It’s insanity.
“Trying to overfill the sport specific bucket that’s already overflowing because a financially motivated charlatan said you should..
While negleticing the most integral part of athlete development, sport performance enhancement, health, & safety isn’t naïveté.
It’s insanity.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Have you ever asked these “gurus” questions?
I mean real, intentional, thought provoking questions.
Have you asked them how they can tangibly prove that what they are doing is working?
Have you asked them about how they curate methodically planned and progressed training models?
Have you asked them about overuse? Points of diminishing return?
How what they are doing on top of the abundance your kids are already doing has more value than building a general athletic base that is SEVERELY lacking in an entire generation of kids?
Or have you just said to yourself, “me kid play sport, me kid must do more sport” and (falsely) assumed that doing more of what he is already doing too much of is probably best because it sounds good theoretically and a financially motivated charlatan affirmed your (understandably) misguided perception?
It’s so simple. And it’s right there in front of our faces, but we make it hard.
For starters, more is not better, it’s just more.
And then if you want to get into the weeds of it (which I hope you would, if you care not only about the athletic potential, but more importantly the overall well-being of your child) pouring more into an overflowing bucket at the expense of further neglecting a more important, empty bucket, doesn’t only turn your assumed “positive” into a net negative, it turns it into a liability.
Don’t believe me? Look at the current injury rates pertaining to youth athletes. Injury rates that didn’t exist a generation ago.
Want to go further? Look into the mental health crises our kid experience today. You think you’re “giving them every opportunity” but what you’re really doing is subconsciously feeding the eventual (if they don’t already have it) identity crisis that is associated with the excess.
Look I get it.
You care more about your kid’s baseball performance than his 60 time.
You want to see her excel on the soccer field, and could care less about the weight room.
Guess what?
Me too.
But to excel where it matters most to us, we must lay the groundwork in the less than sexy environments.
Especially when the base qualities we need to shine under the lights, are severely neglected in the shadows.
