How Much Is Too Much?
Monitoring and tapering the youth athlete workload is a key to teaching lifelong love of play and physical activity.
Welcome to edition 189 of The Physical Movement. This week we dive into the alarming lack of perspective on how much work we are asking of our youth athletes. The term “work” in this context in volume or the amount of skill related, intense practice and competition at a young age, also known as workload. Year-round play, on the field/ice/court 5-7 times per week add up to a recipe for disaster.
Let’s dig in.
Did you see this recent story? 5 college athletes were hospitalized after a particularly intense practice, on the heels of a busy few days of games. The athletes were apparently being punished for missing curfew over a recent road trip.
According to this report from CBS, players may have suffered from conditions such as lactic acidosis and rhabdomyolysis, the latter of which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said can be caused by "physical exertion or overuse." Rhabdomyolysis, which can damage the heart and kidneys, occurs when damaged muscle tissue releases proteins and electrolytes into the blood, according to the CDC. "Usually, you see this sort of stuff in the marathon runners, the soccer players, sort of the endurance athletes," Dr. Christopher Hicks with Northwestern Medicine told CBS Chicago.
The good news is the athletes were released from hospital, although there good be long term effects to their health. The additional good news is the coach responsible for this has been relieved of his duties.
There are a number of alarming notes to this incident, not the only one we have heard of over the last few years. We have heard of high level athletes getting very sick or passing away form intense exercise in the heat for example.
The topic of work volume is common in training programs. Periodization is a principle widely followed in the world of athlete preparation and recovery. Periodization is a cyclical method of planning and managing athletic or physical training and involves progressive cycling of various aspects of a training program during a specific period. Conditioning programs can use periodization to break up the training program into the off-season, preseason, in-season, and the postseason. Periodization divides the year round condition program into phases of training which focus on different goals.
As a parent, you would expect that coaches at the highest level monitor the workload of their athletes. In youth sport, how much periodization have you witnessed by your son/daughter’s sport coach? As the commitment of the athlete grows and higher levels reached, how much does the coach taper the workload of your athlete?
The same principles that guide appropriate training programs, can also guide workload monitoring in youth sport. If training programs are appropriately designed and sensibly progressed, the acute and chronic adaptations that take place will likely result in meaningful changes in performance. However, if the intensity, volume, or frequency of training exceed the capacity of an athlete, extreme fatigue, injury, or illness can result.
I think we can all agree, extreme fatigue, injury or illness are not the desired outcomes for our athletes. Yet, we find examples cited above and they are tragic.
Are your athletes missing a lot of time due to illness or injury?
Do you find your athlete less enthusiastic about training sessions and participation in general?
Are they tired a lot?
These are all signs of too much of a workload for our kids.
Think about this:
"Up to 50% of all injuries seen in pediatric sports medicine clinics may be related to overuse" says Lyle J. Micheli, M.D., FACSM, director of Sports Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston
So how do we avoid overuse injuries, illness, and reduced participation?
Sport coaches must follow some principles around periodization. Thinking about workload while in season, prior to and after are critical to the health and development of our athletes.
Take 3 months off from the sport of focus prior to the age of 16, and do something else.
Play other sports to develop different skillsets.
Participate in a preparation program that builds the body for competition while teaching fundamental movement skills.
As cited here, the focus of most youth sports programs is on the development of sport-specific skills rather than on the development of fundamental fitness abilities, such as strength, power, endurance, agility, balance, and coordination.
Although some parents and coaches argue that sports specialization is the key to athletic success, broad-based participation in a variety of sports and activities is related more to later sports success than early sports specialization. Furthermore, young athletes who participate in a variety of sports seem to suffer fewer injuries than those who specialize in one sport.
Physical activity pyramid for children and adolescents clearly identifies key stages to avoid overuse injuries and too much workload for our young athletes.
Unfortunately, our youth do not develop the lifestyle physical activities through free play anymore. The health and skill related components of movement and fitness are very low in our young people. These include balance, speed, coordination and reaction time.
These are the foundation for sports skill development and competition.
Without them, piled on with an unreasonable workload leads to the exact opposite to the benefits our kids should get out of youth sport to begin with.
In summary, monitor the workload, hold coaches and organizations accountable and help your child build the foundation of strong fitness skills to support a lifelong enjoyment of play, beyond their years in youth sport.
Growing up playing minor hockey we were always threatened with and had to perform “bag skates” for either poor play or lack of discipline. In retrospect it’s incredible that was the accepted form of motivation for youth athletes - performing well to avoid “bag skates”