Advising on Youth Athletic Development

The other highly recognized youth athletic development model is Rhodri Lloyd and Jon Oliver’s Youth Participant Development (YPD) model (see figure 2)⁽⁵⁾. Published almost 10 years after Balyi’s LTAD model, the YPD benefits from a more modern understanding of physical development in terms of proximity to the adolescent growth spurt rather than being purely based on chronological age. In addition, the YPD model emphasizes that a broad range of activities are important across the sports participant’s life span, but with differing emphasis at different stages. In contrast, the LTAD model talks about “windows of opportunity”, implying that if a particular window is missed, this would be detrimental to long-term development. 

“Children with a healthy foundation of fundamentals will cope easily with this transition.”

While there are some differences between these two highly regarded models, there are also several similarities. Both suggest that sports participation should progress from unstructured and community-based sports in younger years to progressively more competitive and structured programs for teenagers. Both also strongly recommend involvement in multiple sports and seasonal participation during younger years, with structured, full-time involvement with a single sport only being recommended in later teenage years. These principles are further reinforced in the International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development⁽⁶⁾. As a sports injury professional, there is a weight of scientific evidence to support that recommendation that young participants do not progress to highly structured and specialized sports involvement until at least their mid-teens!

“As sports injury professionals, we must advocate for good practice in these spaces.”

Early vs. Late Specialization

One of the key risks identified of injury in youth sports participants by the IOC consensus statement is taking on too much training too soon. On the other hand, youth sports organizations (clubs, academies, etc.) often recommend increasing involvement, with the main argument being that children will fall behind if they don’t have the same training and competition opportunities that others. This overly simplistic interpretation of talent development assumes that progress is linear and that if a participant is not at a certain level at a certain stage they can’t progress. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The youth sports program marketers will never tell parents that less is more in their industry – but the evidence tells that story. 

Talent identification is notoriously difficult. There are large incentives for sports organizations to be able to identify the best talent at the youngest possible age. As a result, significant research has gone into this field. Despite the best intentions, the consensus is that talent ID is affected by many factors and that the best strategy to increase your success rate is to wait as long as possible before selection⁽⁷⁾.

A 2010 study of athletes from Denmark provided some interesting contrasts between athletes who ultimately became elite (top 10 at a world championship event or top three in a European championship event) versus those who were merely very good (selected to represent Denmark). Their finding showed that the athletes who became elite spent fewer hours training for their sport in their younger years and committed to full-time training in their sport at a much later age than those who were near-elite. Patience pays off in athletic development.

A further factor to consider is that early success in sports rarely translates into success at an adult level. The sport of athletics is useful to consider because there is extensive, objective data on the performances of youth versus senior athletes. Less than a quarter of athletes ranked in the top 100 in the world at the U18 level ever make it into the top 100 at senior level⁽⁹⁾. This falloff becomes even larger if younger athletes (U16) are considered. A meta-analysis of the performance of 13,392 athletes established that only 2.2% of the variance in performance in senior-level athletics is explained by performance at junior levels⁽¹⁰⁾. Categorically, no one needs to be a world champion at 12 to have an opportunity to have a professional sporting career.

A final compelling study to consider is the work done by a German research group investigating the development of top-level German soccer players⁽¹¹⁾. Germany won the World Cup in 2014, and 18 national players from that generation are represented in this study. The researchers found that compared to amateur football players, the international players played more non-organized leisure football in childhood, engaged in other sports in adolescence, and specialized in organized football only at 22+ years of age. The rush to early involvement in competitive sport must be considered ill-informed at best.

What should training look like?

Now that some of the myths about youth sports have been debunked, sports injury practitioners should feel confident to have an informed discussion with parents or athletes in their care about what is unnecessary. But what is necessary? While I’m sure you agree that highly structured sports practices at a young age aren’t essential, no exposure would lead to no development, and that also wouldn’t be optimal.

Time commitment
Two simple rules of thumb are: 

1. No one should be exposed to more weekly hours of organized practice than they are years old,
2. Everyone should have one day per week where they don’t participate in any structured sports practice.

Outside these guidelines, children can play for as long as they wish, but this playtime should be unstructured and self-guided.

Practice content
Both the LTAD and YPD models presented significant time spent developing “Fundamental Movement Skills” – but what are these? The most useful interpretation to explain these is Stability, Object Control, and Movement Skills (see figure 3). The goal of any sporting curriculum for children up to 12 should be to develop a broad range of competency in these skills. Stability, Object Control, and Movement Skills, when linked and combined, are the foundation of any skillful athletic movement. Younger participants will need to practice skills in isolation, while older participants should be encouraged to link, combine, and refine these skills during training.

In the early teenage years, the emphasis on sports shifts towards regular structured practice, and as a result, there is more focus on sport-specific skills. Children with a healthy foundation of fundamentals will cope easily with this transition. During this development phase, at least 60% of training time should focus on technical and tactical aspects of the game. Physical outputs are also important at this stage, and physical training should focus on developing athletic movement competencies (see figure 4)⁽⁸⁾. Athletic movement competencies are an athlete’s ability to perform basic movement tasks with satisfactory biomechanical alignment, stability, and efficiency – effectively applying these skills combined with sports-specific skills and tactical understanding will drive competitive performance. Other important considerations at this stage are mental preparation for competition and how to engage socially with the team, coaches, and other support. In the early teenage years, we learn the habits that might support later performance.

Summary

While the participation of young people in youth sports and physical activities is undoubtedly positive, there is the risk of having too much of a good thing. Overzealous sports organizers and parents hoping to give their children the edge often throw caution to the wind and commit to ever more demanding playing and practice schedules. As sports injury professionals, we must advocate for good practice in these spaces. Sports practitioners are often left to manage and rehabilitate overuse injuries, which provides an excellent opportunity to educate players and parents alike on what is age-appropriate. Children are not just “small adults,” and they have specific needs and opportunities for development that should be fulfilled by the sports programs they are enrolled in. This data arms clinicians with facts and figures that will allow them to advocate for best practices in these spaces.

References

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