Developmental Systems – The X & O Factors for Training Young Athletes

Written on May 3, 2010 at 3:25 am, by Eric Cressey

Today’s guest blog comes from Brian Grasso.

The Youth Fitness and Sports Training explosion has happened.

More than $4 billion are pumped into the niches of personalized training and coaching for young people every year in the United States alone (Wall Street Journal, November 2004) and roughly 1 million kids and teens hired a Personal Trainer in 2006 (msnbc.com).

Given those stats and the enormity of both the problems (youth obesity and sports-related injuries) as well as the market size (see above) you’d think that we, as a profession, would have a relatively good working knowledge of how young people need to be trained and guided through a physical education process.

Unfortunately, this is as far from the truth as it gets.

I won’t bloviate or preach.

I won’t reveal my thoughts regarding how ineffectual we choose to be when working with this demographic.

And I certainly won’t use any sardonic overtones about the role of responsibility we should employ when opting to work with such a sensitive and cherished client base.

I will simply appeal to your sense of logic and intelligence.

For the purposes of this article, let me say this:

“Kids” is a term I will use to encompass everyone who inhabits the ages of 6 – 18.

Athletes and Non-Athletes alike.

Miniature superstars, bench-warmers and the overweight, will all be lumped under the same umbrella.

And simply stated, I do this because the development parameters of physical stimulus needed for ALL “kids” is the same – at very least in the beginning phases of training spectrum.

Training stimulus with this demographic is guided, primarily, by physiology.

You train to the organism, not the apparent needs of the young athlete or any potential concerns – for example, increasing the speed of an 8 year old running back or arm strength of a 10 year old pitcher would amount to “apparent needs” of a young athlete.  Attacking measures of calorie restriction and “fat loss” protocol would be examples of “potential concerns.”

Instead, your focus must be on the organism itself.

What a young organism needs to experience in the way of physical stimulus can largely be deduced by chronological age.  Certainly biological age (relative body maturation), emotional age (psychological maturation) and even personality (temperament) can all be factored into the equation, but I have found in my 13-year career that chronological age determents can be successfully applied in 90% of the cases.  The remaining 10% can be accounted for through proper coaching and identification.

Having said all that, the following is a brief rundown of the physical needs of ‘kids’ based on chronological age:

6 – 9 Years Old:

• Guided Discovery – implying that Coaches and Trainers must create games and exercises that involve a variety of movement and guidelines in terms of execution, but allow the ‘kids’ to explore on their own.  This phase is terribly critical for establishing “Athletic Intelligence” and sets the seeds for increased complexity of training in the future

• Outcome-Based Coaching – Coaches and Trainers must restrict their commentary and praise to that of “outcome” oriented verbiage.  For example, when asking a 7 year old to pick up a medicine ball and throw it forward using a chest-pass motion, provide praise on that and that alone with respect to successful execution.  Comments pertaining to form are not required and can impede the natural development of “kids” with respect to establishing “Athletic Intelligence.”

10 – 13 Years Old:

• Learning Exploration – Not dissimilar to Guided Discovery, “kids” must still be encouraged to discover what proper execution feels like on their own.  However, as emotional maturation increases (and while neural plasticity or adaptability is still high) it is also critical to start teaching the essence of primal patterns.  Educating “kids” on how to produce and resist force, create angles or accelerate/decelerate becomes an increasingly important part of the training process.

This is a rough overview.  I admit it.

But learning exactly how to work with “kids” in a training environment is a process of education unto itself.

Just know this for starters:

It’s not about Sets & Reps – it’s about instructing technique through a developmental process.

There’s more, MUCH more I need to cover… And fortunately will be able to.

Next month I’ll be back with another installment.

Until then,  re-read the above.

The “kids” are worth our best effort.

Brian Grasso has trained more than 15,000 young athletes worldwide over the past decade.  He is the Founder and CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association – the only youth-based certification organization in the entire industry.  For more information, visit www.IYCA.org

Related Posts

The Truth About Kids and Resistance Training
Developing Young Pitchers the Safe Way
Preventing Injuries in Young Athletes

Stuff You Should Read: 2/8/10

Written on February 8, 2010 at 4:11 am, by Eric Cressey

Good stuff from the past and present for this week’s recommended reading:

The Law of Repetitive Motion Part 1 and Part 2 – These back-to-back newsletters from last June are, in my mind, must-reads if you’re training clients and want to understand how injuries occur.

Thoracic Mobility is a Myth? – Bill Hartman answers a reader’s question on thoracic spine mobility in great detail.  It’s definitely worth a read.

3 Corrective Exercise Mistakes Fitness Professionals Make

Written on January 27, 2010 at 4:27 am, by Eric Cressey

Thought you all might be interested in a recent interview I did for Rick Kaselj of ExerciseForInjuries.com:

3 Corrective Exercise Mistakes Fitness Professionals Make

For more details on some of the concepts I discuss, I’d encourage you to check out Assess & Correct.

Consistently applying the information on this DVD for a few minutes each day should help anyone remain limber and injury free for a long time. Not only does it show you what to do in terms of fixing your problems, but it also shows you how to assess where you’re at in terms of muscle balance and flexibility, so you can see how you’re improving or regressing in those areas over time and in what areas you might need more work.

It definitely makes a great addition to anyone’s training library.

-Kelly Baggett

Stuff You Should Read: 1/25/10

Written on January 25, 2010 at 9:40 am, by Eric Cressey

Recommended Reading for the Week:

Personal Training Certifications: A Different Perspective – Pat Rigsby got the idea for this blog post from a conversation we had at dinner at a conference last weekend in Tampa, and it came out really well.

Exercises You Should Be Doing: Slideboard Bodysaw – Tony Gentilcore wrote up a good blog post about an exercise we’ve been incorporating quite a bit more nowadays since we picked it up from Mike Boyle. Video included!

On Question, Many Answers – One of our interns this semester brought this blog post from Dr. Mike Scott to my attention.  It’s a collection of responses from various experts to the question, “Why are childhood overuse injuries becoming so prevalent in our society?”

Assess and Correct Now Available!

Written on October 26, 2009 at 5:10 am, by Eric Cressey

Today’s a really exciting day for Mike Robertson, Bill Hartman, and I – and hopefully for you, too!

You see, after months of planning, filming, and editing, our new product, Assess and Correct, is now available at www.AssessAndCorrect.com.  And, for the first week ONLY, we’re making the product available for $30 off what will be the normal retail price.

Assess and Correct is the first resource that empowers you with not only a series of self-assessments to identify your own flexibility and stability limitations, but also exercise progressions to correct those inefficiencies.  In the process, you’ll take your athletic performance to all new levels and prevent injuries from creeping up on you – whether you’re a high-level athlete or someone who sits at a desk too much.

With 27 self-assessments and 78 corresponding exercises, you’ll cover virtually everything you need to feel and perform well. And, you’ll have plenty of variety to use for many years to come!  And, while the DVDs alone are really comprehensive, the bonuses we’ve added to this really sweeten the deal.  Included in this package are:

• DVD #1: Your Comprehensive Guide to Self-Assessment
• DVD #2: Your Individualized Corrective Exercise Progressions
• Bonus #1: The Assess and Correct Assessment E-Manual, which is a guide to which you can refer to in conjunction with DVD #1.
• Bonus #2: The Assess and Correct E-Manual, which includes written cues and photos for each recommended drill in DVD #2 so that you’ll have a resource you can take to the gym with you.
• Bonus #3: “The Great Eight Static Stretches” E-Manual, which shows you eight additional flexibility drills that we use on a regular basis in addition to the drills featured in the DVDs.
• Bonus #4: The “Optimal Self Myofascial Release” E-Manual, which shows you the soft tissue methods and techniques we use with our clients and athletes.
• Bonus #5: “Warm-ups for Every Body” E-Manual, which is a collection of two sample warm-up templates for 19 different sports/scenarios.

Again, this introductory offer will end next Sunday, November 1 at midnight EST.  For now, though, I’d encourage you to head over to www.AssessAndCorrect.com to check out some of the sample videos from the DVDs – including the introduction in which we discuss our rationale for creating the product.