Stuff You Should Read: 5/7/10
Written on May 7, 2010 at 10:48 am, by Eric Cressey
Some entertainment and some education for this week:
A Look Inside the CP Staff Lift – Tony Gentilcore wrote up a great blog about our Thursday staff training sessions at CP for this month, including several videos that serve as evidence of the brutality.
Stopping Youth Sports Injuries – It was nice to see this feature at ESPN.com. I think it’s great that they are getting big names involved in the “fight” against early sport specialization.
Does Reaching Behind the Back Reflect the Actual Internal Rotation of the Shoulder? – This is a great blog post from Mike Reinold that expands on some of the concepts we covered in our Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set.
Also, don’t forget that today is the last day to get the $20 early-bird discount on The Single-Leg Solution. Don’t miss out; the introductory price ends tonight at midnight.
Category Blog | Tags: Athlete Training Programs, Cressey Performance, High Performance Training, Mike Reinold, Mike Robertson, Optimal Shoulder Performance, Rotator Cuff Exercises, Shoulder Health, Shoulder Impingement, Shoulder Pain, The Single-leg Solution, Tony Gentilcore
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May 7th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Eric,
I understand and agree with the concerns about early age specialization (<13). However:
I played baseball and football all the way through high school, but I dealt with a lot of pressure to drop out of baseball to pursue a more intense weight training program through the year so it would pay off during football season. I can only imagine the choices would have been tougher had I loved a winter sport like basketball, hockey, or wrestling.
Do you think smart “in-season” programming for each of these different sports’ seasons is enough of a solution to give kids a chance to get to the college level? Or does a need for a dedicated “strength training season” limit your options by age 13-17?
(And to be clear I’m not referring to truly gifted athletes who have the talent to get to the next level anyway. I’m thinking of all the kids on the borderline, which in my opinion is kind of where you’ve made your name- turning tons of high school baseball players into prospects.)
May 8th, 2010 at 4:49 am
That’s a great question and I’ve wrestled with that issue as a coach. I would say the best approach is to plan your strength training around your best sport, or the one you plan to play at the next level. As you get older, in the 16-18 range, specialization will actually start to be beneficial. A good read is Children and Sports Training, by Josef Drabik (sp?). Looking forward to other opinions.