It's time for another listener Q&A, so I cover three questions from our audience in this week's podcast:
What are your thoughts on high school students playing a winter sport? My son has played basketball and baseball since he was 4. He wants to play college baseball and decided as a sophomore he wants to quit all sports but baseball and focus on that. We think he is too young and should play basketball this winter and still attend his indoor baseball session (pitching). Thoughts?
Rotator cuff drills are a key part of rehabilitation and prevention programs, but I’m struggling to see where all the different kinds fit into my program. Do you have any ideas?
You previously talked about lessons learned in terms of Tommy John timelines. I know a lot of surgeons and rehab specialists have adjusted their approaches to surgeries and the associated timelines well. What are some of your key takeaways now that there have been some changes to the way elbow surgeries were approached in recent years?
A special thanks to this show's sponsor, Hawkin Dynamics, the premiere force plate on the market today. They're used all day, every day at Cressey Sports Performance and are a key component of both our performance and rehabilitation programs. Head towww.HawkinDynamics.com/cresseyto learn more about what a game changer their force plates can be for how you evaluate, program, and train athletes.
Sponsor Reminder
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I'm going to try to get back on track for one installment of this long-running series each month. This month, it's a speed/agility theme, as it's fresh on my mind with this week's $200 off sale on Lee Taft's awesome Certified Speed and Agility Coach certification. Let's get to it.
1. I'm not sure I really like sled sprinting for making most athletes faster.
I'll probably take some heat for this, but hear me out.
Research has shown that running with sled resistance can help athletes run faster. If you search for "resisted sprinting sled" at Pubmed, you'll get 63 results - most of which show a beneficial effect. You know what most of them will also show? A bunch of study subjects who really haven't done a whole lot of strength training. It seems like 2/3 of these studies are in:
a) professional soccer players, who we all know LOOOOOVEEE the weight room (that was sarcasm, for those who aren't picking it up)
or
b) high school soccer players, who are even weaker than the pro soccer players who hate lifting (and don't have much training experience)
My feeling is that anytime you take athletes who are either a) really weak or b) hard-wired to the absolute speed end of the continuum (or both) and shift them toward the absolute strength side of things (even if it's not all the way), you'll see benefit.
Here's where things take a twist. In the real world, resisted sled work actually gets integrated in two ways:
a) coaches who don't have a lot of equipment or an actual facility look for ways to challenge strength a bit more outside at a field. So, it's a little load for athletes that probably need a lot of load (absolute strength) to thrive.
b) coaches/athletes who are infatuated with lifting heavy stuff and don't know how to program/coach sprint/agility work very well use sleds as a way to try to convince themselves they're actually making getting faster a priority. The loads are typically far too heavy to move the weight fast and challenge elastic qualities to a great degree. As such, it's not enough of a shift to the absolute speed end of the continuum to give them optimal benefit.
If you dig in on the research enough, you'll see this. This 2020 study demonstrated greater benefits over 8 weeks of training with 40% of body weight as loading than with 80% of body weight (the latter group actually got slower). Another 2020 study of rugby players found that "80% BM [body mass] induced significantly higher hip flexion, lower knee flexion, and higher ankle dorsiflexion than 20% BM condition at 5-10 and 10-20 m distances (p < 0.05). Lighter sled loads (<40% BM) seem to be more adequate to improve speed ability without provoking drastic changes in the unloaded sprinting technique, whereas heavier loads may be more suitable for optimizing horizontal force production and thus, acceleration performance."
You know who already typically have great acceleration scores? Strong people. They can muscle their way through the first portion of movement and get away with just dabbling in the long (or slow) stretch shortening cycle (>250ms ground contact time) before they get exposed in the short (or fast) stretch-shortening cycle (<250ms ground contact time). Sprinting (and its derivatives) should be short/fast SSC initiatives.
In short, I really don't think sled work makes people faster if they're already doing a lot of strength training work. And, I'm not sure I buy that it's the most efficient way to teach acceleration mechanics. If you're going to use it in conjunction with a comprehensive strength training program, make sure the load of the sled is really light.
And, if you're planning to load it up more, it'll probably work best in scenarios of naturally elastic athletes who don't have a huge foundation of strength. It's probably good for limited equipment scenarios, but be cautious of how much you integrate because it may actually negative impact sprinting mechanics.
Now, feel free to argue on Twitter if you want to disagree with me.
2. Just coaching a directional step doesn't necessarily improve speed; you have to coach the other leg, too.
In a 2017 study, Tomohisa et al. found that the jab step (also known as the directional step) is superior for base stealing. No surprise there; it's what the overwhelming majority of successful baserunners do at the pro and college levels. However, what I think this study did do a great job of is discussing why the jab step is superior to the crossover step, thanks to both a motion capture system and two force platforms:
"The results showed that the normalised average forward external power, the average forward-backward force exerted by the left leg, and the forward velocities of the whole body centre of gravity generated by both legs and the left leg were significantly higher for the JS start than for the CS start. Moreover, the positive work done by hip extension during the left leg push-off was two-times greater for the JS start than the CS start."
Boiled down to simpler terms, while the right leg gets a ton of attention for it setting up acceleration via a) creating a positive shin and b) mechanically repositioning the center of mass outside the base of support, the truth is that we should be talking about how the left leg is doing the lion's share of the work. Doubling your hip extension is a HUGE deal, as you're gaining ground without having to reach with the front leg (which could set you up for negative shin angles on subsequent steps).
That said, it still has to be coached; just coaching the right leg doesn't get the job done. You have to teach them to feel the left leg push-off. I like telling the athlete to "push the ground away" on the trailing leg, and have also seen some benefit by standing between 1st and 2nd base and having the athlete isometrically against me to get a feel for what the back hip/leg should be doing.
3. Playing multiple sports is great not only for exposure to a wide variety of movement patterns, but also because of the high volume of variable plyometric activity involved.
Playing multiple sports builds better long-term athletes in large part because they're exposed to rich proprioceptive environments that enable them to develop motor strategies for dealing with any challenge sports or life may throw at them. If you build a big foundation of general athletic proficiency, you're more likely to be successful when the time comes to stack specific athletic proficiencies on top of that base. However, there's likely another benefit: volume.
I recall reading years ago that the average midfielder makes 2,200 changes of direction in a soccer match. That's a ton of work - and no two cuts are like one another. I'm sure you can find similar crazy statistics with basketball, tennis, football, and a host of other activities. It's so hard to find that "varied" volume in any other way - and it's particularly advantageous that many of these activities take place during childhood growth spurts, when it's super advantageous to train power (great stuff from Dr. Greg Rose on this in this previous podcast), because long bone growth has outpaced the ability of muscles/tendons to keep up. As such, you get springy athletes!
I've often said that it's easier to make a fast guy strong than it is to make a strong guy fast. One reason for this is that it's not hard to build strength with a limited volume of work in the weight room. However, it's incredibly hard to build elasticity without a ton of reps. And, if I get a baseball-only kid at age 16 who hasn't played multiple sports, I've got an uphill battle to chase elasticity - both of the tendons and fascial system - without hurting him.
So, take my word for it: early specialization is a bad idea - and we're discovering more and more reasons why that's the case with each passing day.
One Final Note: If you're looking to learn more about Lee's approach to programming and coaching speed and agility work, I highly recommend his Certified Speed and Agility Coach course. The information is top notch, and it's on sale for $200 off through Sunday. This resource is mandatory viewing for all our staff members, and it was actually filmed at Cressey Sports Performance - MA. You can learn more HERE.
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I'm flying solo for this week's podcast, as I wanted to tackle an incredibly important topic in the world of baseball development: early sports specialization. Before we get to it, though, a special thanks to this show's sponsor, Athletic Greens. Head to http://www.athleticgreens.com/cressey and you'll receive a free 10-pack of Athletic Greens travel packets with your first order. It's great stuff and I use it every day myself!
Sponsor Reminder
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It’s an all-in-one superfood supplement with 75 whole-food sourced ingredients designed to support your body’s nutrition needs across 5 critical areas of health: 1) energy, 2) immunity, 3) gut health, 4) hormonal support, and 5) healthy aging. Head to www.AthleticGreens.com/cressey and claim my special offer today - 20 FREE travel packs (valued at $79) - with your first purchase. I use this product daily myself and highly recommend it to our athletes as well. I'd encourage you to give it a shot, too - especially with this great offer.
Podcast Feedback
If you like what you hear, we'd be thrilled if you'd consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us an iTunes review. You can do so HERE.
And, we welcome your suggestions for future guests and questions. Just email elitebaseballpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for your continued support!
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Here's some recommended reading from around the 'Net:
What Really Constitutes Functional Balance Training? -This is an old blog of mine that I'm "re-upping" here because of a conversation about specificity of balance training that I had with an athlete the other day.
How to Have Impossible Conversations - I just finished this as an audiobook, and it was outstanding - especially in light of recent events in the world. There are definitely lessons for every strength and conditioning/fitness and sports medicine professional.
Sport specialization is associated with upper-extremity overuse injury in high school baseball players - Here's (yet another) study demonstrating a drastic increase in injury rates in those who specialize in one sport. In this particular study, highly specialized high school baseball players from California, Alabama, and Michigan were 3.77 times more likely to have had an upper extremity injury in the previous year than their non-specialized counterparts.
Top Tweet of the Week
It's amazing that with all the remarkable metrics we have to track pitching and hitting characteristics, there are still coaches and players who overlook the fact that the most important number for baseball success - body weight - is the cheapest and easiest to monitor.
Here's a list of recommended reading/listening since our last update on this front.
EC on the Vigor Life Podcast - I recently joined my buddy Luka Hocevar on his podcast to talk about career development and the skill sets fitness professionals will need for the future.
Athletic Shoulders with Eric Cressey - I was also a guest on the Science for Sport Podcast, where we discussed preparing shoulders for competition, and touched on the difference between the private sector and working for a team.
Youth Single-Sports Specialization in Professional Baseball Players - This study was recently published in the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine, and it shows the early specialization isn't the right path for developing a professional athlete. I thought that the most interesting part of the study was Figure 5, the Reasons for Single-Sport Specialization. It's implied that pressure from parents and coaches isn't a leading cause of early specialization, but I have a hard time believing that kids specializing before age 14 make that decision all on their own, and without outside influence.
Top Tweet of the Week
Anecdotal observation: some of my best training sessions of all time came on days when I wasn’t super motivated to train, but convinced myself to just go warm up and see where it led. Before you write off an entire day, see where a little movement takes you.
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I hope you're having a great holiday week. I'm long overdue with a list of recommended reading, so I've luckily got some good stuff stockpiled.
Keeping the Fun in Children's Sports - This was a great piece in the New York Times that summarizes some new findings from an American Academy of Pediatrics report on organized sports.
Why We Sleep - Brandon Marcello recommended this book when he came on the podcast (listen to his interview here), and it hasn't disappointed. I'd highly recommend it.
The Language of Coaching - Nick Winkelman put up his slides from this year's Perform Better presentations, and he's got some great information on optimizing coaching cues.
Top Tweet of the Week
Crazy. The next time you blurt out that a player “sucks” because he made an error, struck out, or gave up a HR, remember that he’s likely the best athlete in the history of his hometown. And, there are a lot of other really good athletes who'd love to “suck” as much as he does. https://t.co/HOdKGhQjCl
Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance coach, Tony Bonvechio.
Like many strength and conditioning coaches, I entered the fitness industry thinking I wanted to train professional athletes. I’m lucky that I get to do exactly that on a daily basis, but I quickly discovered that some of the most rewarding coaching experiences have come from training high school athletes.
Sure, watching your clients play on TV is awesome, but your potential to help a younger, less established athlete can reach far beyond the field of play. Bumping a big leaguer’s fastball from 92mph to 95mph might help him land a bigger contract, but helping a 9th grader make the junior varsity team can build confidence and self esteem that is literally life changing.
That said, high schoolers and professionals have drastically different training needs. This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many coaches promise the world to high school athletes by helping them “train like the pros,” only to see minimal results. Here are five reasons you can’t train little Johnny or Jane like their favorite pro athletes, even if it seems like good marketing:
1. They’re Not Strong Enough for Fancy Stuff Yet
Athletes ages 13-18 comes in all shapes, sizes and strength levels. Some look like babies while others look like they’re ready for the NFL combine, but most fall into the former category. These athletes usually struggle to perform elementary movements like squats, push-ups and lunges. They’ve got no business working on fancy change of direction drills or contrast training protocols until they’ve mastered the basics.
“Just get strong” is a common strength coach copout, but in this case it has merit. As my fellow CSP coach Greg Robins often says, think of athletic potential as a pool of water. The stronger the athlete, the more water they have in the pool. The more powerful the athlete, the faster they can draw water out of that pool. While power is of utmost importance for team sports, if your pool of water is shallow, it doesn’t matter how fast you draw it out. Strength is still the foundation of most athletic qualities, making it the most trainable quality for young athletes.
It’s certainly possible for a pro athlete to be “strong enough” to the point where they won’t improve much athletically by adding 50 pounds to their deadlift, but for a younger athlete, that might be exactly what he or she needs before they can cash in on more advanced training methods.
2. They Need Less Loading for the Same Strength Gains
Novice trainees can get stronger with as little as 40-50% of their 1-rep max. On the other hand, more experienced lifters need a ton of submaximal volume and frequent exposures to heavy training loads (above 90 percent of 1RM) to keep gaining strength. And while not every pro athlete is an experienced lifter, they’ll likely have more training experience than a high school athlete.
What’s the point?
[bctt tweet="Teenagers get strong without much work. Don’t test 1RMs when you can gain with lighter weights."]
3. They (Hopefully) Play Multiple Sports
Young athletes have the opportunity to play multiple sports during the year, while virtually no pro athletes do that anymore. The days of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders are long gone, so while the pros get to focus on the specific physical demands of their sport year round, high schoolers are likely playing several sports with drastically different requirements in terms of strength, power and endurance.
What happens if we have a high school athlete who plays football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring? There’s no defined off-season, making periodization much trickier. A pro baseball pitcher may not pick up a baseball from October to January, but for someone who constantly has games and practices, you can’t block training into specific physical qualities. A concurrent training approach (i.e. training endurance, strength and power all at once) or “concurrent with emphasis” (where you prioritize endurance, strength or power but touch upon the others to preserve them) becomes a necessity.
What about exercise selection? We know the bench press is great for football, but not ideal for baseball. We know distance running doesn’t do much for baseball, but may have merit for basketball. And what if he or she plays two sports at once (i.e. AAU basketball overlapping the other two high school seasons)? We can no longer speak in absolutes or make generalized exercise contraindications when it comes to developing a well-rounded athlete.
Yes, more young athletes are specializing at a younger age. We can do our part by influencing them to play multiple sports as long as possible, but we can also design well-rounded programs that expose them to dormant movement patterns and untapped strength qualities rather than always being laser focused on training for their primary sport.
4. There are Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
When too many cooks contribute to one dish, it won’t taste good. With high school athletes, you’ve got a lot of cooks (i.e. influences) in their kitchen (i.e. athletic career), making it difficult to create a cohesive dish worth tasting. It’s our job as the strength and conditioning coach to be the objective taste tester and adjust overall training stress to optimize performance.
Parents, teachers, coaches and friends influence every move an athlete makes on and off the field. It’s tough to get everyone on the same page. It’s common to hear an athlete say their coach wants them to get faster, their parents wants them to get more flexible and their teachers want them to study more and work out less. Who’s a teenager supposed to listen to?
In this case, it comes down to asking the right questions. I’ve learned that just by asking how an athlete is doing outside the gym can unveil the bigger picture. I’ve had a baseball player confess to performing upwards of four extra workouts a week because they’re participating in off-season training with the football team, all while getting less than five hours of sleep while studying for exams. This athlete is far from ready to hit in hard in the gym and it’s my job to adjust his training.
[bctt tweet="Ignorance is NOT bliss as the strength coach; keep tabs on ALL stressors in an athlete’s life."] Ask questions and get to know how an athlete’s lifestyle can affect their performance.
5. They Have Lackluster Recovery
Piggybacking on the last point, most high school athletes don’t recover from training as if their sport was their job. And that’s because it’s not. While most pro athletes are unrecovered too (they’re essentially third-shift workers with insane travel schedules), high school athletes don’t have a paycheck riding on their performance. So they stay up too late, eat Doritos and Skittles for lunch and don’t think twice about it.
Great athletes live and die by their routines. Pro athletes especially settle into a daily routine that makes them feel ready to compete, from showing up to the field or court at the same time every day, to eating specific meals, to wearing the same sweaty socks for every game. A high school athlete may fly by the seat of his or her pants unless told otherwise, so we can guide them toward a routine that includes quality training, nutrition and sleep.
Take the time to educate your young athletes on the importance of simple recovery methods like foam rolling, eating enough protein and getting to bed before 10 p.m. They may not appreciate it immediately, but once they feel the difference in physical and mental performance, they’ll be more likely to recover like it's their job.
Conclusion
It’s tempting to use aggressive loading and exotic exercise selection with young athletes, but they rarely need either of them. The basics work for a reason and you’ll see success with surprisingly simple protocols if coached and performed diligently.
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We're at a point in time where just about everyone knows that throwing a baseball year-round is a bad idea. Moreover, we know that it's best for kids to avoid early sports specialization.
Dr. James Andrews has been outspoken against early specialization and year-round throwing for roughly a decade.
John Smoltz devoted a big chunk of his Hall-of-Fame acceptance speech in Cooperstown to discouraging kids and parents from early specialization and year-round baseball.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll recently referred to the trend of kids playing only one sport as "an absolute crime."
USA Baseball launched their Pitch Smart campaign - featuring an advisory board of many MLB team doctors and athletic trainers - to prevent overuse in youth baseball.
All the way back in 2006, a landmark study by Olsen et al. clearly demonstrated strong associations between injuries requiring surgery and pitching "more months per year, games per year, innings per game, pitches per game, pitches per year, and warm-up pitches before a game" as well as showcase appearances during adolescence. Overuse is the one factor that predicts injury over and over again in the research.
A 2011 study demonstrated that players in warm weather climates had less shoulder strength and more problematic range-of-motion adaptations than those in cold weather climates. And, speaking from personal experience from having Cressey Sports Performance facilities in both states, it's been far more challenging to develop players in Florida than it is in Massachusetts. There is simply too much baseball competing with general athletic development.
These are just a few examples, too. Hundreds of professional athletes have spoken out against early sports specialization. College coaches have in some cases refused to recruit one-sport athletes. And, there are more anti-specialization posts and websites freely available on the Internet than one could possibly imagine. Yet, the problem isn't even close to going away, and injuries still at all-time highs.
Now, I can understand how some players, parents, coaches, and scouts don't stay on top of the American Journal of Sports Medicine and might have missed this important information. What I can't understand is how they'd miss it when the world's most recognized orthopedic surgeon is speaking out against it. Or how they can miss it when one of the most accomplished pitchers of the last century devotes the biggest media spotlight of his life to bashing early sports specialization. Or how they'd overlook one of the premier coaches in the NFL so vehemently putting down the practice. Or how a governing body like MLB would devote time, money, and resources to a problem that they think will have a significant negative impact on the future of the game beyond just the billions of dollars that are already being wasted on players on the disabled list.
The problem is not a lack of knowledge; the problem is a lack of action and consequences.
When you were a little kid and stole a cookie from the cookie jar - even after your mother told you it was off limits - you got punished for doing so. If you didn't have consequences, you'd keep stealing cookies. Unfortunately, this isn't an option with youth baseball. Really, the only consequence is injury, and it's surprisingly not that great a teacher.
A lot of kids and parents continue to make the same mistakes even after an arm surgery and extended layoff. They've been brainwashed to think that the only way kids can succeed in baseball is to play year-round to keep up with other kids and get exposure to college coaches and pro scouts. There are too many coaches, showcase companies, and scouting services lining their pockets by lobbying hard to make these false assumptions stick.
If knowledge ("eating too many cookies is bad for you") isn't working, and it's hard to deliver consequences, what's the next step? You've got to make it really hard to get to those cookies - and they better taste like crap if you do manage to do so.
Stepping away from this analogy, the big governing bodies that matter need to step up their game. Here are six quick changes that I personally feel could have a profound impact on reducing injury rates across all levels:
1. Major League Baseball needs to implement a high school scouting "dead period" from October 1 through January 1. It is entirely hypocritical for MLB to push PitchSmart, but turn a blind eye when literally hundreds of scouts are showing up for October-December showcases and tournaments that directly compete with the PitchSmart initiative. Most of the highest-profile players aren't even attending these events anymore (advisors know it's an unnecessary injury risk), and there is absolutely nothing a scout would see in November that they can't see in the spring during the regular season.
2. MLB should also mandate that no pitcher can throw in more than three consecutive games - including "getting hot" (throwing in the bullpen, but not entering the game). Some might criticize me for this, but after extensive interaction with relievers at this level, I firmly believe that bullpen mismanagement is one of the biggest problems in MLB pitching injuries. Fans and the media only see the actual number of appearances, but when you factor in the number of times a pitcher "gets hot" without entering the game, you have relievers who are literally throwing over 120 times in a season.
3. The NCAA needs to implement innings limits on freshman and sophomore pitchers. Keep freshman pitchers to 120 innings and sophomore pitchers to 140 (combining the college season and summer ball). Additionally, any pitcher who throws more than 120 innings during the spring/summer should have a mandatory 60-day period of no throwing prior to starting fall ball.
4. The NCAA should also implement a conservative pitch count limit for college starters. I think 130 is a good place to start, and while I still think it's unnecessarily high, it reins in those coaches who'll leave a guy in for 150+ pitches. Sadly, this happens far too often in college baseball these days, and there are zero repercussions (although I do commend ESPN's Keith Law for always calling these coaches out on Twitter).
5. State athletic associations in warm weather climates need to structure high school seasons to allow for athletes to compete in multiple sports. As an example, in Massachusetts, the high school baseball season begins on the third Monday in March, while the first basketball practice is November 30. If a high school basketball player wants to play baseball, he might only have a 1-2 week overlap during that month - and it only happens if his team goes deep into the playoffs.
Conversely, the high school baseball season here in Florida begins on January 18, while the last regular season basketball game doesn't occur until January 30. The state championship games take place February 23-27 - which is roughly halfway through the baseball season! There is absolutely no reason for a high school baseball season (in which teams play about 30 games) needs to start prior to March 1.
That extra six weeks would make a huge difference in getting more baseball players to also participate in winter sports and help to get a baseball out of young hands a bit longer. And, you'd see a lot more players well prepared on day 1 of baseball tryouts because they'd have more off-season preparation under their belts. It would simply force teams to play three games per week instead of two; this is exactly what's done in Northern states (and they'll sometimes play four, if weather interferes).
6. Similar to point #4, state athletic associations should also have regulations on permissible pitch counts for high school arms. I think 115 pitches is a good number.
Closing Thoughts
I should note that I actually think Little League Baseball does a solid job of disseminating information and including specific regulations within the game and between games. The changes - at least in my eyes - should rest with high school athletic associations, the NCAA, and Major League Baseball. Impact will come from the top down.
As you can see, with only two exceptions, I'm much more about managing the competitive year than I am about micromanaging pitch counts. And, the two pitch count recommendations I put out are remarkably conservative and just reaffirm common sense (which, unfortunately, isn't so common anymore). Pitch counts alone haven't proven to be tremendously effective, but do have a place when implemented alongside guidelines for managing the overall baseball calendar.
There is absolutely no reason for skeletally immature middle and high school baseball players to have longer competitive seasons than professional players.
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I hope everyone had a great weekend. For some reason, there was a ton of great content around the 'Net in the past week, so I actually had my work cut out for me in paring this down to my top three choices. Check them out:
When You Know it's Time to Get Out - This was an absolutely fantastic post from Dave Tate that appealed to me on multiple levels: small business success rates, retirement from strength sports, and the need for experienced coaches to "give back" to the strength and conditioning community.
I write a lot about my distaste for early sports specialization here on the blog, and I like to think I've examined it from a number of different angles. That said, I usually focus on the decision of an athlete and his/her parents in this context, but I rarely discuss the situational factors that may govern these decisions. Two perspectives to which I haven't paid much attention are the significant impacts that school size and geography have on young athletes' likelihood of specialization. This is something I've been pondering more and more as we open the new Cressey Sports Performance in Jupiter, FL.
Mike Robertson pointed out the school size aspect in his Elite Athletic Development Seminar DVD set, and it really got me to thinking. If you go to a small school and are a good athlete, chances are that you are going to "automatically" be a starter on three different sports teams during the academic year, as they might need you to actually be able to even field a team. Thinking back, my high school graduating class had about 180 kids. One sport athletes really couldn't exist if we wanted to be competitive over all three high school seasons. Not surprisingly, I never had a classmate go through Tommy John surgery, and I can count the number of ACL injuries I saw in my high school years on one hand.
Conversely, if a kid goes to a school with 800 kids in his graduating class, specialization is much tougher to do. If you've got 150 players trying out for the baseball team (and budget cuts are eliminating freshmen and JV teams left and right), you better be spending more time preparing for baseball, if that's your long-term aspiration. The "reward" is higher (more exclusive), but the risk has to be higher as well. In a situation like this, we almost have to ask whether it's better to have a kid that tries out for - and proceeds to get cut from - three teams, or if we'd rather have guys specialized along one course so that they can at least stay involved in organized athletics by actually making a team. I don't think there is an easy or even correct answer, but I do think we have to be cognizant of the challenges facing kids at larger schools.
Geography certainly plays into this as well. As an example, it's much easier for baseball players in northern states to play basketball, too, because basketball season simply takes place while the snow is on the baseball fields. In Massachusetts, the high school baseball season starts on the third Monday in March, which is several weeks after basketball wraps up, in most cases. Conversely, high school baseball actually gets underway in Florida during the month of January; playing basketball is virtually impossible logistically. And, if fall sports go all the way until Thanksgiving, we're really dealing with a situation where kids might only get an eight-week off-season to work on their fitness and more sport-specific preparations.
We might not be able to change these factors, but we find ways to work around them. It might mean getting an athlete to play recreational basketball instead of "official" school hoops, if schedule won't allow the "real thing" to happen. And, it might mean that we need to work harder in our strength and conditioning programs to create an even richer proprioceptive environment where athletes are exposed to a wider variety of movements if these scenarios "force" them toward increased specialization.
As hackneyed a phrase as it might be, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." I'd say that geography and school size certainly fit in the 10% category when it comes to early sports specialization; we all need to continue to improve on the 90%, though.
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