This article sparked some thoughts that I see on a daily basis.
Eric Cressey Random Thoughts on Youth Training
There are so many changes going on physically that what sometimes might seem like an athlete being leaps and bounds ahead of their peers is really them hitting a growth spurt earlier than their teammates.
Now, having a great program influence their growth along the way is fantastic, but like noted in the article, often times athletes eventually regress because they haven’t learned how to maintain their progress or they decide to do something drastically different than what got them the success in the first place. Thus there is a loss of training time that now has to be gained back. Good habits and routines are the foundation of success later on and should be trained at the early stages of life.
The part of Cressy’s article that we’ve begun showing all of our athletes is the MedBall section. Our coaches constantly get asked by athletes, “why can’t I use a heavier ball?”. We do a lot of MB throws, and we track how fast our athletes are throwing using the PUSH band, but if a 250lb professional athlete only needs to use an 8lb ball I am pretty sure our youth athletes don’t need to go heavier than a 6lb ball.
One of the best pieces of this article is that kids on the lower end 11-14 year old shouldn’t worry about getting as strong or as fast as possible. What they need to do is set up is a linear growth path. Their training should hammer the fundamentals of good movement and develop a baseline strength profile that leaves room for continued improvement.
In the end no one is going to pay a 13-year-old to play basketball and if you want to continue to play soccer well into your 30’s and 40’s then destroying your body early on certainly won’t help.
It can be really easy to set athletes up for success not only in their sport but also for later on in life when you have a plan. It can also get out of hand really fast when young athletes try to do everything at once when kids feel they are invincible. Good coaching leads athletes to learn important life lessons in training, endurance, and self-care. Contact me to find out more about what TSTRAINING SYSTEMS has to offer.
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