The destruction of an athlete, part two
When the first part of this article was written almost two years ago, the focus was on college strength coaches. Unfortunately, the destruction of an athlete begins long before college. He starts out at a very young age with uninformed but well meaning parents. Doing what they think is best for their children; many parents end up destroying their children’s athletic future. For this story to be complete we have to go back to the beginning.
The father of three high school boys that he used to coach is an example of the kind of father I’m talking about. Paul is a father who lives vicariously through his children and demands that they excel in whatever sport they play. He chose wrestling and baseball as his chosen sports to major in from an early age. He told me that the reason for this was that white kids have a much better chance of achieving greatness in those sports than they do in football or basketball. Fun was not a problem; the improved chance of long-term success was all that mattered. Whether or not they liked soccer or basketball, he didn’t care, he chose his sports and that’s what they would play. They were in various baseball leagues and various wrestling schools, often running from one to the next, inhaling a fast-food burger for dinner in the car between practices. Many nights after spending their training sessions with me, they would go home and be forced to do several hundred more push-ups and sit-ups. This was because Paul didn’t like my approach of keeping his training sessions under an hour. He thought the volume was too low and they needed to do more. Other nights they had to run a few miles or take a few hundred swings in the batting cage. I explained how long-distance running was detrimental to size and strength gains and actually had no benefit to either wrestling or baseball because it trains the wrong energy system. He refused to listen. When I told him that he would have to stop training his children if they continued doing this, he told me that he would stop, but he slipped behind my back. These children were not allowed a normal social life, because athletic excellence was the number one priority in their lives. The father was banned from participating in minor league baseball and various other organizations in the city. It was an embarrassment to his children and himself, but he didn’t care.
On his final trip to my gym, Paul pushed me too hard and I had to escort him out of the building and permanently ban him. He took his children with him and I haven’t seen them since. I hear they’re working out in his basement and running more in a day than Forrest Gump. The sad part is that these are two great kids whose lives and sports careers have been destroyed by an overzealous father.
Last week I received a phone call from the mother of a baseball player. She told me that her son was an outstanding shortstop with a great arm who never missed a ball. The only problem, she said, was that she really needed to improve her first step out of the batter’s box and get a little more power behind her swing. She said that he needed intensive sports specific training for baseball on an individual basis. She was convinced that I was the man who could help him and that with his added speed and power I would be the next Derek Jeter in no time. Finding the time to practice with me would be difficult, she informed me, because he’s currently playing in three leagues and taking hitting lessons four nights a week in the batting cage they’ve just set up in her backyard. He also does two linear speed workouts and two lateral speed workouts a week. Even with all that, he’ll make the time, she assured me, no matter what the cost. When he finally took a breath and allowed me to speak, the first question I asked was how old was his child. Without hesitation he told me that he was NINE years old!
This is a trend we see happening all too often these days. It seems that early specialization is all the rage in the country. According to a recent news report, training young children is now a four billion dollar industry that is growing rapidly. Gyms are popping up with kids’ weight training programs and speed and agility camps everywhere. It’s on TV and it’s talked about on the radio. Unfortunately, most of the coaches associated with these programs are just trying to cash in on the latest fad and don’t have a clue how to properly prepare an eight-year-old for his athletic future. Parents have been persuaded to believe that they have to get every type of coach, trainer, and instructor they can find to help give their kids a leg up on the competition. They put them in six different leagues at once in hopes of creating the next Michael Jordan. Start early and you will be destined for greatness. After all, it worked for Tiger Woods and William’s sisters, so it will work for his son, too. Good? Mistaken.
Early specialization in any particular sport is, in fact, the worst thing for a young child. Actually, it does more harm than good to his athletic abilities. Playing baseball in the spring, football in the fall, and basketball all winter will do more to create the next Barry Bonds than simply swinging a bat and lobbing balls all year long. The athletic carryover that a young athlete can gain from playing a wide variety of sports is enormous. Playing as many sports as possible allows children to develop enormous motor skills. Each sport has different athletic demands and requirements and forces the athlete to call upon different types of strengths, energy systems, and neural capacities. NBA superstar Allen Iverson has said that he was a better quarterback than a point guard. NFL quarterback Michael Vick was a multi-sport star growing up and never majored in anything. By developing the skills necessary to be a good overall athlete, a child can be better prepared to specialize later in their teens when necessary. As my friend and youth training expert Brian Grasso says, “You have to become an athlete first, before you can become a champion.”
Another aspect that needs to be addressed is the concept of “sport-specific” training for young athletes. The bottom line is this… there is no such thing as sport-specific training! I repeat… there is no such thing as specific training for a sport! Especially when it comes to young children. All athletes have similar needs, including improving strength, speed, and flexibility, as well as preventing injuries. When you think about it, most sports have the same requirements. Some of the common needs of most athletes are the ability to properly stabilize the core and protect the body from injury, the ability to decelerate and change direction quickly, and the potential to quickly absorb and produce force. Train hard, train smart and get stronger. That’s all there is too. There is no need for anything “sport specific” at an early training age. Of course, as an athlete approaches their late teens, they may need to start implementing certain things into their training that may be individual to their sport, but often this is the exception rather than the rule. The case of pitchers who avoid rushing moves is one such example. Hockey players who need to correct the imbalance between the vastus medialis and the vastus lateralis that occurs from skating a lot is another. When overuse injuries or sport-specific imbalances occur, they need to be addressed. But for the most part, if kids would focus less on the exact “sport-specific” exercises they need to do to improve their jump shots or swings, and instead focus solely on getting bigger, stronger, and faster , they would be much better athletes.
In countries like Russia and Bulgaria, early specialization is looked down on and avoided at all costs. These countries laugh at the idea that the United States has the best 10-year-old soccer player or the best 8-year-old tennis star in the world. They know that it doesn’t matter what a child can do at a very young age because that rarely correlates with long-term success or Olympic gold. These countries have learned that early specialization is a recipe for disaster. The Process for Achieving Sport Mastery (PASM) is a system used in Russia to create super athletes. The strange thing about this, to most Americans, would be the fact that it forces kids to play as many sports as possible and doesn’t allow for early specialization. Athletes typically begin training programs at age six with a focus on a wide range of running, jumping, and tumbling exercises. An athlete may not begin to specialize in a particular sport until at least fifteen or sixteen and in most cases eighteen years of age. Through years of research, the Soviets have learned that early specialization results in a much higher incidence of overuse injuries and mental burnout, as well as great inconsistency in an athlete’s performance. They prefer a “multilateral” approach, forcing children to play as many sports as they can. Children are closely watched and evaluated as they mature. Finally, by the time specialization becomes a necessity in the late teens, athletes will have developed a wide variety of athletic abilities and will not have suffered the mental exhaustion that comes with trying to master a sport from a very young age.
The take-home message to parents is to let your kids have fun. They are children after all. There’s no need to try to turn them into the next Wayne Gretzky just yet. That they practice various sports and learn to enjoy them. If parents put too much pressure on their children, sport stops being fun. It’s supposed to be a game, not a life and death situation. Children only learn what we teach them. If kids are taught that the Saturday afternoon pee football game is supposed to be fun, then they’ll have a great time. But if they are taught that it’s high pressure, they can’t lose the situation, it won’t be fun anymore. And when it’s not fun, the chances of them wanting to play in the future are slim. Everyone understands the desire to want the best for their children. It’s natural to do whatever you can to help your children succeed. Sometimes though, it can be what you don’t do that can really make a difference in the world.