Crazy idea, I know.
“Want to know we live in a crazy world?
We have people who don’t understand the most basic, fundamental levels of human physiology regarding athlete performance, guiding (strong arming) our youth & their families, camouflaging their personal gain as ‘youth development’.
It’s unbelievable.”
-Ray Zingler on X
And what’s even crazier..
Not only do people accept it, they condone the behavior.
Imagine going to a car shop you weren’t sure was qualified to work on your vehicle, but you assumed “ehh, they’re probably fine” and then they charged you an arm and a leg and couldn’t even tell you what they did, much less prove to you what they did worked..
And then you left there and a few months later, when you experienced car troubles, you took it back to the same shop for the same problems you were having before.
That would probably the most asinine idea you could come up with, wouldn’t it?
Yet, far more valuable than our vehicles, people do this with their kids far more frequently than quarterly.
It’s a concept I try my damndest to understand.
I try to view things from a different perspective.
I try to put my shoe on the other foot.
I try to rationalize in what world, given all the readily available information we have about performance and performance training does any of this make sense?
And I still can’t get there.
I want to, but I can’t.
Even the most fundamental levels of education and punch you in the face (negative) statistics will never allow me to defend the current state of the way things are.
We have people who are not at all qualified to train athletes, “training” athletes.
We have coaches who know (or, hell, maybe don’t) that an abundance of single sport participation is negative and dangerous to athletic performance, pigeon holing kids and parents into thinking, “we have to do this because everybody else is.”
This is not okay.
It’s wrong.
And the people who are condoning this stuff can be “the best <insert coach, trainer, blah>” in your mind, and they might be fine people, but fine are people are dead wrong all the time.
The solution is less.
We have to take the current model and flip it upside down.
It won’t happen overnight.
But the right people who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and live the code in the process are our only hopes of turning the tide.
Don’t do it for you. Do it for the kids.
Their mental and physical health depends on it.
