They need to be strengthening their muscles, tendons, and ligaments to keep up with the demands placed upon them.
“If you’re playing summer ball (regardless of sport) you’re getting PLENTY of ‘sport-specific’ and ‘agility’ training.
To do more ‘speed & agility’ on top of an overloaded volume of sport is worthless at best and dangerous at worst.
(Real) Strength Training is what our kid’s need.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Injuries can be random, unlucky, and can seem to come out of nowhere.
No injury is preventable, however we can do our best to lessen the risks associated.
Why do injuries happen?
For one main reason: The body is not prepared for the demand placed upon it at the given time.
Again, I’m not saying it’s fair or questioning any athletes work ethic, assuming they didn’t do enough to prepare their body for the (general) demands of their sport (though I know most youth aren’t), but when injuries happen it’s because for whatever reason the tissue, ligament, or joint was not prepared for the demand placed up on it at the time of injury.
You may have done ‘that move’ a million times before and never gotten injured. You may have tackled, thrown, lifted, etc. that same way for years and nothing ever happened, but that one time that injury happened was for no other reason than the body wasn’t prepared for it.
The lack of preparedness can come from a variety of reasons ranging from overuse, to random collision, to not sleeping well enough in the days leading up to a contest.
So where am I going with this?
When you look at the activities taking place in a kid’s calendar year (especially summer) they are playing extraordinarily high volumes of sport.
They are performing sport specific actions, daily, while also planting, shifting, cutting, & etc. (the required actions in sport) hundreds and thousands of times per week.
This is placing (maybe unseen for now) wear and tear on the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints, which is fine.
But now when it comes to “training” (beyond sport practice) most are seeking a “speed & agility” trainer who is further contributing to the wear and tear by adding more planting, shifting, cutting, & etc. by having them perform (mind you, closed) drills, increasing the volume of wear and tear on the underprepared, overworked adolescent body.
Did you know kids are creating far more force while sprinting than they ever could lifting weights, meaning it’s far more likely for a kid to be injured running than lifting.
Just because a form of training seems “palatable” doesn’t mean it’s what they need.
Our kids NEED to be STRENGTH TRAINING.
