Too Young to Train? When should children begin structured performance training?

When should my child...? Is my child ready to...? I'd like my child to work on... 

Those are some common lead-ins to the ultimate idea of: "My kid is pretty young (6-9 years old) and I am seeing a need for some formalized performance training. Am I crazy? Can you do this? Is it safe?" Are sometimes the follow-ups.

Yes, children in that age range can absolutely start a structured performance training plan. It is safe. However, unless your child has a real need or is super motivated for structured training, I would encourage you to try gymnastics, parkour, or other sports before committing to a performance plan.

What and who should you look for?

Look for a facility that specializes in training for children under age 10 or 11. And look for staff members and coaches who have lots of experience working with young children. 

Look for a big emphasis on fun, guided discovery, and inquire about how the structure changes from age 6 up to age 10 or so.

Generally, females aged 7-8 are ready to start as they have the mental focus and body control for a full training session. For boys, usually it's age 8-9 when they are ready.

The sessions do not need to be a full hour - probably around 45-min is ideal. Because this is not a sport with breaks for talking about strategy and technique, the sessions can be very tiring because they are so focused.

Here is a sample template that can be used for any young child (scaled appropriately):

Sample performance training template for 6-9 year old children.

With some common sense applied to these sessions (mostly remembering the trainee is a very young child), they will be fun and productive for everyone.

Top 5 Reasons Injury is an Opportunity

No athlete ever wants to be injured. But hey, it happens! Once you get past the initial pain and frustration, you'll notice there are huge opportunities that any injury provides. If approached with a positive mindset - one that searches for “the silver lining” - the athlete can exit the recovery process healthier, stronger, fitter, and faster than ever.

Let’s take a look at the top 5 massive reasons injury is an opportunity:

1. Get Bullet-Proof! Well, not literally. But improving an athlete’s injury risk profile is a nice benefit to the time off from regular training. For example, let’s say the injury is a lower-back strain. But in this same athlete, there is also a history of weakness in the hips. That means that the injury is a great time to get Bullet-Proof by addressing the weakness alongside the injury. Hint: most injuries are, eventually, traced back to these weak links.
2. Physical capacities. This is a chance to reset and spend time working on some base level physical capacities like aerobic fitness, total body strength, and overall improvement in physical preparedness.
3. Movement efficiency. Most athletes could use fine-tuning, if not complete overhaul, on things like jumping mechanics, change of direction efficiency, bat swing, shot mechanics, etc. An injury is a great time to rebuild mechanically in areas of need. There is no pressure to perform these skills live, so the ability to practice technique over and over can be extremely productive and refreshing.
4. Psychological and emotional resiliency. I’ve found that when things are NOT going my way that seems to be the best time to see what my current ability is to handle stress. In this case, the injury again affords the athlete time to work on themselves psychologically. This can be with the direct help of a sports psychologist or mental coach or through the learned discipline that comes from showing up to rehab and reconditioning every day only to be challenged and frustrated during the grueling process that IS coming back from injury.
5. Tactical awareness. Take out your play book, fire up YouTube, keep ESPN on, watch practices, etc. Get better at the tactical driven aspects to your sport.

For the hurt athlete, injury should never be viewed as a time to relax and check out. Even if you are a recreational athlete at the middle or high school levels, any injury is serious business that can affect your health for many years to come (or even a lifetime).

Instead of taking a mental and physical vacation, I recommend viewing injury as a brief timeout from regular training and competition and use it to stay focused and double-down on your efforts to improve every aspect of your performance. Then watch as it translates into a fantastic “next season” and shows up positively in other areas of life, too.

Thank you to the book High-Performance Training for Sports for the inspiration and guidance on writing this post.

Wrestling: What NOT to Do in Pre-Season

This is a guest post by Hunter Hautz. Hunter is a coach intern at SAPT with an extensive background as a wrestler.

Ah, wrestling. The start of the season is just around the corner. All the high school and college athletes have been plugging away with lifting and conditioning and are preparing for live drilling that will start soon.
Whenever I think of pre-season for wrestling, I remember feeling the same way for every single
one: TIRED. We always trained too much during this time, never really knowing what we were
doing, just doing as much as we could to get ready - always operating under the guide of MORE IS BETTER.

We know better now, much better. More is NOT better. In fact "more" only for the sake of itself, can be very destructive. My most successful came after not falling into that trap and when I started learning how to work smarter, not harder.

With that in mind, here are a few tips for to optimize success during pre-season preparation to keep you or your wrestler strong and healthy.

1. Setting Priorities

The most important things to focus on at this point are your wrestling skills. Let me repeat that in
case you’re like me and got slammed on your head too many times. THE MOST IMPORTANT
THINGS TO FOCUS ON CLOSE TO AND DURING THE SEASON ARE YOUR SKILLS. Don’t
forget your goal for all of your training is to become a better wrestler. This means that the most
important thing to focus on is…….. Wrestling.

2. Start Losing Weight Early

If you’re a high school wrestler and are 15 pounds or more over your desired
weight class and don’t have much fat on you, move up a weight class. If you want to move down
a weight class, and are in a healthier range (5-15 pounds max), you need to start losing that
weight starting during the summer. Eating a little less and losing as much bodyfat as you can
will make you a lot healthier and happier come time for the season to start. Planning that far
ahead means you will have to cut much less weight, if any at all when the matches start.

3. Cut Weight Smarter

Ideally there would be no need for cutting weight in wrestling, as it decreases performance and
increases injury risk. However, for now it is a part of the sport so we want to make it safe as
possible for the athletes. I will say again, if you are over your weight class by more than 10-15
pounds, just move up a weight class. Losing more than this will affect your health, if
not now than later - as in my case.

If you are in a “healthier” range, the safest and easiest way to cut is to use water-loading and sodium management. This method doesn’t require any extra training, which when done in a dehydrated state can cause more damage to the body and there is a potentially higher risk for injury.

A sample template for dropping weight via water loading would be 5 days in length and would vary slightly depending on whether the match was during the week or a weekend tournament. Five days out from a match, the wrestler will start drinking 1.5-2 gallons of water a day depending
on their weight. This is done 5, 4, and 3 days out from the match. Two days out they drink half of
the amount from days 5, 4, and 3.

The day before they will just sip a little bit of water throughout the day, to drop the final ounces of weight before weigh-ins in the morning. Sodium would be limited the last 3 days before so as to not retain water. After weigh-ins have the athlete drink a sports drink or electrolyte replacement drink to help rehydrate the water they lost from their cut. After the initial 32-
48oz of a sports/electrolyte type drink they can switch to a 1:1 mixture of this and water so as to
not upset their stomach and cause too much bloating.

4. Don’t stop training

Some wrestlers stop lifting close to and during the season because they don’t want to get
injured or are too lazy because practice is so hard. This is almost just as dangerous as
training too much. All the strength and conditioning that was gained during the offseason that can help prevent injuries will be lost very quickly if training isn’t maintained.

The great thing about this is that maintaining strength, conditioning, power etc. is much easier once you already have it, than it was to build in the first place. Training 2-3 times per week at a lower intensity and volume will help the athlete hold onto the improvements made during the offseason and let that work transfer over into the postseason.

Common Sense

Just because wrestling is insanely hard, does not mean the sport gets a pass to foster poor decision making and the development of damaging habits. Keep your head on straight while you are training and if it doesn't feel like a solid decision, it probably isn't, so change course a bit.

Add this to your warmup ASAP

Have you ever spent 10-minutes thoroughly warming up your entire system: mind, body, and even soul only to still feel deflated as you walk over to the barbell to start your workout?

You're not along. Often we get so wrapped up in increasing blood flow, mobilizing joints, and carrying out our injury prevention protocol, that one of the most important components of the warmup gets swept under the rug.

CNS Activation

I think we can all agree the central nervous system is truly the foundation of any training session - without its responsiveness not much is getting done. But does it have degrees of responsiveness? Degrees of readiness? Or is the nervous system always ready to fire at 100% efficiency and effectiveness? 

Exciting the Central Nervous System is a crucial final component to anyone's warm-up. It turns out, the CNS is NOT always ready to go and needs some "priming" of its own.

A bit of proper CNS activation is the final step to warming up that will allow the athlete to feel ready to go - reactive, fast, excited. 

How to:

Any gentle rotational work, builder sprints, light plyometrics will do the trick. The key is to do a couple of sets of 3-5 reps and allow the body to build from about 70% effort to 90% or so. It is key to adjust effort based on how the athlete is feeling on that particular day. If the athlete can't get through this part and "wake up" you should take note as it is a sign the body is not be ready to train that day... but that's another topic.

Upper Body Days - my favorite way to get ready for an upper body training day is to finish my warm-up with a light medicine ball circuit. I tailor effort to how I'm feeling. Sometimes the throws stay fairly light and fast, while other times I end up close to 100% effort by the last couple of reps.

Lower Body Days - Box jumps are my favorite to prime for a deadlift or squat day. You can minimize the impact from landing quite a bit and that helps this feel easier on the body while still doing its job to fire up the CNS. Another great option are very small hops/jumps: side-to-side, front-to-back, and single leg hops are all great options.

Give your CNS some love the next time you warmup and see if you feel your readiness to perform on the field, court, or gym changes.

How to Dominate Off-Season Baseball Training

The best time of year to make major gains for baseball is in the fall and winter. For the serious (and still developing) athlete, here is a sample weekly breakdown that could be used to maximize the off-season:

Day 1: Plyometrics + Linear Speed + Lower Body Lift

Day 2: OFF

Day 3: Medicine Ball Drills + Upper Body Lift

Day 4: Plyometrics + Lateral Speed + Lower Body Lift

Day 5: OFF

Day 6: Medicine Ball Drills + Upper Body Lift

Day 7: OFF

This sample plan focuses on power, speed, and strength development (and, of course, injury prevention). There will be an appropriate and adequate cardiovascular conditioning effect through each session itself. If desired, extra low-level aerobic conditioning can be completed in the form of walking for 15-30-min at a time several days a week.

Within each individual training day, each drill/exercise that is selected should be chosen to specifically enhance the very specific needs of a baseball player. Position players will have different needs than pitchers and those needs should also be a major priority when planning each training day.

By following training plans that are safe, effective, efficient, and written to the individual’s needs, athletes will make significant strides towards their performance goals that will be directly transferred to the field.

Coach Sarah Walls, founder of SAPT, is a professional performance development coach and personal trainer with over 15-years experience. SAPT offers athletic training programs for individuals of any age and background. Please email Sarah below if you'd like to learn more.

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  Is Muscle Activation a Myth? https://t.co/qHB0cNjgwF

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Basic Power Development Drills for the Contact Sport Athlete

For sports that require explosive bursts of power against outside forces (like other athletes) you will want to look towards loaded plyometric movements to get the job done.

Most athletes and coaches think that the clean, snatch, and their variations are the only option for power development. Fortunately there are many alternative exercises that are both safe for athletes new to this type of training and extremely effective.

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Medicine Ball Keg Toss

Good for: Beginners

Virtually any athlete can safely use this movement. The primary goal is to make sure triple extension of the hips, knees, and ankles is achieved on each toss.

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Explosive Medicine Ball Push

Good for: Intermediate Skill Levels

For athletes that need explosive starts, this is a great option. You will need a medicine ball and something soft to fall onto.

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Dumbbell Box Jump

Good for: Intermediate Skill Levels

Before adding weight to the box jump, the athlete should be able to demonstrate correct mechanics of an unloaded box jump. There is no need to select a high box for these to be effective. Instead focus on the box appropriate for the athlete to use about 30-40% of their body weight.

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Hex Bar Jump

Good for: Advanced Skill Levls

Prior to using this movement, an athlete should be proficient in the barbell or hex bar deadlift. They must also be comfortable with hip hinge mechanics and be able to maintain a neutral spine. With this movement, start with about 50% of body weight and progress up as long as mechanics are maintained along with speed.

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Try adding in one of these movements on your next leg day after the warm-up and before the main lift of the day. Keep everything crisp and fast to rack up the power production benefits.

Coach Sarah Walls, founder of SAPT, is a professional performance development coach and personal trainer with over 15-years experience. SAPT offers athletic training programs for individuals of any age and background. Please email Sarah if you would like to learn more!