What Will it Take?

What Will it Take?

While writing topics in this blog are generally focused around improving sports performance or making lifestyle changes, this one will be a little more serious. This topic is something that I have noticed over the last decade with a dramatic rise during Covid shut downs and after. The athletes in our training facility have had a noticeable rise in stress, constant fatigue, and higher rates of burn out leading to either stopping participation in sport or counting down until they’re done playing the sport. Over the last few months, we have read stories of scholarship collegiate athletes making the decision to commit suicide. While it’s important to note that sports aren’t the only factor in this equation, I do believe it’s time to ask what will it take to create a change in this process that is obviously not working. Even for the very fortunate athletes who get to make it professional ranks, we’re seeing more of them retire very early. These are signs, but is anybody listening? Maybe it begins with viewing these athletes as people, not athletes. Athletic performance can only be optimal when the person is in good mental, physical, and emotional health. 

Mental Health influences your psychological, emotional, and social needs and how they effect your thoughts and actions. 

Physical Health is the ability to perform aspects of sports, occupations, and daily activities. 

Emotional Health involves your ability to manage and express your emotions in an appropriate manner. 

If these aren’t in balance, it doesn’t matter how many lessons you go to, what tournaments you win or anything else around sports performance. 

The current structure in developmental stages in sports don’t allow for these areas to develop equally. How is that possible when you’re playing on a great travel team? 

Ask anyone what the benefit to playing travel sports are and they’ll be quick to tell you it’s about the exposure to be seen by collegiate coaches in hopes of getting a scholarship. “Being seen” negates the development process that includes a preparation phase, competition phase, and recovery phase each year. This isn’t blaming travel organizations, but simply pointing out that if we want to focus on player development we have to focus on more than the technical skill set. When an athlete only identifies as an athlete in a certain sport, they’re not seeing themselves outside of that role. This is something I struggled with as an adult leaving a sport that I dedicated a good portion of my life to. 

How do we help athletes see that their identity isn’t simply the sport they play? 

It begins with communication, love, and exposure. 

Communication - Talk with your athletes like they’re an adult. A grown person. Ask them questions to help them think of things outside of sport and maybe spark their interest in other things. Also realizing that when we communicate, we’re not instructing or talking down to them. Talk with them about their other interest, what makes them happy or sad, and ask how you can support them physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

Love - As parents, friend, coach etc. whatever your role is in an athlete’s life, your role is support. After a game, there is no need to talk about performance in the game. Whether they played good or bad, they’re already very aware of their performance. The game has come and gone, the athlete is now removed from the sport. In my experience, the best thing to say after a game is “I enjoyed watching you play. I’m proud of you and love you”. Make the car ride home something enjoyable and not something to dread having to do. 

Exposure - Expose kids to different environments and different people. There are sports I never thought to try as a kid simply because I had never seen anyone do them. Until recently, I never knew how much fun traveling could be and meeting different types of people, eating different foods, and seeing new sites. Exposure to a new stimulus will always promote growth, whether lifting weights promoting new muscle or strength or seeing a different culture promoting a different way of living. Exposure helps create more well rounded people that are in return, more effective at what they do. 

Let’s look at some of the issues that stem from athletes being constantly immersed in competitive sports. One of the best ways for athletes to best navigate around these following issues is to delay when the focus is on competition. The longer you postpone the need to compete with others, the more physical and mental development you’re allowing and also moving your window of opportunity to a later stage in life. 

Identity 

As someone who personally struggled with identity crisis after they left their sport, I think this a huge area that could be improved. While competing, I saw myself as a strength athlete and nothing else. This dictated my every behavior and thing I did. When I stopped competing, I didn’t know how to be person. Wasn’t sure about my roles of husband, son, brother, coach, friend etc. I had never seen myself as those things because I associated everything with sport. This took a friend of mine, Tyson Knous mentioning to me that being a strength athlete was just one thing I did, but it wasn’t all of me. As we dive deeper into the world of youth sports becoming more competitive and less time away from sport it should raise the question, “Are the youth developing their own identity as a person and not only as an athlete?”. This is important because everyone who has played sports, at some point played their last game. So how do we take those skills learned in sport (team work, cooperation, goal setting, delayed gratification) and transfer them into life skills in relationships, work place, and leisure activity? We can use sports as a way to develop great habits, but like anything else in life when you get too much it’ll have a negative effect. We need time away from sport and sport activity to actually bring back desire to work on and participate in sport, but also to build an imagination and have creative thought processes. This down time will allow youth athletes to dive deeper and examine what they like or don’t like, why they feel that way, and brain storm about possibilities if they implanted potential changes. Without this free time, we will never fully be able to develop a true understanding of who we are or what we stand for. Instead, we will be used to always being busy, while not necessarily being productive. A strong sense of self will lead to a more confident person making more confident decisions with a better ability to accept responsibility. Each person has their own identity and it’s not for us to say how that should be.  

Overuse - The more you specialize into any single activity, the more you invite the potential for an overuse injury, but there is more to over use than just injury risk. There is also mental overuse. In the same way your joints, ligaments, and muscles get tired of repeating the same movements in high volume, so does you brain. Every movement in sport is sending many signals to your brain to be able to perform the movements. When you’re sending your brain a signal every day to do something like swing a bat, it becomes a dull input after a while making everything fire a little slower and being a little more inefficient. As these movements slow down, performance will drop. As performance drops, athletes will enjoy the sport less and less because they’re having less success than they had previously experienced and could likely carry additional pressure from teammates, coaches, or parents. As adults, we become very bored with the same routine tasks at work like checking daily emails or filing things a certain way, but we think that kids are different because it’s a sport, which we associate as fun. It would be safe to guess that just as many athletes experience overuse mentally compared to physically. The difference being that overuse injuries we can usually see, where as overuse mentally might seem like an athlete is not trying or not following directions. 

Signs to Watch For

  Here are some signs to watch for with your youth athletes. 

Some of these signs can be confused for normal teenage years, but /this is where open and honest communication can play a significant role. 

Fatigue. If your child seems constantly tired and views any glimpse of down time to sleep, there is a real chance they’re experiencing burn out. 

Drop in Performance. This means in the sport, the classroom, and even in daily tasks. It could be that they can’t focus due to being in survival mode, which makes the ability to concentrate on a single task much more challenging. 

Disconnected. If you’re not sure if your athlete is disconnected from their sport try this. Don’t schedule a practice, skill lesson, or anything else for sport for two weeks and see if they mention it. If they go that period of time without wanting to do something for sport, there’s a chance they’ve had too much of it and would like a change of scenery. 

Loss of Appetite. If a teenager that is growing at a very rapid pace plus participating in sports doesn’t have an appetite, this is a clear sign. During this period they need a caloric surplus to meet the demands of the growing body.

Uneven Mood. As athletes are growing physically and mentally, there will be periods of mood swings due to hormone surges, but this is when a youth athlete becomes almost unpredictable in their mood and behavior. 

Helpful Tips

These are some helpful tips that I have picked up over the last almost 15 years of working with youth athletes. I haven’t always implemented these correctly and still is something I work on each day after coaching sessions at our facility. I have been very lucky to have a tremendous network of coaches and professionals that work with the same demographic to help form some of these strategies. Again, this is an ongoing list and we would recommend seeking professional help if you feel there could be an issue.

FUN. The point of sport is to have fun. That is why we naturally try different sporting activities in the first place. They look like something that will bring us fun. Keeping fun in your sport as long as possible is the best way to keep it healthy long term. 

No Guilt. I think many people would be surprised by the amount of guilt athletes carry when they start contemplating if the sport is what THEY want to do. They’re very aware of financial, time, sacrifices, and efforts that parents and family members have gone to in order for them to enjoy sport. This can lead to them feeling like they let someone down or wasted money if they no longer want to participate. Make it clear from the beginning that any additional expenses (lessons, gear, strength training etc.), is your choice to spend the money and not seen as an investment to get the largest return possible. This alone takes an enormous amount of pressure off them. 

Be a Guide. By being a guide and not an authoritarian on every decision, we allow the child to keep their autonomy in the decision making. They will continue to feel more in charge of their sport that they love because they’re dictating how it’s being carried out. By being a guide, we can use communication to help them talk through difficult situations and help them see the potential paths to take, but not steering them in any set direction. 

Support the Entire Team. I know this can be difficult in some team environments. I’ve been there. By supporting the team and not talking negatively about other coaches, players, parents etc. we allow for the athlete to decide how they feel about the environment they’re in. Any input we give, will steer instead of guide so our best role is to support the team as a whole. If an athlete likes the team and coaches, but a parent or other coach points out all of the flaws of the team, it will leave the athlete conflicted about how they should feel. 

We hope this helps in navigating an incredibly difficult and fast moving world of youth sports. We believe that parents genuinely have the child’s best interest in mind, but also acknowledge that everyone can miss their mark sometimes. We need to be sure as coaches, teachers, friends, and family that just like the athletes in competition it’s ok to make a mistake. Our goal is to use each of those moments to acknowledge, examine, and try a different path the next time.

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com