Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation in Sport by Ross Bennett

Author:Ross Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847979582
Publisher: The Crowood Press

8

MATURING AND YOUTH ATHLETES

This chapter will assess the various training modalities available for maturing and youth athletes. Prevention of injury at various stages of maturation will be covered, and performance enhancement tools will be outlined. Traditional and more novel theories of maturation and training will be proposed, with a critical analysis of them all, backed up with some personal experience.

Training athletes in the youth age groups is a topic I have been studying and practising for the majority of my coaching career, working predominantly with footballers. My practical experience in providing key coaching techniques complements the theory behind it. This chapter will focus on various aspects of fitness, and demonstrate how using them at particular stages of a maturing athlete’s career can reduce injury potential and maximize performance. Myths will also be dispelled about training children, especially when referring to resistance training with maturing athletes.

It is essential that coaches do not treat children like miniature adults: there are clear differences between them (Faigenbaum et al., 2009). This chapter will focus on the development of the original long term athletic development (LTAD) theory, and its evolution over the years. The original theory proposed by Bloom (1985) identified that there were different stages that should be emphasized throughout a child’s development. However, the theory was based on an athlete’s chronological age. It was later identified and suggested that chronological age wasn’t the most accurate method of determining maturing athletes’ stages. It was reported that biological age is essential (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004), the biological and physical maturity of an athlete. It is apparent that when working with maturing athletes, regardless of having the same chronological age, their biological ages can be very different, so contrasting approaches need to be taken with each athlete.

Assessing an athlete’s biological age takes into account their peak height velocity (PHV). PHV can be calculated fairly accurately and should be a procedure that occurs within sports clubs and organizations to assess each individual in terms of their biological maturation (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004). In boys, PHV occurs on average at 14 years of age in the UK for males, and at 12 years of age for females (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004). It lasts for approximately 2 years and the rate of growth significantly increases, up to 9–11 inches per year (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004). However, this is just an average and each athlete will go through their PHV at different stages. When athletes go through this PHV phase, they are significantly more likely to get injured, from an overload perspective, and they may have some performance decrement known as ‘adolescent awkwardness’, which sees a reduction in co-ordination, speed and agility (Philippaerts et al., 2006). Only 25 per cent of maturing athletes, however, suffer from this drop in movement/physical ability.

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