One of the biggest mistakes you can make developing athletes is being short sighted.

Not to sound harsh but an 11 year old little league game while in the moment seems important but in the grand scheme of an athletic career is a notch above meaningless.

Focus should always be geared toward the future until you’re are getting paid the big bucks and even then the best are always planning, thinking, and preparing for the next season or the next game. (Longer you can stick around = more $$$$)

I’ve seen some wacky shit.. For example, 11/12 year olds playing injured, kids bouncing from team to team and town to town to play for the “winning” team, parents getting into brawls… We’ve all seen it. Part of high level sports is playing injured but at a young age it’s really doing the athlete a huge diservice and can ruin a career. If your goal is to play college sports no college coach gives a shit what your record was in 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, or 8th grade…. They actually don’t even care how good you were in that stage of life. They want to know how good are you at 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.. and are you going to get better from 17-22.

Now how does this relate to training?

Well, first consistent frequency 2-3x a week from a young age wins the race in the long haul. Training (or even practicing your sport) 6x a week for a month then missing a few months is a huge mistake.

Second, the bigger the base of the pyramid the higher it can be built. Athletes need ample time to develop the required General Physical Preparedness (GPP) in order to take sport specific skills to a high level. Technically, this process of GPP should start between age 7-10 and last 3 years before becoming more specific. The initial goal of a training program is to build GPP. Do you want to do it from 10-12 or from 15-17? Our athletes that have had huge success built their foundations young! In America we reverse everthing. We start specializing kids really early in a particular sport then try to throw some training at them in late MS or HS when it has become evident that they lack strength, power, and speed needed to compete at a high level. I’ve seen many athlete flat our run out of time. They were never given the opporunity to develop because they started training TOO late!

Lastly, the athletes that seem to have the most success really enjoy the sports they play and the process of getting better. It’s obvious when an athlete wants to get better vs. when they are going through the motions because Mom and Dad want them to. In my opinion, (and science is starting to back this up), playing a bunch of sports at a young age helps them to build more GPP and athleticism that they will use when they specialize in one sport, AND it takes the pressure off and allows them to enjoy sports more. When one sport all you have done your whole life too many kids burn because it’s no longer fun because they feel too much pressure. All the eggs in one basket type of thing…

To tie it all up… approach athletic development with a long term mind set and not a win now, short term vision and things will tend to come out right!