There has been an ongoing debate in sport for years: does an athlete play one sport year-round from a young age to stay ahead of the competition, or do they play multiple sports and specialize in their favourite sport later on in their youth?
Growth and Development
Every child grows and develops at different rates. Some athletes hit their peak or growth spurt, at the age of 11 others at the age of 15 or 16. This is where a child starts to develop the physical characteristics of an adult and it plays a huge role in what level they play at between those age ranges. It can in turn affect their mental outlook towards that sport. This is where resilience and staying positive comes into play.
The Key is to Control the Things You Can Control.
You can’t control when your body grows, but you can control how you eat, train, think and react to what happens to you.
I can speak to this from the perspective of my own son. When he was between 8 and 10, he was a pretty solid little hockey player. He loved to play, was a good skater with good skills and good hockey sense for his age. At 11 he tried out for AA hockey. He was the last cut for the team and devastated. It was difficult to explain to him it had very little to do with his skills, but more related to his size and strength (or lack of ). He was small and coaches picked more physically developed players.
For the next few years he was essentially in the last group of cuts of the top level. He was still devastated each time, but he started to train to become a stronger athlete. He started playing lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, football and golf. He became a better athlete but he was still small. Then, between 14 and 15, he grew! From 5’1’’ and around 110 pounds to 5’7” and 140 pounds. The next thing you know, he was playing AAA hockey at 15, passing those who grew and developed at a younger age because he was patient, worked hard at becoming a stronger athlete, not just a better hockey player.
As a Strength and Conditioning Coach, it solidified my approach on how taking a long-term development with young athletes is the right thing
to do. As a parent, it was hard to watch him not play at the level he was capable of playing, just because he was a smaller kid.
The Downfalls of Early Specialization
Injuries
The research is clear, early specialization can result in an increased risk of developing injuries from repeating the same movements over and over, day after day, month after month, year after year.
Burnout
Burnout can be caused by many things including:
- Heavy training that can lead to mental and physical exhaustion.
- Intense practice with no time for unstructured play can lead to less enjoyment of a sport.
- Highly structured, intense training can leave youth athletes feeling like they have no control or input into their involvement in sport.
These things can happen with multi-sport athletes too. As parents, we don’t need to plan out every minute of every day for our kids. They need time to unwind, just like adults do.
The Benefits Participating in Multiple Sports:
Filling the Movement Toolbox
Playing multiple sports allows your child to fill their movement toolbox with multiple patterns, not only challenge moving in different ways but to also avoid doing repetitive movements leading to injury. Athletes improve their physical literacy and ultimately their athleticism in the process.
Injury Prevention
A variety of movement patterns also helps your kids become less likely to get injured. Playing multiple sports allows them to move in a different way, decreasing the repetitive stress that one sport can put on a body.
Having Fun
Keep in mind that the majority (99+%) of kids never make it to the Olympics and Paralympics, or professional level in any sport. We need to have perspective on the other benefits of sport rather than becoming the elite of the elite.
- Sport = building confidence and character.
- Sport = working in a team and building relationships with others.
- Sport = developing good work habits.
- Most important, sport is about having fun competing with and against your friends.
These are also great life skills that carry over to life outside of sport.
There are many factors to consider. Here we have provided the short version to that question. To read Jeff’s full article visit: https://www.sportmanitoba.ca/resources/the-multi-sport-athlete-why-the-majority-of-elite-athletes-make-it-to-the-top-of-their-sport
