Athletic Shortcuts & Reaping What You Sow

Jason Price, MS, CSCS, ATC, LAT, CPT, USAW Club Coach

I recently began reading the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Dr. Stephen Covey.  This book had come highly recommended to me and is on almost everyone of my mentors reading lists.  In turn I will put it on my recommended reading list when I feel that I have read enough to have such a list.  But, it was in the beginning of this book in the first chapter that I felt compelled to write this article.  The book is all about personal change; about developing oneself into a more efficient person which in turn will create more productivity.  In my line of work this is right up my ally of what I try to accomplish on a daily basis with my athletes.  When I cracked open this book I thought it was going to be the recipe to make me work at a higher level.  But, the truth which I found out is that there is no recipe, that there was no short cut, that everything follows the natural law and that if you skip steps ultimately you will not reach your optimal efficient potential.  In the book Covey describes the development of a child, and being a new father I found this to strike close to home.  A child must develop over time following a specific order of milestones.  Those of you who are parents understand this.  But, it is the order of these milestones which is truly important and not just reaching the milestones.  You see if you skip a step and move on to the next, yes the child may appear right then and there to be “advanced”.  But, in time that missed step will come back and cause developmental delays.  So what may look like an advantage at first winds up being a disadvantage in the long run. 

So, what does this have to do with athletes and shortcuts to athleticism?  Everything!  Athletes need to follow the natural path to developing athleticism.  By playing on one “elite team” or going to an “elite” camp or getting “elite” coaching is not going to have one degree of change on the physiological milestones that the young athletes body must go through.  One example is with a young female Basketball player.  Displaying solid height, quickness, agility, and overall above average basketball skills this young girl at the age of 10 begins to play basketball year round.  She plays at a bunch of camps all summer and then plays on two different teams in the fall and winter and another two teams in the spring and summer.  Basketball is this girls life and she loves it!  She gets private lessons on low post play and shooting.  She may be 10 years old but is already playing at a level of a high school freshman.  It is a lock that come freshman year she will be the starting center on the High School team.  Now Freshman year comes and all the predictions were correct.  This young girl has blossomed into a Division I prospect! She starts getting letters from UConn, Rutgers, Penn State, and all the big time programs.  But, then sophomore year comes around.  She doesn’t look the same.  She doesn’t jump as well, She has put on some weight, her quickness and agility are not where they once were.  She still possesses the great low post skills and shooting touch.  Junior year rolls around and the College coaches start calling.  Junior year is a lot like sophomore year but this year she misses a couple games because of sore knees and she had seen an Orthopedic and the said she had a patellofemoral disorder and that if she wore a brace she’d be fine.  So she wears the brace and during the summer the knee just doesn’t get any better.  Then Senior year rolls around and during practice before the first game she goes up for a rebound during a drill with no one around her.  When she lands her knee buckles and she feels a “pop”.

Now, that scenario may sound like someone I worked with or someone you know but it is not.  That would all be coincidence because I just made that scenario up.  But, that happens every day with young athletes.  Early specialization appears to be the athletic shortcut to stardom.  But, it is not.  Skipping the important steps of athletic development only leads to breakdown or underachievement.  Take our scenario.  What may appear to be a young girl “aging” or playing too much basketball is not the case.  What happened is that she went through a natural physiological process.  It is call puberty.  In case you did not know this ALL humans go through this process and just because someone is a good basketball player won’t stop it or cause it to change.  So while our basketball player was working on post moves and jump shots she was going through puberty.  Her female hormones took over, her weight gain was natural, her hips widened, her hip and knee mechanics changed because of it.  So, because all emphasis was placed on basketball development and not athletic development the skipped stage came back to bite our hypothetical basketball player when she needed to display her athletic talent the most.

In his book Dr. Covey has a great descriptive analogy for why shortcuts don’t work and we all are bound to the natural laws of life.  He talks about farmers and how if they don’t follow the process it takes to grow crops then will there be a harvest?  “You can’t cram on a farm.” He says.  “If you forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest.”  Off course we know that won’t work for the farmer.  Then why do we expect a different outcome for athletes.  If a young child displays athleticism or a talent for a sport at a young age don’t assume that they are going to excel in that sport and then fast track them in it.  Let them play many sports and get them involved in an athletic development program.  Being involved in many sports and developing athletically by working on agility drills, jumping and running technique and resistance training for strength is the best way to develop a young athlete.  Specialization in sports should be held off until the youngster has matured physiologically or has reached the age where specialization is needed.  Sports like gymnastics and figure skating require earlier specialization than sports like Football and Basketball. 

So in closing, don’t try to find the short cuts for athletes remember you will only reap what you sow.  Plant the athletic seeds early and allow them to grow and blossom and eventually in time once all the steps have been followed the young athlete will have a much better chance of reaching their optimal genetic potential for their sport.