Your Fall Season’s Over…So Now What?

As the weather gets colder and fall seasons come to a close, I want to take a few minutes to discuss some viable next-steps for the winter depending on your age, goals, and ability level, to improve at your craft and come back next fall ready to take the world by storm.

First, let me make something extremely clear. I am adamantly against early specialization. For those that don’t know, early specialization is exactly what it sounds like, specializing in one sport at an early age/early in athlete’s development. Early specialization has become a huge problem in this country for many reasons, and is far too expansive a topic to dive into in this blog, but be on the lookout for deceptive coaches pushing athletes to specialize early for their own financial gain. Without going too deep, early specialization leads to overuse injuries, a lack of physical literacy, coordination, and movement development in children, and early burnout.

With that in mind, it’s hard to pinpoint an exact age or ability that children should begin to specialize in one sport, because in an ideal world, they never would. Playing multiple sports allows them to develop their athleticism safely, utilize different muscles/movement patterns, and be introduced to a plethora of different stimuli that force them to solve new problems. Not the mention they will develop great social and character skills by playing multiple sports.

With all that being said, in today’s cut-throat sporting landscape, it’s hard to feel like you child isn’t falling behind if they aren’t investing copious amounts of time/energy to their sport, and it sort of makes sense. At the end of the day, consistent effort will most likely breed success, so the more consistently an athlete invests effort into their sport, the more they will develop. While this principle bears out, an athlete must train smartly to ensure that he/she is developing appropriately and avoiding the common errors of early specialization and winter training.

So, with that context established, let me give you some viable options for this winter to continue to develop without worrying about putting your child at risk or in harms way.

1. If your child is younger than 14 years old, get them in some sort of movement-based program, martial arts, or gymnastic-type training to compliment their primary sport. The components of these kinds of activities will build the fundamental movement skills and coordination athletes need to have success in their sporting endeavors, while doing so in a fun, exciting, and safe environment. Putting your child in a program like this is far and away the best thing you can do as a parent for their long-term athletic development.

2. If your child is 14 or older, get them in some sort of formal strength and conditioning/athletic development program. Do NOT allow them to join the gym on their own, where they will develop bad habits, put themselves at risk to be injured, and most likely set back their athletic development, making them worse at their primary sport. At this age, training harder is not always the best option because athletes typically don’t know what they are doing. Training with smart coaches who will keep them safe, teach them lifting principles, and get them comfortable in the weight room, is a much better option.

3. Look for a 1-2 day/week sport-specific program. Here’s where the magic of balance truly happens. Once your child is playing a different sport/enrolled in some sort of movement/athletic development program, find a program where they can work with a coach 1-2 days/week for sport-specific development. I would steer clear of anything more than 2 days/week, and 1 day/week truly is the sweet spot. It’s the spot where athletes can continue to invest effort and improve in their primary sport, without being subjected to the risks of early specialization.

There you have it. Hopefully you now have a clear picture of what to look for this winter, and what to steer clear of, if you hope to continue your child’s development in their primary sport. As a conclusion, I want to give you as a parent a quick checklist to follow to simplify this process:

1. Enroll child in secondary sport.

2. Depending on age, enroll child in some sort of movement development/athletic development program with a coach who will keep them safe and develop them properly.

3. Enroll child in 1-2 day/week sport-specific development program.

If you want to inquire about working with us for any of these services, please do so HERE.

Thanks for reading, we hope to work with you soon to safely develop your child and allow them to reach their athletic potential and dominate their sporting endeavors.

Until next time,

-JL