Training our young athletes and children
This article is written for the teacher, coach or parent who is involved with young athletes (or non-athletes for that matter) on the elementary or high school level, and can also be applied to the young college athletes as well. It’s been my experience that most coaches and/or parents aren’t familiar with the current trends and research when it comes to conditioning their athletes, especially their young athletes. Many hours are wasted on ineffective training programs, and ineffective and potentially unsafe exercises that don’t really focus on what the athletes current needs really are. Their are many cookie cutter programs that are blindly applied to teams with no regard of individual needs or the age and experience of the athlete performing them. To just assign weights and reps and expect the athletes to just be able to perform the program as written is not a very effective way to go about it. There are many variables that need to be considered especially with the elementary and high school athletes.
In today’s world things are very different compared to when I was a child. These differences are having an enormous impact on our children, their activity level, their attention span, and their motivation. My wife and I volunteered at our local high school years ago to help out one of the sports teams. We were working with varsity level athletes and were quite surprised with what we found. The fitness levels and movement skill of these athletes was much lower than what we expected. The ability to perform a squat or pushup correctly wasn’t there. The ability to control their body and react wasn’t there. The power to explode from a position, the ability to change direction, to jump, or land correctly from a jump wasn’t there. There may have been a few athletes that were relatively solid but I’d estimate 90% of the athletes needed to improve on the most basic movements.
The numbers that I was hearing in regard to squat and bench press poundages being used were quite inflated. There was more of a focus on lifting as much weight as possible with much less concern on technique and control of the lift which is the absolute perfect recipe for injury, not to mention creating incorrect movement patterns which usually leads to …you guessed it, injury. Injury in a young athlete should be the number one concern and this can be addressed in the weight room through proper programing and exercise selection.
Now, I work mostly with adults who are looking to just improve their strength and health, but I have worked with quite a few high school athletes over the past 15 years. Unfortunately, it seems, the overall fitness levels of kids have progressively gotten worse as the years have gone by. The lack of general activity in our kids these days is astounding. More time is spent watching TV, sitting in front of a computer, or playing video games than ever before. Then the season starts and the kids are expected to just jump in and run 2 miles, bench 225, squat 315 in their first week. The following are a few things that I feel need to be addressed more than ever.
1) Coaches and parents need to think about an off season program to improve the general work capacity of our children not only for sport but more importantly for their overall health. There are way too many fat kids today. Children should not be fat, it’s that simple. Most people attribute it to the their “genes”. Well, their parents most likely weren’t overweight as children, and they didn’t become overweight because they were genetically predisposed. They’re predisposed because of all the crap they’re shoving in their mouth. As a child I distinctly remember only two children in my class of 30 being overweight and that was pretty much the average in all the classes back then. I’d go out on a limb today and say that it’s probably closer to a 50/50 split. We become fat because of bad choices that accumulate over a lifetime. Get those kids off their asses, away from the tv, and give them a plan, get them involved in a physical activity, it doesn’t have to be a school sport either. For those who are involved in a school sport, they should, at the bare minimum, have a 4 week exercise/conditioning program before the start of their season, 6 weeks being even better. The first 2-3 weeks should be focused on bringing up the weak areas, acclimating the body to the stresses, learning technique, and the last 3-4 could be more focused on increasing strength levels, and work capacity. Off season training programing is an entire article by itself so I’m not going to get into it here, maybe I’ll tackle that at a later date. I just wanted to state the importance of keeping our athletes/children active during the off season, during the summer, and especially during the preseason.
2) Too much weight on the bar - The second problem I see with most elementary and high school sport conditioning programs is too much focus on the amount of weight being lifted and not nearly enough on teaching these kids how to move and control their own bodies before adding external resistance. One of my favorite statements was made by Gray Cook who developed the Functional Movement Screen. He states “You can’t build fitness on dysfunction.” These young athletes can’t perform even the simplest most primitive moves correctly, yet coaches are throwing weight on their shoulders or in their hands. Learning the basics doesn’t take very long, but impatience is getting the best of our coaches and children. Everyone wants instant gratification in todays world of texting and email. Preventing injury and creating strong, agile athletes should be the goal. What is the point of measuring each child’s bench press preseason, and then not measuring it at any other point? What does that do? It doesn’t tell you if he is a good athlete or in better shape. I know plenty of guys who can bench press alot more than me who are completely uncoordinated and unhealthy. The only thing a strong bench press indicates is that the individual is a strong bench presser. Think about it, the best athletes on any team are usually the one’s that move the best, have the best agility and the greatest ability to control their bodies. Give an athlete control of his body, then he can use that control and apply that to strength. Don’t get me wrong, once an athlete can control his body and is proficient at bodyweight exercises, then they should be challenged with more resistance and a variety of exercises. However, this needs to be implemented in a progressive manner after the basics have been mastered. This is where the importance of proper exercise programing comes in.
3) Nutrition – kids eat horribly!! Parents and coaches need to be more involved in educating children about healthy food choices. This means parents and coaches need to learn as much as possible about healthy food choices. Combine lack of activity with poor food choices and you get what we have today…overweight unhealthy children and adults. We can’t leave this entirely up to the children, they need guidance and it needs to be made easier for them. If there is bad food in the house, kids are going to eat it. They are not going to go out and buy healthier food. The food choices that children have at school is another topic that absolutely drives me crazy! Having soda machines and vending machines in school is just plain stupid. The school lunch menus aren’t usually anything to brag about either…tater tots and ketchup are not adequate choices for vegetables!!! We are sabotaging our children, we are not making it easier for them. Our apathy is only making it more difficult for them in school, and at home. I’m not going to get into this too much because I understand school budgets and curriculum influence all the decisions made in schools on what kids eat and what classes are offered etc., but the fact that teaching “real health” to our children is not on top of the list is irresponsible at best. If you have ever been or are in a situation where your child’s health is compromised or at risk, I feel for you. I can’t imagine anything worse. If you have not ever been in that situation (thank god I have not), think about how you would feel if your child was severely ill? We have to do everything we can to keep our children and ourselves healthy. Nothing is guaranteed but we can certainly reduce the risks through our actions.