If it’s development we’re after, we must enhance their capacities to meet the demands.
“Youth Athletic Development:
More ≠ Better.
We overdose specificity at the expense of preparation, failing to understand GPP is what feeds SPP.
We are asking kids to pull resources from reserves they literally don’t have.
We must enhance their capacities to meet the demands.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I say it often, but it’s worth being repeated.
An athletes ceiling of potential hinges on the quality of their base and the height of their floor.
It’s not just a cute saying I made up.
It’s a fact that is rooted in science. It’s physiology.
I don’t say this to try to outsmart anyone, (I assure you if Ray Zingler is the smartest in the room he runs from that room) I say it because I truly care about seeing kids reach their potential.
And their potential is often locked in a chest that they have a key on their keychain for, but just don’t know it.
And it’s sad that they don’t know it because it’s not their fault.
It’s adult’s faults.
Adults who are brainwashed into thinking “more sport is better” because the guy they are paying to do private lessons with says so.
Adults who are minimizing the concept of physical preparation by ignoring it all together, or outsourcing their child’s performance potential to a globo gym membership.
This is the most asinine thing in the world to me.
Would you tell your kid not to worry about studying for a big test? Or would you have him study for hours in a classroom each week and then prepare with even more hours at home? Spending significantly more hours preparing for the test than he does actually taking it?
But with their sports, we think the best practice is to minimize general preparation, the foundation everything builds off of, and overload sport specific applications?
I can promise the science disproves that, but beyond the science, where is the logic?
Adult’s are telling kids (and following through with their actions) to build their houses on sand and then blame bad luck when lack of performance, burnout, and/or injury plague them.
If you want development, you actually have to develop.
Development isn’t some cheesy tagline on your local travel ball teams website.
It starts with developing and evolving a rock-solid base of general physical preparation. It’s found in deepening the well to increase their athletic resources to draw from.
More sport + Less preparation for sport = ANTI-Development.
Until we learn, recognize, and challenge the trap that is manipulative adults and marketing tactics, our kids minds and limbs will continue to pay for it.
