The Olympics is the greatest representation of what a training : competing ratio should look like.
“The Olympics is the greatest representation of what a training : competing ratio should look like.
From Gymnastics to Soccer to T&F.
EVERY athlete in the games spends inconceivably more time training than they do competing.
Now consider our youth sport model.
It’s bass ackwards.”
-Ray Zingler on X
“I trained 4 years to run 9 seconds.” – Usain Bolt
There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
9 seconds is equivalent to .010% of a single day.
Now take that .010% of his day and multiply that by the 1,459 additional DAYS he trained to break the world record.
But your kid?
Your kid needs to play 5 games in a single weekend?
I mean what the hell are we doing?
I’m not comparing an Olympian to your kid or mine, but I do think there is value in learning about the behaviors of the world’s greatest athletes and then, in at least some capacity, imitating them.
Do you know what a gymnast’s training schedule looks like?
Gymnastics.
That’s it.
That’s their entire daily schedule.
What about a swimmer?
Swim. Eat. Strength Train. Eat. Swim. Eat. Repeat.
For Soccer players, because of the Olympic schedule, they must play multiple times per week, but traditionally speaking at the college level, they play a max of twice per week, and at the pro level they play once per week.
Track & Field Athletes will train very often 3 to an upwards of 6 hours a DAY, and may often compete in only a handful of meets per year.
But your kid?
He or she needs 4 competitive bouts per week?
For what?
Usually, the only thing that increases with the mass volume of competition we see today is risk of injury.
3-4 games per week doesn’t improve skills or performance.
It quite literally reduces skills and performance.
It’d be akin to running mile after mile after mile in a given day and thinking that your 4th mile of the day, time, is going to be better than your 1st.
I love competition as I believe many of the competitors in the Olympics do too, but the model we use for our youth athletes in America and in many other countries around the world isn’t the way.
It is important to understand the role we play in the nurturing of our own problems.
And in this case, it isn’t the kid’s faults.
It’s the adult’s fault, for subjecting them to their demise for their own personal gain.
The way we’re going isn’t the way.
