Sport and its training demands in youth athletes continue to increase as the years progress. Weekly time allocations devoted to a single sport have increased consistently, with some recent data suggesting that young athletes have begun to exceed 18 hours per week on average either training or playing their chosen sport, which has naturally led to multisport children having to narrow their focus to single sport far earlier than previous years.
Early Sport Specialisation is defined by ‘physically immature children participating in intensive training for a single sport for >8 months per year’. With the large majority of young athletes falling in this category, there has been a consistent increase in overuse injuries. A lack of diversification in movement stimuli has likely contributed to these overuse injuries due to higher repetition, while playing a role in reduced motor skill development. Overall participation rates in sport are also declining, with the increased demands of youth sport leading to burnout and also drop out altogether. Participants and parents are now placed in a very tricky situation, due to Development Pathways placing added pressure on time commitments to follow the common route to play sport professionally. Schooling systems in Australia are now commonly including ‘sport academies’ in their program, which also places expectations of participation across multiple teams.
What does recent research suggest about Early Sport Specialisation?
Does Early Sport Specialisation result in greater performance?
When looking at 9 different studies, the following points were made against early specialisation:
- Athletes that kept their sport training under 15hrs a week before turning 18yo had greater international success.
- NBA players that played multiple sports in high school averaged significantly greater percentage of total games played
- Athletes that participated at the Olympic Games between 1999 and 2002 had a significantly greater success rate when coming from a multi sport childhood.
- Specifically, Track and Field suggests that athletes who reached the top 50 in junior ranking had less consistent improvement compared to athletes who did not reach the top 50 until U18 and Senior years.
Are there no benefits to Early Sport Specialisation?
- The same study also found that Major League Soccer players who were successful in receiving College Scholarships specialised in the sport from a younger age, while Marathon runners who specialised early had significantly higher rates of improvement, paired with significantly faster at-peak marathon times.
- Performance of skill based sports such as Golf will also improve as a result of ingraining sound technical skills from a young age.
Overtraining and Burnout.
- Prevalence of depression is unfortunately an ongoing factor in society as a whole, however elements of training amongst our youth athletes is a controllable factor to take into account.
- Excessive training can be laid out on a spectrum from ‘overreaching’ to ‘overtraining’. Overreaching is a goal of training, described as placing a recoverable amount of stress to our bodies, that we must adapt to and improve on. Overtraining is performing this amount of stress for too long a period, resulting in a decline in performance, mood, and can often take months to recover from. This is also accompanied with increases in injury risk, potential withdrawal from participation.
- Non sport related risks such as loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss and impaired function of the immune system are also a bi product of overtraining.
Anxiety in Athletes.
- Uncertainty in performance outcomes can be a big factor in anxiety, combined with the increased amount of social media coverage, can cause negative judgment to not only the athlete to themselves, but also criticism from others.
- Performance anxiety can lead to poor performance, decreased enjoyment and increased injury risk.
What can we do to help our young athletes??
Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD)
- While early specialized athletes show advanced sporting skill, this doesn’t mean that their training should emulate that of an advanced athlete. Strength programs are becoming increasingly important to ensure general movement patterns and strength qualities are targeted, to ensure young athletes are receiving what they are missing from their chosen sport.
- The current literature identifies a global strength program as best practice for managing and avoiding overuse injuries.
- Program designs should be based on an athlete’s needs (not necessarily what their sport needs). Our practitioners use force equipment testing to identify deficiencies that need to be addressed, while also factoring in common areas requiring improvement in today’s youth athletes.
Load Management.
- The best and most effective amount of training, is also an amount that our body can recover from. Continuity of training will allow for consistent progression in both strength and skill, whereas if we are constantly experiencing fatigue and muscle soreness, the quality of training may be reduced and therefore ineffective (even though we are training a lot).
- Our Strength and Conditioning Coaches and Physiotherapists will work with young athletes to plan appropriate workloads.
- Our force testing is not only helpful for identifying deficiencies and tracking progress, but also to monitor fatigue.
- Deload weeks are often prescribed by our Coaches to allow for adequate rest and adaptation to training stress, so we can continue to progress training volume/intensity.
- Profiles of Mood States Questionnaires are also available through our Injury Clinic App. As we learnt above – factors of fatigue and burnout often happen at an emotional level, as much as a physical level. It’s important to monitor mood scores alongside physical fatigue from Force Plate Testing.
Mental Health Support
- As mentioned above, creating sound screening measures for young athletes is imperative.
- Young athletes should have a support network consisting of coaches, teammates and family, that not only leaves opportunities for open communication, but also monitors closely for signs of depression, disordered eating, anxiety or substance misuse.
- Appropriate specialist referral is always easily accessible when required.
If you’re interested in learning more, or building a management plan with our physiotherapists or strength and conditioning coaches, get in touch with us today.
We are really passionate about creating successful long term athlete development plans for aspiring young athletes.
References:
Moeskops, S. et al. (2021) ‘Practical strategies for integrating strength and conditioning into early specialization sports’, Strength & Conditioning Journal, 44(1), pp. 34–45. doi:10.1519/ssc.0000000000000665.
McLellan, M., Allahabadi, S. and Pandya, N.K. (2022) ‘Youth Sports Specialization and its effect on professional, elite, and olympic athlete performance, Career Longevity, and injury rates: A systematic review’, Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 10(11), p. 232596712211295. doi:10.1177/23259671221129594.
Faigenbaum, A.D., Rebullido, T.R. and Chulvi-Medrano, I. (2020) ‘Youth physical activity is all about the “F-words”’, Strength & Conditioning Journal, 42(6), pp. 2–6. doi:10.1519/ssc.0000000000000530.