to Deal With AGS

The good news is that coaches and trainers who are aware of AGS can help alleviate and reduce athletic awkwardness by incorporating specific aspects of training into practices and training sessions. The Soccer Speed & Agility Clinic ebook, published by the Soccer Fit Academy, addresses these particulars of training. Although this book is geared specifically to soccer players, the common-sense approach of training through AGS is applicable to youth athletes of every sport.

Based on sports fundamentals, AGS training should focus on the following five factors:

1. Movement-based strength
2. Overall fitness
3. Speed and agility
4. Plyometric work
5. Confidence

It is important to note that while AGS is considered phased training, the fundamentals may be used separately or may be merged. The emphasis in AGS training, as opposed to a regular training session, is that particular attention is paid to the execution of proper biomechanics through all aspects of training for a growing athlete.

Progressing from this point, coaches and trainers can start to increase the load and intensity of the drills as athletes become stronger and more confident in the movements.

1. Movement-Based Strength

Beginning with movement-based strength, coaches and trainers should look at the basic movements of the specific sport. Across the board, most movements will center on running, squatting, jumping, lunging, pivoting, and rotating. The object in this phase of training is to make these movements more rhythmic in nature through repetition, through recruiting correct movement patterns, and through building confidence in movement strength.

After these movement patterns are mastered, speed is added, with specific attention paid to performing drills without losing form. Progressing from this point, coaches and trainers can start to increase the load and intensity of the drills as athletes become stronger and more confident in the movements.

RELATED: Foundational Training for Youth Athletes: Are You Doing It?

2. Overall Fitness

The second phase of AGS training is overall fitness, which is defined as the level of play that allows an athlete to perform optimally. Pre-season conditioning is largely responsible for the overall fitness of an athlete, the focus of which should be optimal athletic performance late in the game and late in the season. In addition, fitness largely contributes to decreasing sports injuries.

3. Speed and Agility

In off-season training, building a strong speed and agility base follows closely with the first two goals of training through AGS. As athletes progress through growth spurts, they must relearn how to control their bodies in direction changes, changes of pace, and acceleration situations. They must relearn their balance points and readjust their center of gravity. Again, stressing the repetition of correct movement patterns, with a gradual increase of speed and intensity, is key to developing speed during and after AGS.

“The athlete must believe in his or her training, his or her abilities and skills, and his or her past experiences in order to prepare for and perform well in an event.”

4. Plyometrics

Plyometric exercises are the final physical phase of AGS training. As discussed earlier, this area can be merged into other areas of training, especially with strength training, to help develop explosive strength, speed, and agility.

5. Confidence

Confidence is taught and worked on throughout all phases of AGS training. The athlete must have confidence in the hours spent mentally and physically preparing for the event – the repetitions, the workouts, and the coaching.The athlete must believe in his or her training, his or her abilities and skills, and his or her past experiences in order to prepare for and perform well in an event.

Take Time to Work the Basics

Speed and agility, as well as other sports skills, don’t just reappear after growth has slowed or stopped. That means coaches and trainers must understand how to retrain athletes in their movement patterns. To do this, the training program must emphasize movement, rhythm, and coordination over strength, fitness, and power.

RELATED: 5-Phase Adolescent Strength Program for Creating Good Movers

This is not to say that strength, fitness, and power are not important. They are absolutely essential to an athlete’s optimal performance, but in relation to sports performance and AGS, they must come after the athlete’s mastery of movement, rhythm, and coordination.

By implementing a training program that accommodates AGS, coaches and trainers can alleviate coordination and balance issues, decrease athletic awkwardness and injuries, and help young athletes reach optimal performance levels.

References:

1. Georgetown University. Bright Futures in Practice: Physical Activity, 2001. Accessed 10/19/14.

2. Anton, Kelly. “Hockey Training During the Adolescent Growth Spurt.” Accessed 10/19/14.

3. Soccer Fit Academy. Soccer Speed & Agility Clinic eBook. Accessed 10/16/14.

4. Bright Futures at Georgetown University. Physical Activity Developmental Chapters: Middle Childhood.Accessed 10/19/14.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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The Truth About Youth Athletes and PEDs

The youth sports population is often overlooked when discussing performance-enhancing drugs, but it should not be. According to studies conducted by clinical pediatricians, four to twelve percent of high school boys and three percent of high school girls have tried some form of performance enhancing drug (PED). Those statistics continue to rise every year. Of the several varieties of PED, growth hormone (GH) doping is becoming increasingly popular, and unfortunately, more readily available to youth.

What Growth Hormone Is and Does

GH is a naturally occurring hormone, also known as human growth hormone or somatotropin. It is a protein produced by the anterior pituitary gland and secreted into the bloodstream. It is produced in response to chemical messages sent from the hypothalamus of the brain, to which the pituitary gland is attached.

Released during sleep, growth hormone is essential in the stimulation, growth, and repair of muscles and tissues, building bone, burning fat, and aiding in the body’s repair and recovery. Also considered a stress hormone, GH encourages the production of cortisol, the primary 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. As expected from its name, GH rises during childhood, peaks during puberty, and begins to decline during middle age.

Growth hormone is essential in the healthy development of a young athlete. But, GH is much more complex than that. GH is produced in bursts, as needed in accordance with the athlete’s activity level, trauma sustained (as in recovery and repair of muscles and tissues), and the growth rate of the athlete’s bones and cartilage. The production of GH during childhood and puberty leads to significant increases in muscle mass, and subsequently, significant decreases in body fat composition. As well, the production of GH boosts protein production, increases energy levels and endurance levels, and aids the body in utilizing fat stores in the performance of activity.

The Emergence of GH Doping in Youth Athletes

With all the benefits of the naturally occurring human growth hormone, what is the controversy? Because youth sports have become so competitive, individual athletes are looking for ways to enhance their performance, to get physically fit quickly, and to separate themselves from their peers. Capitalizing directly on the benefits of the naturally occurring GH, a fairly new industry, growth hormone doping, has emerged.

Synthetic human growth hormone, also known as somatropin (not to be confused with the naturally occurring human growth hormone, somatotropin), was originally used for medical purposes and used primarily to treat growth disorders. As the benefits of GH became widely publicized, a demand for a synthetic version of the drug – also referred to as rhGH, hGH, or HGH – was created. Originally marketed directly to athletes, specifically baseball players, football players, weight lifters, and track and field competitors, the target field now encompasses athletes across the board, to include recreational athletes and young athletes.

Unfortunately, youth sports has seen and felt the effects of professional athletes using PED, and now growth hormone doping is becoming more common among youth athletes. Although banned by the International Olympics Committee and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the GH ban was not enforceable until early 2000 due to an inability to detect the hormone with previously available methods of testing. As the illegal use of rhGH continued to grow, blood tests were developed. And while tests are now more accurate in detecting the use of the synthetic hormone, this testing is still very controversial.

The Side Effects of GH Doping

While doses administered by medical personnel in a therapeutic setting are carefully monitored, doses administered by the individual athlete are not. With the thought that the more muscle building growth hormone used in the body, the better, athletes are increasing their doses to unsafe levels.

Parents, coaches, and trainers need to be aware of and be able to recognize the known side effects and signs of rhGH doping:

• Fluid retention
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Hypertension
• Abnormal bone growth (in hands and feet)
• Diabetes
• Edema
• Decreased life span
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Needle marks from injections
• Increased blood pressure

In addition to suffering from the side effects of synthetic growth hormone, young athletes must realize that the synthetic hormone, outside of medical purposes, is not approved or regulated by the FDA, therefore opening up the floodgates for illegal pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce and sell rhGH. Youth athletes, in particular, are targeted by illegal rhGH manufacturers and distributors. Enticed by lower prices, young athletes are turning to these alternate sellers, but not without great risk to themselves. Due to the cheaper prices of the synthetic hormone, rhGH is usually of a lower quality and may be mixed with other unknown and quite possibly other illegal substances.

While realizing the important role that the naturally occurring growth hormone plays in the development of young athletes, we must also recognize the dangers that the illegal use of this synthetic hormone can present to our young athletes. Through education, awareness, and a no-tolerance approach to performance-enhancing drugs, parents, coaches, and trainers can protect the young athletes and the integrity of youth sports.

References:

1. Baron, D. et al. “Doping in sports and its spread to at-risk populations: an international review.” World Psychiatry. Jun 2007; 6(2): 118–123.

2. Buzzini, S.R., “Abuse of Growth Hormone Among Young Athletes.” Pediatriatic Clinics of North America. 2007 Aug; 54(4):823-43.

3. Goodes, J. “Back to Basics:4 Ways Youth Athletes Can Increase Performance”. breakingmuscle.com. Accessed May 15, 2014.

4. Harvard Men’s Health Watch. “Growth Hormone, Athletic Performance, and Aging”. Accessed May 19, 2014.

5. Kutscher EC, Lund BC, Perry PJ. “Anabolic steroids: a review for the clinician.” Sports Medicine 2002; 32:285-296.

6. Rickert VI, Pawlak-Morello C, Sheppard V, & Jay MS., “Human growth hormone: a new Substance of abuse among adolescents?” Clinical Pediatrics 1992; 723-726.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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