Last week I touched on the overwhelming pressure that is
being heaped upon developing young athletes. [1] A recent national survey lends
strong evidence to support this opinion:
- 59 percent of young athletes have voiced concern that they
expect to be injured during an upcoming game.
- Half of the children surveyed said they hide injuries so
that they can continue to play. 42 percent of kids who have been hurt during
the game say they were called foul names if they sat out — some by their own
parents.
- 16 percent say that either they tried to hurt another
player during the game, or one of their teammates did.
- Some children said that their coaches, teammates, and/or
parents have encouraged them to play while injured — 11 percent of children in
the survey were offered money and/or gifts to play with an injury. [2]
I won’t rehash last weeks article here but suffice it to say
kids are feeling more pressure to perform at earlier ages than ever before and
they just aren’t equipped mentally or emotionally to carry that burden. Youth
sports should be pure joy for kids and yet it is very likely many of them
compete with some sense of fear brought on by the threat of physical injury,
failure to perform, or falling short of others expectations.
I want to narrow my focus this week on one particular aspect
from the highlighted survey and that is the issue of kids hiding injuries to
stay in the game.
If you watch professional sports inevitably broadcasters
routinely praise athletes for playing in pain, throwing out phrases like
“he/she is a warrior!” So there is no doubt that athletes are glorified for
being tough and overcoming injuries. I mean what kid wouldn’t like to be known
as a “warrior?” As parents and coaches we definitely can’t control what is
coming from the media but we should counsel kids on the difference between
playing with minor pain or injury.
Playing through a little soreness could be fine as long as
body mechanics aren’t compromised. The best strategy is to use your eyes. What
are they showing you? You should have a good idea of how the athlete normally
moves. If they seem to be a step behind, dragging not moving with the same
fluidity of motion chances are they are favoring or attempting to mask an
injury. This would be the time to pull the child from competition before the
altered movement patterns lead to a bigger problem. Of course when coaching
kids between the ages of 10 ½ to 18 with a peak around 14, the regression in
movement quality may be complicated by a growth spurt. However altered movement quality
resulting from an injury will usually be more glaring while the poor movement
resulting from a growth spurt would be subtler and would present evidence
gradually over time. It’s as
important in my mind to pull the reigns back on young athletes during the
growth spurt. Rather than “cranking” up the intensity of their training/competition
it would serve them better over the long haul to ease them through this stage
with more basic training activities.
Youth sports are as competitive as ever and many kids may
fear losing their spot/playing time. Again this comes back to the performance
based youth sport culture that currently dominates the landscape. If the
emphasis were where it should be on long-term improvement kids would likely
feel less pressure to hide injuries out of fear of losing playing time. And
coaches schooled in the art of long term athletic development would feel less
urgency to win and instead focus on the needs of their athletes’.
In youth sport, there are kids who view themselves in
absolute terms. They use "all or nothing" concepts such as being fast
or slow, strong, or weak, fat or thin. Everything is categorized as successful
or unsuccessful, good or bad.
Such thinking leads to labeling. Negative labels (“he’s not
tough”) are detrimental because they are internalized and become permanent
thoughts that linger in a young athlete's mind during training/competition. The
end result is a poor self-concept, high levels of stress, and low future
expectations regarding performance.
A young athlete will do just about anything to avoid
acquiring one of these labels and that includes not revealing when they are
truly hurting.
If we want the next generation to embrace an active
lifestyle for the rest of their lives we have to put their needs ahead of any
plastic trophies. Sports should be used to develop qualities that will enhance
their values and character. When that is the focus championships, scholarships
and trophies will be the inevitable result.
Phil Loomis
Youth Athletic Development Specialist
Reference:
No comments:
Post a Comment