It helps athletes become more valuable to themselves and their teams.
“When youth athletes get stronger they become more beneficial & valuable to themselves and their teams.
You don’t have to like it, but it’s true.
Nobody is looking to the kids who go through the motions.
They are looking to the dogs who do the work on and off the field.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Our kids are competing in an ever-evolving athletic landscape.
The competition is increasing in rigor earlier and earlier every single year.
You don’t have to like it, heck I don’t even like it, but it’s just the way it is.
This leaves us with two options:
Option 1: Wish it were different.
Option 2: React to reality.
I am no philosopher, but I have learned in my 32 trips around the sun that reacting as favorably as possible to reality is far more beneficial than wishing it were different.
Kid’s are naturally getting bigger, faster, and stronger as our species evolves here on earth. Note the 12-year-old with a full goatee, who looks 25. Notice how you’re seeing more and more of them at the ball fields?
Strength training can serve as the great equalizer.
No, it can’t immediately propel you to elite athletics status as we all have ceilings & no it can’t speed up your ability to grow in height (I assure you it doesn’t detract from it per filthy amounts of research), but it can give athletes the opportunity to be the best they can be at the current stage of their lives.
And at the end of the day, isn’t that all we can really ask for?
The opportunity to leverage the pinnacle of our current potential by way of doing all the work possible to express it?
Take a general 12-year-old athlete who is a decent youth baseball player, for example.
He understands the game. He can put the bat on the ball, get his glove down at 2nd, and make routine plays with the baseball.
Now take that 12-year-old and get him in the weight room.
Run hard sprints, develop strength & musculature in the posterior chain and trunk. Teach him to display power via plyometrics and MedBall throws.
Now guess what happens?
That ‘general’ 12-year-old, just immediately increased his value, not only to his teammates, but to himself.
He might still have similar sports skills, but now he’s got a (much) higher quality engine.
He’s now hitting the ball further.
Getting to first base faster.
Changing directions more efficiently in the infield.
He’s increased his value and ability to lead others, by simply taking advantage of an instrumental concept that most don’t.
