Best Ways to Increase Athletic Performance

Best Ways to Increase Youth Athletic Performance

We will just come out and say it now. If you're reading this article to try and find the short cut to a quick boost in performance to help with a youth athlete’s show case or travel team try out next week, you probably will not like this article or want to read it. It will maybe seem boring or be dismissed as not possible to do. Truth is, after over a decade of working with athletes, we have found many trying to skip over foundational building blocks while many of the highest achieving, simply do the boring tasks consistently. Want to hit a new personal record on throwing velocity, there is a lot more that goes into it than an extra pitching lesson or a new technique. One of my favorite parts of what we do is talking to the athletes, parents, and coaches that we work with. By doing this over the last 12 years, we can begin to collect trends and recognize the patterns and then connect them to success or lack there of. I also did this when I competed in powerlifting and trained with the best athletes in the history of the sport. As the saying goes, success leaves clues and you just have to have open eyes and ears to pick up on them. Here are some of the biggest ways to increase the performance of youth athletes that we have found to be the most effective time after time. 

Sleep- This shouldn’t be a big surprise to many people, but this is one of the hardest battles we have. Proper sleep is the driver of performance as it allows for our body to repair and provides growth for essentially ever system in our body. Proper sleep also is essential for reducing anxiety and depression. Without enough sleep, athletes will never have peak performance and will also invite a higher risk of injury while playing their sports. So how much sleep should youth athletes be getting? It’s more than you think. Here are recommendations from the Mayo Clinic:

6 to 12 years old 9 to 12 hours per 24 hours

13 to 18 years old 8 to 10 hours per 24 hours

Adults 7 or more hours a night

To make sure we athletes are getting the proper amount of sleep, we suggest a few things to them to increase their chances of good quality sleep.

Establish a bed time and a time you wake up. This helps the body create a rhythm instead of different times each day. 

Eliminate screens 1-2 hours before bed. The light in screens is stimulating your eyes and brain making it harder to wind down. 

Create a night time routine that is relaxing. This could involve a shower, reading, stretching or journaling. Take some time to create a night time routine and it will pay great dividends long term.

Avoid caffeine. Some caffeine can be beneficial, but the half life of caffeine can stay in the body for 3-5 hours after taking it. 

Nutrition- Help your youth athletes establish a healthy relationship with food and it will help them develop habits of fueling their body with foods that will bring them more energy and better recovery. This will help them navigate one of the biggest issues in our country, obesity in adolescents. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, in 2015-2016 18.5% of children ages 2-19 years old were considered obese. Childhood obesity will contribute to many further issues into adult life including psychological, cardiovascular, and overall physical health. What we have found to be helpful, is when families make healthy eating part of what they do as family. The children’s diet will be a reflection of what parents accept as nutrition. Make healthy nutrition an event where the family prepares meals together and show the impact it can make on their health and happiness long term. Here are a few brief recommendations as far as food choices go that will have a profound effect on youth athletes and their performance on the field. 

Eat whole foods. These will provide better nutrition meaning better recovery which leads to a better performance. Think of a meal including chicken, rice, broccoli, and a piece of fruit. 

Eat a fruit and vegetable each meal. This will help with energy and also detour from eating sugar filled candy.

Don’t drink calories. Drinks that have a lot of calories is the quickest way to add weight. They generally have very low nutritional benefit.

Eat a variety of foods. The more variety in your diet, the less likely you will have nutritional deficits. Rotate your food selection by what is in season to get the most benefit.

Bonus-eat local fresh food! Farmers Markets are becoming more common in most towns and provide the freshest food possible.

The last thing we will talk about in this article is athlete happiness. Not athlete compliance or how much they work on their own time at a skill set. This is the athlete’s overall happiness and well being. An athlete will never perform at their highest potential if they’re not happy. Robert Waldinger discussed athlete happiness in his Ted Talk and said this “Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains”. He went further in detail and described how loneliness is as harmful as smoking or alcoholism. This is when athlete’s don’t feel safe or protected by their teammates or coaches. I think it is important to add parents and siblings into this group. Think about this scenario that I’m sure at some point, most people have heard. A youth athlete tells their coaches or parents their arm hurts after a weekend long tournament and is told that the team really ned them to pitch another couple games to help the teams chance of winning the tournament. The youth athlete now puts their physical pain aside, because the coach or parent has created a psychological dilemma for the athlete. 

Option 1- I can rest and hope my arm feels better, but if our team loses I will feel like I’m to blame for not playing through the pain.

Option 2- Put my needs aside for the team to increase our chances to win. Deal with potentially worse pain once the tournament is done. 

Neither of these options are an environment for a healthy and happy athlete. No youth tournament is worth potentially injuring an athlete when pain is our bodies indicator that something isn't quite right. The best environment for athletic success is where athletes feel safe  and cared for. This no different than adults in the work place. We all want and desire similar things, but in youth athletics we sometimes forget those needs. Begin small talk with your athletes and let me them do most of the talking while you simply listen. Over time, they will feel more comfortable and you will hear more of what they’re saying, but also be better suited to hear what they’re not saying. 

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com