Just like astronauts, fire fighters and singers, many young people want to become sports stars. For those who possess the work ethic and drive, this can become an all-consuming obsession.
Lots of parents and coaches like to instil the following mantra in their children and athletes
“if you work hard enough for it, you can make your dream come true”
What a great lesson for life… But does this ring true in sport?
Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Jelena Dokic, Serena Williams are all prime examples of starting young, working hard, and dominating a sport! But this is a classic case of selection bias.
You only hear about the success stories.... who wants to read about someone who tried their hardest and failed?
Stories like this motivate the young athletes to work harder, lift more, jump higher and run further. However, these inspirational narratives may not represent the truth and aren’t backed by science.
The stories of those who didn’t make it, are left burnt out, injured, and hating the sport they once loved are often left untold.
“Early specialisation” is the concept of a young athletes picking a sport and specialising in this sport fully, at the expense of all other athletic (and sometimes academic, professional and social) pursuits. This is becoming more and more popular in recent times. Professional sports is becoming increasingly lucrative and competitive, professional clubs strive to hoard talent from very young ages and young athletes become laser focused on one goal.
An obsessive passion and work ethic are important ingredients for success, especially in individual sports. However, maintaining variability in training has been shown to reduce injury risk and potentially improve the chance of success.
Think of a young athlete like you would a budding chef...
Young chefs go to culinary school where they learn the basics of cooking methods and are exposed to the specificity of French baking as well as rustic balance of flavours in Mediterranean, middle eastern and Asian food. This broad education in food allows the chef to fuse influences, experiment and play with ingredients as well as cooking styles. Eventually they may craft their own unique style or flavour and “specialise.”
Without broad experiences from different influences we lose the ability to innovate and combine ideas from different fields.
Sport and movement are similar. Team sport is complex, it’s a messy mixture of fitness components and skills. The stars of the game do things that people don’t expect. It’s the "X factor" that makes them great. Playing multiple sports is just like culinary school. It allows an athlete to gather experiences from many different games with different skills and movements. They can then translate these skills and movement strategies to another sport.
Maybe it’s my Collingwood bias, but I think Scott Pendlebury is such a great example of this ‘fusion’ of sport to create a great footballer. Scott Pendlebury was both an elite footballer and basketballer growing up, only deciding to pursue football at eighteen years old. He does things on a football field that others can’t. His ability to move through traffic, side step, and head fake are all influences from his time playing basketball against the world’s best.
Not only does playing many sports improve performance, it also offers a young growing body highly variable demands, differing tasks to master and something cognitively interesting to focus on.
"Variety is the spice of youth athletic development"
By placing a plethora of forces and demands on a young skeletal, muscular, and nervous system, it becomes a more robust system with redundancy built in. Therefore when training or performance throws a curve ball, which in inevitably will, the athlete is more likely to manage the stress without breaking!
This is backed by research… Young athletes that specialise into a sport earlier have a higher risk of injury, especially overuse injury. Tirelessly repeating the same movement patterns will stress the exact same structures in the exact same way, increasing the chance of mechanical fatigue and injury. Examples of this are groin pain in young footballers or spinal stress fractures in young cricketers or dancers.
So what is the best strategy to guide the athletes of tomorrow?
- Variety is key – By having variety, the athletes body will be kept guessing and adapting. This increases physical resilience but also improves movement creativity and cognitive stimulation, maybe leading to their ‘X factor’.
- Keep it fun – These individuals aren’t little athletes, they are kids! Keeping things fun and playful will keep them in engaged. minigames and competitions are great here. Use other sports as a mental break and novelty.
- Promote multiple focuses in training and life – Sport is a microcosm for life, that is why it is such a great builder of character. Encourage these athletes to have more than one sporting pursuit and to pursue interests outside of sport. That way, if an injury does come along, this highly focused individual can be given something else to focus on and succeed at, preserving their sense of self, direction and wellbeing.
- Encourage healthy habits – Promote physical and cognitive rest, educate about recovery strategies and nutrition. Introducing these athletes to sports psychology concepts early can give them an edge, whilst also de-stigmatising seeking psychological support. This could be a potentially important support for individuals hyperfocused, obsessive and normally leaning towards to the ‘Type A’ mould.
At Enhance we promote a holistic approach to youth development. It’s not just about the physical. We see working with young athletes as a privilege, and one we take seriously. We foster a positive environment, and facilitate the growth of the young budding characters these exceptional young people possess.