Youth Athletic Development
When it comes to training young kids, children, youth, whether they’re athletes or not, is not a simple task, and it should not be taken lightly. But for some reason, I still see rubbish on social media pushing kids to do WAY too much and doing WAY too many complicated tasks.
I recently had a chat with a young man who wants to try everything he can to be better. He did his own research, read the programs and articles of resistance training, and even made himself his own program. He wants to put on some size for basketball, get stronger in the contests, jump higher and run faster.
That’s some great initiative from the young man, truly. But there was one issue. Let me give you a taste of the total amount of reps he does for his legs.
In total, 191 repetitions on his legs alone. That’s a typical leg day though, right?
Yeah? – but for a bodybuilder. This young man is a basketballer.
Again, I admire this young man for having the drive and determination to seek out his own program and commit to it for the last few months. It shows a real commitment to the craft as an athlete to do the little things behind the senses, away from the basketball court, that will take his game to the next level. But it’s not the way he should be training for a basketballer.
Educating the athletes of tomorrow the correct way to train their body to prepare them on the court / field, future representative programs, and even professional environments is key to developing young athletes. There’s so much ‘fluff’ and non-sense out there on social media that these kids are consuming every day, it’s hard to filter out the bulls***.
So, let’s look at thing’s youth athletes NEED in their programs.
Movement competency
It’s the ability to move efficiently though all planes of motion (forward, backwards, sideways, rotation). This is done through repetition, practice, practice, and more practice of the exercises until we have technique down pat!
Training biceps curls and hack squats aren’t going to prepare Johnny to sidestep a defender and kick a snag now is it, and it will most definitely increase his risk of injury.
What this does is it sets up a great foundation to build upon, progress exercises and increase weight. But more importantly, it gives the athlete spatial awareness, the proprioception of where his/her limbs are in space. If Odell Beckham Jr didn’t know where his hand was reaching behind his head, he never would have made this catch.
Youth athletes are growing rapidly through the developmental years. Limbs are longer, clothes are bigger, shoes are bursting at the seams, and we need to learn how to control that. Parents would know after growth spurt, their child running a bit ‘awkward’, not as fast as they use to be, or maybe just not performing as well as they use to.
Develop sound movement mechanics and special awareness and watch their performance SORE!
Base strength
Building a house on sand isn't going to last long. It will surely crumble eventually.
The good thing about youth athletes training, is they are going to get strong, and quick because of their low training age.
Because of this, we want to milk it as much as we can. This is what we call, low hanging fruit.
By making the MOST of this, we can continue adding load, progressing and getting stronger with the same exercise, goblet squat for example, so we can save the other variations of exercises we use for later. That’s a whole different story.
Building a sound foundation of strength also builds on power. Quick physics lesson:
· F = m*a (force = mass multiplied by acceleration).
· If we move 60kg bench press 1m/s, then that = 60N (newtons)
· If we get stronger, and move 80kg at 1m/s again, we express force of 80N (newtons)
Same speed, but more FORCE, simply because we are stronger.
Landing and Jumping Mechanics
Learning how to jump and land sets up a great foundation for plyometrics, developing power and ‘explosiveness’.
Just learning how to land efficiently decreases risk of injury significantly! The ability to absorb force the right was can then be transferred into driving force in the right direction to either run, jump or shoot.
We’ve all seen an athlete that just looks awkward or has landed funny and injured themselves. We don’t want that to happen.
Then being able to project force in the right direction efficiently, helps performance, especially when running. Directing force into the ground, through the ankles, knees, hips with assistance from the arms, and BANG, you’ve increased your vertical by 5cm.
You nail these 3 early in youth athlete development. You will be set up to take on the world.
If you have a youth athlete who you think might benefit from these critical components as they develop, then take a look at Aspiring Youth Athlete services I provide and sign up for the School Term Program, or gain valuable performance knowledge in our Youth Holiday Performance Program.