The Insanity will be a monthly topic or topics on all of the crazy stuff athletes are doing wrong and why it does not work. Sports training has become more of a gimmick than a scientific approach and because we are truly dedicated to help athletes achieve their goals we will also help educate parents and athletes through these topics.
Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Young Athletes and Sports Performance
Weekly we speak with new parents about their young athletes (7-13) and the proper training for them. It seems there are so many myths about training, that parents end up doing nothing for their sons or daughters and if something is done it's usually the wrong type of training. Sometimes this leaves the young athlete behind when he or she gets to the high school level.
Parents have to remember why your son or daughter is training and does the training have an actual plan or is it random and non beneficial. Here are some things young athletes should not do and why.
1. Machines and Weight Training
Machines are pointless! Yes, that's right machines are the worst thing a young athlete can do. Why? I'm about to tell you.
Machines are trainers way of saying here, I'm lazy, not very educated in training but I want to charge you a lot of money so I'm going to have your young child or athlete move weight in a fixed plane so you don't really develop any type of athleticism. Have you ever seen a sport that moved in one direction like a machine? Either have we! Because of this type of training athletes are at greater risk for injury. We have even heard of young athletes doing 100 reps on machines in a fast pace circuit!!! The point of that is what?! It's no wonder when these young athletes who trained like this become studs after a few weeks of training with us.
Do these kids look excited?Strength training is the best thing for a young athlete but it all has to do with relative body strength, meaning how strong one can get for their own body weight. Young athletes we train run faster, jump higher and increase agility all with body weight training and no equipment. Relative body strength is key! So why are trainers having kids sit down on their butts, and moving weight, when most kids can't even do a push-up, chin-up and a body weight squat?
*One of DTS' own developing relative body strength
Machines cause laziness in the trainer and athlete after the thousandth time through the circuit what is next for the athlete? Free weights? Yet again no relative body strength is being developed. The benefits of relative body strength is improved confidence, body composition, coordination, stabilization, speed, agility, jumping power and better sports performance.
*This guy has some serious relative body strengthYou can have your young athlete develop strength by lifting weights with improper form:
*Reverse Curl or Hang Clean?
By the way we never perform this lift at DTS but we will get into that later during this series. For those who are interested (or the trainer in this pic) in how to actually perform the catch position of the hang or power clean, this is how it should look:
DTS athletes develop explosiveness using low intensity jumping drills and body weight exercises like the young athletes below who train in our S.P.E.E.D program. For more information on this program click here http://www.davistrainingsystems.com/services.asp.
*Not bad for 10 years old. Plus the bar is 2"thick!
