What is so specific about "Sports-Specific" Training?

Nothing.

I am constantly flooded with parents and coaches requesting "sport-specific" training for their athletes. While the culture of youth sports in America is currently failing our athletes by demanding early specialization, we will simplify our position into three crucial reasons why "sport-specific" training doesn't make sense for ANY young athlete.

1. Athletes can play multiple sports.
Many of the athletes currently seen at the professional ranks were at one time multi-sport participants. From a training perspective,training solely for one sport and not the other would only produce a benefit in that sport, hereby negating any skill requirements for the other sport(s). Playing multiple sports is becoming frowned upon as more and more athletes specialize at an early age when in reality, a multi-sport athlete has the BEST chance at becoming successful.

2. Injury Potential
Athletes that become over-specialized typically become over-sensitive to injury. By creating an environment by which athletes are performing large volumes of repetitions that consist of the same movements, athletes can suffer from a term appropriately named, "pattern overload". Acute pattern overload can quickly become chronic health conditions later on. Here are some brief examples:

Baseball Athletes: coaches and parents are now having youngsters play more games and practice more often. The result, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Baseball has the highest prevalence of injury amongst any youth sport in the U.S. The more specialized these kids become, the less opportunity they have for future success l when the competition carries its greatest value.

Soccer Athletes: Soccer has become a year round sport by which each seasonal climate change sparks another variation of soccer competition. Now, common pain complaints from these athletes stem from simple soreness in the joints to more serious fractures in the feet, lower legs, and growth plates. Statistically, this has become a significant factor in the 80% dropout rate currently associated with youth soccer in the U.S.

Volleyball Athletes: Volleyball is sweeping the country at the club level and as the sport grows, more and more athletes are competing year-round. Currently, Volleyball is one of the Big Three of sports most associated with female ACL tears. From a training perspective, volleyball is considered a vertical-based sport and has obsessed trainers and coaches constantly imposing "jump-training" or "plyos" on a group that already performs these actions nearly 365-days per year.

3. Overall Athleticism
Regardless of what sport an athlete plays, don't all athletes have to posses the qualities of strength, speed, agility, coordination, explosiveness, etc.? No matter the sport, an athlete has a greater potential to perform well if they are more athletic than the competition, and that is why we need to get away from the "sport-specific" model being implemented in the U.S. Instead, we must focus on an "athlete-specific" approach to development---augmenting what our athletes are currently capable of, while correcting and improving on their weaknesses.

It's time to shed the "sport-specific" mentality. If long-term success is what you are seeking in your athletes, an "athlete-specific" model is the best way to achieve that goal.


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