We’re teaching our kids not to prepare for the demands placed upon them. And look what’s happening.
“There is only one reason injuries happen.
Muscles/tendons/ligaments fail to tolerate the demands placed upon them.
While no injury is truly preventable, we can increase or reduce likelihoods with our behavior.
In today’s youth sports, we’re doing our kids more harm than good.”
-Ray Zingler on X
It’s fairly simple.
If the body can handle the demands placed upon it, injuries don’t occur.
If the body cannot handle the demands placed upon it, injuries occur.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t unlucky injuries, there are, every day, nor does it imply that injuries don’t happen to highly physically prepared people.
In my early 20’s I was a pretty “prepared” dude. I was young, heavily trained, and technically sound in the weight room.
I was performing a set of 315 on the bench press and after the 14th rep of the set, my pec tore off. Ouch.
I remember that feeling like it was yesterday and despite the physical pain, I was more upset that I would have adjust my training around the injury.
After getting through the emotional toil, it was a pretty simple equation:
My body was prepared for 14 reps, but not 15 reps. When I attempted to cross the threshold, injury occurred. The reasoning beyond that, didn’t really matter. It didn’t matter how strong I was or if I didn’t sleep well the night before, or if I didn’t “deserve” this injury. I wasn’t prepared. If I was, the injury would not have occurred. Period.
And this is as true for me as it is you, and everybody else in the world.
Nobody is immune to injury, however fortunately for us, we can influence, positively or negatively, the likelihoods of injury with our behavior.
Why can Patrick Mahomes have his body contorted in 17 different directions while a 290 animal tries to kill him and stand back up without injury? He’s prepared for the demands he’s exposed to in sport.
Why does every 13-year-old have little league elbow and we are seeing more TJ’s than ever before under the age of 18?
Well, it’s again, simple, the modern youth athletes’ bodies are not prepared for the demands placed upon them.
The abundance of specific sport volume coupled with the SERIOUS lack of general preparation leaves injury as an all but guaranteed ticking time bomb.
Ignoring this and hoping this doesn’t happen to your kid (which is our current practice) isn’t the solution.
We need systemic change in philosophy, or our kids will continue to pay for adults lack of leadership.
