Intern Blog Posts Round 2:
Today's post comes from SAPT intern Dalton Barker.
Resistance training in children (for purposes of this article, let’s say 8-14 years old) has always been a tough subject to approach. I use the term “resistance training” to define a wide range of both body weight and external weight-bearing exercises. There are still remnants of old myths whispering to parents and trainers that warn them of the “dangers” when working with children in the gym setting.
One such myth is that resistance training in children will stunt their growth: the thought behind this was that their bones would compress and growth plates would not be able to align correctly. This has proved fairly effective in convincing the community that children should not train at all. Understandably, inexperienced children should not train as an elite or high-level athlete should. However, early resistance training and proper instruction of those movements can lead to a treasure trove of benefits. These benefits can include: better movement patterns, increased strength, flexibility, stronger bone growth, and increased athleticism in children. This primes them to excel in sports and everyday activities.
The early developmental years, when the brain is young and neural pathways are growing, are the most opportune time to properly ingrain movements such as the hip-hinge, the squat, and push-up that will soon become conditioned into the child's movement map. These basic movements help strengthen muscles and prime the child’s body for more complex and sport-specific exercises later on in their life. These exercises, when taught correctly will help the body program the right muscles to “fire” in the correct sequence, which in turn, helps improve overall force production of the body. Additionally, the child develops a better sense of body awareness. That alone will help them in all stages of their journey to adulthood as the children begin to enter sports or other activities. With this fundamental training, a child’s risk of injury while performing sports is greatly reduced and sets up a strong foundation for more complex movements in the future.
In regards to the “growth stunting” capabilities of resistance training: there is validity to the statement that resistance movement will cause a change in one’s bones. However, this is an adaptation of the body that will only positively benefit the one performing the resistance movements. Wolff’s Law states that the bones will adapt to loads under which it is placed. (Essentially, bones change in density according to what stresses we place on them). The more strain our bones are placed under, the denser it will become, ultimately strengthening the bone to withstand higher and higher force levels. Resistance training is the best way to produce those same results. Because the child is adding increased loads on their bones, the body responds by making the bones denser and stronger which is a huge benefit.
It should be stated however that this is all relative to the weight and ability of the child. This is not meant to approve the use of turning one’s child into a powerlifter or load their bodies with an absurd amounts of weight. Using poor judgement with training children will produce negative results and potentially cause injury. When using the proper programming however, which can be seen in 100% of SAPT’s workout programs, you will begin to see incredible results.
Ultimately there is no reason other than health issues,that a a child should not be exposed to and taught proper movement patterns and starting resistance training. There is a plethora of benefits and will provide the perfect framework for building a healthy and strong future athlete and adult.
Shoulder Injuries Among Firefighters and How to Prevent Them
This week the SAPT interns will be gracing our blog post. First up is Nora Mady. Take it away Nora! As someone who is just entering the world of fire and rescue, I continue to learn new things on a daily basis, as I become more involved. I recently joined the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department in hopes of becoming an EMT and providing basic healthcare to satisfy graduate school requirements. However, within a month of being a new recruit, I had my eyes set on a different goal: I wanted to become a volunteer firefighter. One of the first steps the county requires in the firefighting qualification process is to complete a test called the CPAT (candidate physical ability test) It is an 8-event test that challenges the basic physical abilities and movements that a firefighter must perform should they encounter a fire or emergency situation.
Click HERE for more information.
I distinctly remember someone telling me after I had passed CPAT, “Good job. Now keep working out and stay in shape. We don’t want you dislocating any shoulders in fire school.” Now, having already suffered a dislocated shoulder I began to worry. Did people who dislocated their shoulder just not move functionally? Or was the nature of fire school so brutal that only the lucky ones avoided injuries? I decided to do a bit of research on the topic and found that shoulder injuries are suffered by more firefighters than I originally thought.
Now, you may think the upcoming advice won’t apply to you unless you’re a firefighter, right? The shoulder joint is the most unstable joint in the body, and people from all walks of life suffer shoulder injuries and pain for various reasons. Whether you are a firefighter, a first responder, a public safety officer, an athlete, or someone who just wants healthy strong shoulders, these exercises will help you profoundly. Strengthening the muscles of your shoulder girdle and rotator cuff will help stabilize the joint and maintain integrity of what?. When the larger muscles take over for quick, powerful movements (deltoid, pec major, latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, etc.) your stabilizing muscles do not activate efficiently or quickly. I wouldn’t say that, I would stay that they are “over powered” but they’re on. This pattern slowly weakens those muscles over time, and combined with the load that is applied to the joint, makes it easier for them to suffer injuries, pulls, and tears.
Supraspinatus “Full cans"
While standing, and with no more than a 10-lb dumbbell in each hand (I use 4 or 5 pounds in each hand so that should tell you this is not the type of exercise to load up on) raise each arm out so that it is parallel to the ground and at 45 degree angles from your midline. Turn each hand laterally (to the outside)so that your thumbs are facing up and your palms are turned towards you. Slowly lower your arms down to your sides and raise them. Ensure that sure your hands are never higher than your shoulders. Do this for 20 reps (you can break them up into 2 sets of 10). This exercise isn’t supposed to exhaust you and shouldn’t be performed to failure. Your supraspinatus is a very tiny muscle that your prime movers can compensate for when you perform big heavy movements, so isolating it for rotator cuff strengthening purposes can be really helpful in injury prevention or for rehabilitation purposes.
This guy is performing the exercise prone, on a stability ball, as a variation.
External Rotations
External rotation (a movement at a joint that causes rotation or a limb or part of a limb around its long axis away from the midline of the body) is a movement that is generally a bit more vulnerable than other the shoulder movements . You can perform various exercises that elicit the same movement and work on your teres minor and your infraspinatus (the main external rotators of your shoulder). These exercises can be performed with bands as resistance, a cable pulley machine if you are at a recreational gym, or free weights, as you stand or lie on your side depending on your mode of resistance.Start with your upper arm aligned with your torso, your elbow bent at a 90 degree angle, and your forearm straight out in front of you. Now, with whatever means of resistance you chose to use (dumbbell, band, cable, etc.) internally rotate your forearm a bit so that it is closer to your midline. This will be your starting position, with your thumb facing upwards and the palms of your hands facing your midline. You should pull against the resistance away from your midline. Make sure that this exercise causes no pain, and if it does, stop immediately. You should feel a little burn because these tiny muscles can fatigue very easily. I would suggest sticking a towel between your ribs and your elbow so that you’re constantly aware of keeping it from falling, indirectly keeping your arm from deviating away from your midline.I would choose a weight or resistance level that allows you to perform 2-3 sets of 10 reps for each arm.
Things to Avoidin the Gym
Here are a couple of tips for the average gym-goer to protect their shoulders. Sometimes you need to give up looking really cool and tough in front of your friends at the gym so that you can be really cool and tough and pain free when it’s really important, like fighting fires and saving cats from trees.
Lateral and front deltoid raises: just stop doing them, at least with your palms facing down. This creates a really tight subacromial space (a very tiny pocket between the top of your shoulder and the head of your humerus), and that’s bad. It’s where all of your rotator cuff tendons hang out, and when you compress that space, you irritate them. This is a common cause of a lot of shoulder pain and discomfort. If you must do these exercises, I would recommend turning your hands so that your thumbs face the ceiling. This opens up that subacromial space and gives those tendons a little more room to wiggle. They will be happier, and in turn, so will you.
-Overhead exercises are great, but unless you are an Olympic weightlifterdoing super heavy overhead barbell work is killer on your shoulders, and not in a good way. A splendid alternative is using a dumbbell and performing overhead presses unilaterally (one side at a time). This will give your shoulders a chance to 1) not compensate for one another and 2) really engage those rotator cuff and stabilizing muscles when you have a single dumbbell overhead versus a huge barbell whose weight is distributed over a much bigger area. Still, be very careful with these and start out at a reasonable weight. Also, avoid twisting your hands during these (meaning don’t start out with your palms facing behind you and then end, fully extended, with them facing away from you). You sometimes do this with row variations, but when you are dealing with moving weight in the vertical range of motion, it can place a lot of pressure on your poor shoulders. It’s not nice, and it may feel fine at the moment, but over time your body will let you know that it is not happy with what you’ve been making it to. Stick with a single position (I prefer neutral). Another great alternative is the landmine press, which engages the same muscles as an overhead dumbbell press but whose stable axis provides your shoulder with a bit more stability than a free weight. Remember, if you have poor shoulder mobility to begin with, you shouldn’t bother or risk pressing anything overhead.
-Rows are one of my favorite exercises. Landmine rows, seated cable rows, single arm dumbbell rows, I could go on. However, I see a lot of people mistake rows for big, fast, powerful lifts. Rows should be executed with elegance, grace, control, and proper breathing technique. A row that is done by essentially jerking the weight towards your ribcage and letting it fall back to its initial position without control is dangerous. When thee exercises are done too quickly, your don’t give your stabilizers enough time to react and contract to handle the stimulus or the weight. Mind you, this should apply to all exercises: if you can’t do a full set without compensating by jerking your whole body or making really weird faces, then your weight is probably too heavy.
Five tips for firefighters outside of the gym to avoid hurting their shoulders:
1. Warm up your shoulders en-route to your call destination.
2. Don’t tighten your SCBA straps too much (SCBAs are self-contained breathing apparatuses that look like backpack straps with an oxygen tank attached to the back)
3. While pulling a ceiling (refer to CPAT link above for event 8), keep the pike pole close to your body and instead of pulling with your shoulders, use your core, legs and hips to deliver and absorb most of the force
4. While swinging an axe, keep your dominant elbow closer to you and use your hips in delivering the force, rather than your back and shoulders. Remember to also use short, controlled chops. Big swings can result in missing your target, and missing your target can result the tearing of your rotator cuff.
5. Be safe and smart! Yes, you are in an emergency situation, but if you rush your movements and don’t perform them intelligently, you can hurt yourself, only escalating the severity of your situation.
Part 7: The First Transition Period, cont.
The Triathlete Strength Training PrimerPart 7: The First Transition Period, cont.
Ahhhhh, preseason training! The weather is ever so slowing becoming less and less of a nuisance. Running and biking outside no longer require 5 layers of clothing, only 2, and you can tell spring is just around the corner. (Note: it’s currently 40o in mid-Nov… writing this article is becoming obnoxious) The birds are chirping and there’s a very good chance you’ll be able to go for an open-water swim in another month or two. As the weather gets nicer, let’s not let the gym become a distant memory, and remember what can be accomplished from an intelligent, well-programmed pre-season strength training plan.
Let’s take a minute to revisit last week’s article. During our pre-season strength training, we want to create a program that will…
- Develop local muscular endurance in the musculature we use to swim, bike, and run.
- Improve our ability to maintain high levels of force production over a pro-longed period of time. This will allow us to maintain performance over the entire race. The more force we can create with each revolution or stride, the faster we will be.
- Shift the use of strength training conditioning circuits to focus more on developing aerobic endurance in order to complement our sport training and maintain our aerobic engine.
Now that we have a good idea of what we’re trying to accomplish during the pre-season, let’s take a look at an example template.
You’ll notice that most of our rep ranges have increased. This ensures we’re primarily training to improve our local muscular endurance. Higher rep ranges subject our body to stress for a longer period of time, which in turn allows our body to become more efficient at generating force for extended periods. That’s not to mention that a longer amount of time-under-tension creates a metabolic effect, resulting in the build-up of metabolites in our tissues. Our body then uses our aerobic system to buffer this build-up of byproducts. In effect, we’re essentially training our aerobic system’s ability to help us recover from stress.
Day 1
We’ve made the switch to training safety squat bar split squats. We’ve moved away from the front-rack position to give our shoulders a bit of a break, and tweaked the stability demands by placing the load on the back of our shoulders instead of the front. The split squat still allows us to train our legs in a unilateral fashion, while also incorporating the 2-0-2 tempo. The tempo method is something I’ve borrowed from Joel Jamison’s book Ultimate MMA Conditioning, and the purpose is to improve oxygen utilization by the working muscles and trigger a hypertrophic response in our slow-twitch muscle fibers. A physiological adaptation that is hugely beneficial for a triathlete. We’ve further applied this concept to the push-ups and pull-ups. Also, you’ll notice our hinge-dominant movement has been changed to RDLs from last cycle’s glute bridges. This is to increase the time-under-tension we’re subjecting our muscles to, in an effort to further drive gains in local muscular endurance.
Day 2
Our first series begins with weighted chin-ups, but we’ve moved to higher rep ranges to target endurance in swim-specific musculature. These are followed up by higher-rep barbells lunges in order to train force absorption in a run-specific manner. We’ve kept deadlifts to maintain a hip extension stimulus, but moved to the trap bar, which should allow us to take some of the load off of the back and move it to the legs. Our final series is organized in a circuit fashion and should be performed with little rest in between to create a metabolic effect throughout the entire set and truly work our aerobic system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0aHDFNlRxE
Conditioning Sets
You’ll also notice that both days have a conditioning circuit that concludes the workout. Day one features an aerobic plyometric method that is designed to improve our explosive endurance by recruiting a high amount of fast-twitch fibers, and then making them work for an extended period of time. We’re essentially challenging our fast-twitch fibers aerobically.
Day two utilizes a method we’ve discussed many times on the SAPT blog, and is something that we’ve found highly effective for our athletes. We want the exercise intensity to be high based on resistance, but we want to keep a slower tempo going that will allow us to keep our heart rate under the anaerobic threshold. This allows an adequate supply of oxygen to be used by the athlete, and helps us focus on improving the aerobic capacity of our fast-twitch fibers.
A tweak that you could make in order to make this triathlete-specific would be to apply this method to a stationary bike. You would simply want to crank the intensity up to a resistance that doesn’t allow you to pedal past 20-30 rpms, and perform the method this way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSejY4Cl47M
In conclusion…
The pre-season is where we sharpen our skills and finish up our preparation for competition in-season. Our sport workouts have become more intense, with the inclusion of tempo runs and interval workouts, in order to acclimate us to the rigors of competition. Our strength workouts are also becoming more sport specific, as we’ve shifted our focus toward refining our local muscular endurance and sustaining high power inputs. Next week we’ll dive into the competition period, and discuss what changes we should make to our strength work.
The Triathlete Strength Training Primer
Part 1: An Intro to Periodization - Seeing the Bigger Picture Part 2: The Repetition Maximum Continuum Part 3: The Preparatory Period a.ka. the Off-Season Part 4: Off-Season Periodization Part 5: Off-Season Periodization, cont. Part 6: The First Transition Period Part 7: The First Transition Period, cont. Part 8: The Competition Period - In-Season Strength Training Part 9: In-Season Template Part 10: Post- Season Training
Breaking Down The Broad Jump
In the second portion of our football testing series we will take a look at the standing broad jump. This test is a fantastic assessment of lower body horizontal power. This tool works great for football players, who have to explosively move of the line of scrimmage once the ball gets snapped. A common misconception is that you merely stand on a line and jump. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this assessment. Horizontal jumping can be a complex coordination pattern because the upper and lower extremities must move harmoniously in order to achieve optimal results. Let’s take a look at a few factors that can help you or your athletes add a few inches.
The Arm Swing
It’s no surprise that lower body power is what propels you forward during this test but the arms play a vital role in projecting you higher off the ground and further down the tape measure. The most efficient swing technique would be to start in a standing position with your arms out in front of you. As you drop down to “load the spring” your arms should sweep back, followed by an immediate, powerful swing forward as you takeoff.
http://youtu.be/lqc_pyG7ELk
Build Those Glutes
The hip complex packs a lot of useful muscles that are crucial in just about every sport and activity of daily living. Unfortunately, many people do not train this area of the body as much as they should. We often sit in chairs, whether at school or work, and that equates to hitting the “off” switch for this important muscle group. Driving through hips during the jump and getting this area fully extended will propel the athlete further. Simple hip extention exercises like glute bridges, whether bodyweight or weighted, will help bring life back to your butt. Below are a couple videos to help with the exercise selection:
http://youtu.be/pMQV6A8F8Qw
http://youtu.be/8j4kWFHRq9o
Own The Descent
Does it matter how awesome the take off was if a plane crashes near the end of its flight? The same theory (obviously to a lesser extent) holds true during the broad jump test. Height and distance are all based upon the action taken prior to take off but this in no way omits an individual from having to properly land each jump. When landing a jump it is important to land in a position that allows the force to dissipate. This is achieved by bending the knees and sinking back the hips. An athlete should never land in a stiff-legged position. When landing, it is also important that the knees land in a position stacked in-line with the ankles and do not collapse or cave medially. Both of these habits place a high amount of stress on the joints and can lead to serious injury. Below is a chart with normative data to see how football players stack up in this test and other common tests by position. Check back next we as we move on to discuss the bench press.
References:
Lockie, R. G., Schultz, A. B., Callaghan, S. J., & Jeffriess, M. D. (2012). PHYSIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF NATIONAL-LEVEL JUNIOR AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN AUSTRALIA. Serbian Journal Of Sports Sciences, 6(4), 127-136.
Oh Dem Hammies! Hamstring Info and Harry Potter Analogies Part 1
Do you have tight hamstrings? Do you stretch them only to find that you’re not any closer to the suppleness that you desire in those posterior hip extenders? Have you tweaked/pulled your hamstring (due to your tightness maybe...)? Do you feel they’re tighter than Gringotts Bank Security?
Today, we’ll go over some of the reasons why the hamstrings might be tight and in part 2 we’ll go over some of the prevention/rehabilitation techniques to deal with hamstring tweaks.
You may be surprised to find that your tight hamstrings are not actually tight… That sounds like something Professor Dumbledore might say.
Below are some of the potential culprits of “tight” hamstrings. (You’ll see why I put “tight” in quotation marks at the end.)
1. Protective tension.
This is when the brain is telling the hamstrings to remain “on,” for one reason or another, and it creates a sensation of tightness when the hamstrings are stretched. Why does this happen? I’m actually a good example of this. I have congenital laxity (meaning my joints are loose and I’m rather flexible) but for a period of about 3 years, my hamstrings were constantly tight and I could feel them being tugged on every time I bent over, and because of my laxity -and a lifetime of NEVER feeling tight- this was as odd as Hagrid’s love for horribly frightening beasts.
Here’s what was happening: my pelvis tilted, wildly I might add, anteriorly (forward).
The hamstrings attach to the (posterior) bottom of the pelvis (your “sit” bones) and my brain sensed the constant pelvic tilt and was desperately trying to prevent me tilting forward anymore by firing my hamstrings continually in an attempt to pull my pelvis back into a neutral position. That pelvic tilt results in instability throughout the lower back and pelvis. The brain HATES it when the body is unstable and will do anything necessary to regain stability, which in this case was locking down those hamstrings tighter than a Full Body-Bind Curse.
How do you fix APT? Through lots of dedicated anterior core work (i.e. plank variations) and glute strength. Once my pelvic tilt was in a more neutral position… voilaThe tightness was gone. So, if your hamstrings feel tight, check our your pelvic alignment. Stretching the hamstrings will NOT improve your flexibility in this case; they're already stretched to the max!
2. Neural tension.
I know this will sound similar to the above reason, but this particular tension generally results from an injury. The most likely answer is an injury to a lower back disc. (since the nerve for the hamstrings runs through that region.) If there’s damage to a disc in the L1-S1 region, there’s potentially compression on the nerve for the hamstrings which could result in mishaps in the neural messages (communication between brain and muscles) causing hamstring tightness. Usually this type of tension is accompanied by other symptoms such as tingling, shooting pain, electric pain or numbness. Two common tests to check for spinal issues are the slump test and the heel drop test (which consists of standing on your toes then dropping to you heels. If pain occurs, congratulations! You might have a compression issue.)
3 and 4. Nasty fibrotic tissue or tendonosis in the hamstring.
Sometimes muscle fibers get junky and gunky, from poor movements, overuse, or prior injury, -or all of the above- which changes the length and function of the muscle. Instead of the muscle fibers running parallel and working harmoniously, they’re twisted up like spaghetti noodles (and work as well together and a plate of spaghetti). Soft tissue work such as SMR or possibly work by a professional is in order to help restore the tissue quality.
Other areas to target for soft tissue would would be the adductors (since they attach to the pelvis as well) and those fellas are Gunk-City in a lot of folks.
5. The hamstring muscles are truly short.
Yep, they're are people out there either because of their genes (not their jeans. Ha!) or a surgery where the hamstring was immobilized in a shortened position (though this is not common), their hamstrings are physically shorter than they should be. This can happen over time (but to a small-ish degree) in folks who sit down a lot during the day because the pelvis is tilted posteriorly (tucking your butt under) which does shorten the hamstrings a bit. However, this probably isn’t the main source of tightness since they are only short at the very end range of motion.
So what have we learned? If your hamstring is tight, it’s not necessarily it’s fault nor will endless hamstring stretches change anything (even if you’re drew the genetic short stick. Stretching won’t do that much. Sorry.). Soft tissue work in the hamstrings, adductors, and glutes as well as some dedicated anterior core work and glute training (*cough* swings *cough*) can help to solve some tight hamstring issues.
Check back in next week for some hamstring injury causes and care.
Coaching Youth Athletes 101
Anyone who has ever worked with children will tell you that it can be either the most rewarding experience of your life or it can make you want to beat your head against a wall until Miley Cyrus’ music no longer sounds horrible. I find that the factors that determine the outcome of your experience will depend largely upon the approach you take. What is unfortunate is that most individuals that end up coachingyounger athletes tend to be volunteers or parents -who care and are enthusiastic to help- but with little knowledge or experience in performance or athletic development. Because of this, they are often limited in knowing what to do with the athletes aside from what they were put through when they played.
Though their intentions always mean well, it’s not uncommon for these coaches to get lost in competition and lose sight of the true purpose of youth sports. From this, issues such as early-sport specialization arise and rob the athletes of what they really need: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT.
Notice that I said human and not athletic development. The reason for this is because we do not necessarily know what each child will go onto do with their lives, but we can safely bet that they will be humans. Sports teach individuals multiple lessons and skills that transcend the athletic realm and carryover into everyday life situations. By focusing solely on how much faster you can make your 9 year-old team limits how much you can truly help them.
Many coaches may be asking what they should be doing with their youth athletes if they aren’t focusing on making them better at their particular sport. You should be making them better at their sport, but you should be doing it with the bigger picture in mind. It’s for that reason that I’ve compiled this list of rules to help you do the best for your athletes.
*I'd like to use this sidebar and define a youth athlete as 13 and under. Obviously each age will need to be handled in its own way due to maturity, but the reason I associate it with this number is because that is the average age of which puberty hits and their physiology begins to change.
1. Do No Harm
Seems simple, right? Wrong. The thing about sports performance and human development is that most harm done is typically caused by ignorance, and because of that, is seldom realized by the conflicting party. This means that a coach with the best of intentions, may not realize that what they’re doing may actually have negative effects in the long run. It’s for that reason, that most of the other rules that I will be laying out all come back to this one simple, golden rule: Do no harm!
2. Make It Fun
The secret to keep participation and enthusiasm high will always be to keep it fun for the kids. This is why our main priority for our youth athletes at SAPT is always to make it enjoyable for them. The second that a child loses interest in an activity or exercise, you can kiss goodbye the idea of them taking direction or cues effectively. Not only will they be harder to work with, but they won’t receive the full benefit of the drills due to their passive participation.
It’s also important to note that if a child can learn to enjoy sports and exercise at a young age, it goes a looooooong way in their life. Therefore, it's imperative in order to maintain an effective program going, keep the drills fun, keep your enthusiasm high, and remember that the occasional joke and fist-bump go a long way.
3. Focus On The Children, Not The Outcome
I like to think that everyone associated with youth sports is mature enough to know that winning isn’t everything. But, the video below suggests otherwise. This in my mind is a perfect example of a man breaking rule number one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuaV6UKtP0s
As Sigmund Freud has taught us, events and feelings that we experience in our childhood severely affect who we become. If a child is reprimanded in such an intense way as shown in the video, there will clearly be some negative feelings. The last thing we want to do as a coach is to be the source of these negative emotions or experiences associated with physical activity. This has the potential to cause the kid to no longer want to participate and can leave an impact on their self-confidence. And that is exactly what a country battling an obesity crisis needs: more individuals who grow up with ill feelings toward exercise *insert sarcastic tone here*
Focusing so much on the outcome can start to create a fear of losing amongst the athletes. This can start to overshadow any yearning for improvement and subtly inhibit their ability to take risks, which is necessary for them to learn from their actions. A good coach should instead focus more of their efforts on empowering their youth athletes and leave any emotions of frustration on the bench. If a player misses a shot, yelling at them will do nothing. Instead, the coach should give constructive advice for next time, wrap up with a small fist bump, and take note what to work on more at practice.
4. Know What the Youth Athlete Needs
It’s not uncommon for me to be asked, “how can I get my 9 year old stronger and faster?” My answer is always: Let them play and move more. The reason for this is because children have different aspects to their physiology, morphology and adaptability as compared to adults. Many of their systems are still learning how to react to different challenges and situations within regards to motor control. For this reason, careful thought must be given to drills/exercises, when to give them and the amount of volume to give them in. Young athletes that participate in too specific of drills are often being limited in overall athletic performance.
The main systems of movement that I find large deficits within youth populations are often as follows: proprioception, the vestibular system, and cross-body coordination.
Proprioception is synonymous for body-awareness. We can all think of younger athletes that we know that move as if they're a new born giraffe. It's often not so much an issue of strength, but an issue of internal awareness that throws off their abilities. Traditional sport drills often consist of high-speed cone and ladder work or even skill-specific work. Do it all you want, until that kid learns where he's at in space, it's just going to turn poop into slightly faster poop. Drills that provide external feedback as to where the athlete is at in space are going to be your best bet. So controlled ground work such as rolling, tumbling and crawling work wonders for making an athlete more cognizant of where their limbs are.
The vestibular system works hand in hand with the body's mechanoceptors to help maintain balance. Often times issues within the vestibular system will show similarly to poor body awareness. The cochlea, a deep, inner ear organ acts as a gyroscope to help determine which way is up and syncs this information with the body's proprioceptive feedback to help determine how to maintain balance. If an athlete has poor balance, they're going to have poor weight shift patterns. If they can't shift their weight effectively, they can't accelerate or decelerate effectively. So thus, once again, sport-specific agility drills will be hard pressed for improvement. There are a variety of ways to challenge the vestibular system, my favorite once again is rolling as it can help to recalibrate the cochlea. Single leg drills, tumbling and up & go drills can also be helpful.
Cross-body coordination can also be a major hole within an athlete's movement vocabulary. So much of day-to-day life consists of movements within the sagital plane that it's no wonder that they can't integrate multi-planar movements amongst body parts. A cross-body movement is going to force contralateral limbs to coordinate and respond accordingly to the rest of the body. Anyone that has taught single leg cone hop drills, karaokas, or even A-skips understands just how hard it can be to get some athletes to sync their arm and leg swings accordingly. It's actually EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that we facilitate these types of movements within their extra-curricular activities. The reason for this is that coordinating the contralateral movements forces stimulation of the corpus callosum, an area of the brain that is responsible for communication between the left and right hemispheres. It also functions to maintain a balance of arousal/attention, tactile localization, and is active in certain eye movements. Needless to say, it's very important in athletics and should be constantly addressed. Any movement that forces focus on opposing limb coordination is great, but my favorite drill to fire up the corpus callosum is a SUPER SLOW cross crawl. It forces them to focus on the movement and the single leg element challenges their vestibular system. If needed, you can even have them do it supine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtv9--OXRFE
A really cool point that I think I should make is that if you ever watch a child play, they are already working on these attributes. They roll down hills(vestibular), they climb trees(tension/body awareness/cross-body movements), they balance on things(vestibular/body awareness), they spin around until they get dizzy(vestibular) and much more! The best part is they enjoy it! It's literally written into their genetic, developmental process. It's funny how we try to intervene and institutionalize their movements to improve them when they could actually get more benefit from natural and genuine play. That is if we can get them out from in front of the tv...
Back to making them stronger and faster, simply focusing on these three aspects will improve almost any kids performance. Tension and ground based drills to help give body awareness, vestibular drills to utilize the body awareness and balance, and cross crawl movements to put it all together to locomotion, will significantly improve their movement and recruitment patterns. It's important to remember that at this age, it's very hard to actually increase fiber unit contractile properties. Meaning they're not going to get big guns or really develop the fast twitch fibers the way teenagers or adults can. What they can improve is the amount of motor unit recruitment within certain movements. So just by practicing quality movements with decent force production will get them better at recruiting more muscles within that movement so long as their body awareness, vestibular system and coordination are not holding them back. So a combination of GPP/natural play and sport practice should be fully sufficient to improving athletic development so long as they are kept in the correct ratios. Let them play and move more.
5. Know Their Limits
I'm going to start with this: YOUTH ATHLETES SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO FATIGUE. Sadly, I see many coaches, instructors and even P.E. teachers missing the point of youth physical activity and just running kids into the ground. Having kids work up a sweat and burn calories isn't a bad thing, but putting on a P90x or Insanity video for gym class or practice is just plain negligent. Everyone that has dealt with kids knows that they like to move. Whatever program you run, if there's a game to be played, they will go all out and the sweat will be rolling. Making kids run for the sake of running or doing stupid, "workouts" violates rule #2 and can push into breaking rule #5.
Due to their smaller stroke volume and their noted inefficient ventilation, a child's heart rate will increase more quickly and stay higher as when compared to adults. Add this to the fact that their systems have a harder time regulating the core body temperature and therefore become more readily dehydrated, you have a pretty easy formula for fatigue. Even though children do bounce back and recover quickly, keep in mind the negative effects that fatigue has on skill and movement acquisition. At their young age, almost every movement is a skill, be it jumping, landing, running etc. Being purposely and constantly pushed to fatigue is going to create compensations and inefficiencies in the movements which can carry on into their future athletic endeavors(like when they actually should be competitive). It also runs the chance of mentally fatiguing them and burning them out, which again is not what they need.
Now don't get me wrong, I believe that our children should be fit and I understand that it is possible to create positive aerobic training adaptation amongst youth populations. The point that I'm trying to make is that this shouldn't be a priority for a youth coach. Make them run, drill and play games, even throw in a line touch or two. Just keep the quality skill acquisition objective number one and remember that they will take care of their own conditioning if you engage them right.
Lastly a Note For The Parents
I want to end this article with a note and some charts to any parents in the crowd about the importance of sport diversity. We've already written several articles on early sport specialization and even the Washington Post is catching on, but it's still an issue that we continue to run into and honestly, it's hurting your kids' chances of getting that future scholarship. Many sport coaches will tell you that your children have to train year-round to make it in their sport, but the research says opposite.
Above is the youth training pyramid from the NSCA. It's literally an association devoted entirely to optimizing athletic performance. I think they know what they're talking about when they say multi-lateral development(multiple sports and skills) is the foundation for high performance. The wider the base you make for your child, the higher the peak can be. Having your kid do the same movements over and over again throughout the year(I'm looking at you swimmers!!!) is only limiting their true potential. Take it from someone who teaches movement to athletes for a living, the multi-sport athletes are healthier and learn/progress MUCH faster than the kids who do the same thing throughout the year. Think about it and take an outside look at your child's activities.
