Developing Youth Athletes

Youth development is not sport-specific, it’s athlete specific.

In sport is common to get lost in the pursuit of success and medals. So much that the athlete is no longer the centrepiece of coaching and ego and often the coach becomes the focus point. This is disastrous for the athlete development pathway but devastating for the youth athlete.

In swimming or any sport, the development of youth athletes is critical to ensure success at the elite level. Think of a pyramid, the elite is the tiny bit at the top, built on huge foundations. If those foundations are cracked, the pyramid will collapse. Analysis of the workload, training objectives and biological maturity of athletes must be thorough.

Grouping by age alone might be how the competition is done and it’s great for kids of similar age to build relationships and have fun, but the coach must be aware that every child is different and will experience training differently as well, be it physically or psychologically. Let’s have an example, you could have 2 kids in the water both 13 years old, athlete A is very well developed with larger muscles, broad shoulders, good levels of strength and power while athlete B is thin, baby faced with much less physical development.

Swimming coaches, I ask you…

Should you give these two athletes the same sessions and workload?

If you were to give both athletes the same session, athlete B would likely struggle, or athlete A would likely receive an inadequate stimulus in that session. Both of these outcomes are a disservice and one is potentially dangerous.

This is what’s called early, on-time and late development, a child won’t mature because they have been alive for a certain number of years, they will do so at their own natural rate and time. Athlete A could be an example of an early developer, while athlete B is a late developer. Athlete A may require more intense, longer, more frequent sessions in the water with a focus on strength and explosive power on land. Athlete B may need fewer, less intense sessions focusing on aerobic development with strength and fundamental movement skills on land.  

Giving a late-maturing athlete the same workload as an early or on-time athlete may lead to overuse injuries such as Osgood-Schlatter disease, Patello-femoral pain or Sever’s. Thankfully there exists easy to use calculators that only require minimal data to assess maturity status. Peak Height Velocity (PHV) Calculator and the Karmish-Roche Method. PHV method is limited and can be biased towards certain ages and genders so it’s the recommendation that the Karmish-Roche method is used.

The correct analysis of athlete biological maturity can help coaches to develop athletes optimally while minimising injury risk. Putting the athletes at the centre of what we do is critical for their success and will allow them to become much better athletes.