It’s not the kids or parents faults, either. They are fed the wrong information by people who have financial incentive to manipulate from the start.
“With all due respect and understanding of the primary objective..
If you are a youth athlete (or parent of one) who is a beginner by nature and you ‘dont have time’ for the most critical, foundational element of sports performance (GPP/S&C) would it not be wise to make time for it?”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
The reason I talk so much about foundations & general physical preparation is because while they are simple and some could argue boring in nature, they are massively overlooked in our modern youth sporting world.
Many people believe that because they’ve been playing ‘x’ sport a long time, they naturally have the basics built up.
While they may have an understanding of the fundamental concepts/skills required for that sport, it doesn’t give them a robust base of general athleticism.
You see this very commonly in glove/bat sports as well as stick/ball sports.
A lot of these kids have extraordinarily high sport IQ’s and understand how to perform the skills, but because the motions and movements required of their sports are about all they perform, they have limited range in overall athleticism.
This can contribute to a host of issues ranging from sport performance output limitations to overuse injuries.
Look I understand the main objective is to be the best player you can be within the confines of your given sport(s).
I understand that you’d rather spend infinitely more time playing your sport than time in the weight room. I get it. I want you spending more time in your sports, too.
The goal of my message isn’t to encourage kids to become “weight room junkies” the goal of my message is to share with folks the importance of leveraging modest amounts of strength and conditioning so kids can excel in what they care about most..
Performance IN sport.
I’m not saying you have to give up 50% of participation in sport to commit to S&C, I’m simply sharing that if you commit to 2-3 days/week of (real) training, your outputs that you care about most will improve dramatically.
I understand you’re busy. Everyone is busy.
But as beginners by nature, youth athletes are fed the wrong information from people who have financial incentive to steer them wrong.
More sport = more dollars.
More sport does not equal more development.
In a world where we are already playing too high volumes of specific sport, with MOST attaining the same end results, take a step back and think critically.
They don’t need ‘more sport’.
They need better engines to excel in sport.
Make time for what matters most.
