Dirt Under The Nails
Coaching critical to injury prevention
Carla Rauseo
Published: 25 Jun 2010
Abby Sunderland the 16-year old sailor who
wanted to be the youngest person to
solo-circumnavigate the world.
Carla Rauseo
The World Cup is not the only thing that has held my interest over the last week. Abby Sunderland’s ordeal has managed a close second place. This 16-year old sailor who wanted to be the youngest person to solo-circumnavigate the world had to be rescued as she lost her mast in fifty-foot waves, miles away from land in the Indian Ocean. This begs the question—how young is too young? But age is not a factor in determining participation in physical activity. It is the TYPE of physical activity and the way in which the children are coached that needs to be addressed. Increasing numbers of young local athletes who have specialised early in one sport are incurring significant injuries.
Parents, think for a minute. What do you want for your child from his/her competitive athletic experience? A scholarship to university, maybe? To learn good social skills and stay out of trouble? To develop an appreciation for a healthy and active lifestyle? Think again, how much confidence should you place in a youth coach who knows nothing about pediatric exercise? Children are not miniature adults, and therefore should not be trained as such. The causes of pediatric injuries can be linked to the training regimen. The vigorous, repetitive, frequent training to which poorly educated coaches (many in T&T) subject their athletes increases the injury risk to the growth plate of maturing bones.
This is the region at the end of most bones where new bone growth occurs, increasing the length of the bone. In fact, the growth plate is most vulnerable to injury the year before it closes in late adolescence. Overuse injuries to these areas may take up to six months to heal. There goes that scholarship! What comprises a young athlete’s training programme should be determined by his/her neuromuscular and postural control (movement mechanics), and psychological and physical maturity. Owing to the increasing trends in childhood obesity and the decrease in free physical play time (because of these computer finger games), children are not properly developing their gross motor skills. They are therefore less able to cope with the demands of the training programmes of many of our local coaches. This is especially so for young girls who suffer more from knee injuries due to training.
Children are no longer multi-sport athletes. Gone are the days of climbing “de neighbour mango tree and tiefing mango,” or playing hide-and-seek in the drains of the neighbourhood. Kids are specializing in one sport too early, not allowing their bodies to develop into well-rounded, symmetrical little machines. They develop the postures and muscular imbalances of their particular sport and succumb to sport-specific injuries too early. Case in point is shoulder injuries in overhead athletes caused by tight chest muscles and shoulder muscle and flexibility imbalances. In addition, I always wonder at the quality of life of these “specialised” youth. Their training regimens alone are so structured and time consuming, and then there is school and exams. They always seem so tired to me. Where is their social time, their “play” time? Where is the variety of situations in the child’s life?
Parents I have questioned tell me that their social time is their time with their teammates in training. That hardly seems like variety and social/play time to me. Experts suggest that acute and overuse injuries can be reduced by fifteen to fifty percent if the factors related to youth sport injuries are addressed. Coaches should value preparatory training and the reduction of training errors (the classic Trinidadian case of too much too soon). Competition should evolve out of instructional training and preparation addressing fundamental skills before sport specific skills, thereby enhancing “physical literacy.” Fundamental locomotor skills (running, jumping, skipping, hopping), and object control skills (throwing, catching and striking) that require the motor fitness components of agility, balance and coordination should be the major focus of a youth coach in laying the foundation for more sport specific training.
“Land sorf,” is the usual instruction on jump technique in the Trinidadian coach’s vernacular. While they at least know that a hard landing increases the impact on the joints, they are often clueless about the actual landing technique and how to teach it. The child then proceeds to perform high-level jump training and then comes to my office with knee pain. Coach education is the key to long-term athlete development. There are no shortcuts. Well-informed experts state that it takes about eight to eleven years of training for a talented athlete to become elite. Why are we rushing? Coaches who adopt adult training philosophies (“no pain, no gain”) and insist on repetitive, high intensity activity five to seven days per week are just waving the two million dollar red flag of ignorance.
So parents, young athletes should be exposed to a variety of sports in a variety of settings with different people so that they can discover what they like and maximize their social, physical and psychological development while reducing musculoskeletal injuries. The key to success in sport is the application of FUNdamental principles. Coaches must be educated with an appreciation of the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence while understanding the importance of fun and creating a lifelong interest in physical activity.
