youth soccer players over-training

[Anonymous]

Too many days a week, inadequate rest periods.

https://www.soccerwire.com/soccer-blog/multiple-teams-in-a-season-a-total-disaster-for-youth-soccer-players/

Did you really think it was a good idea for a maturing kid with open growth plates, bone mineral density not ossified yet, adult stature not grown into either, to run them into the ground year-round with no off season and time for physical preparation? Did you really think it would end well to bolt from one team practice to the next, then to a Friday skills session, to Saturday game, to another Sunday skills session, and for them to come home to homework, too? Did you really think it would work in their favor for them to do this several days a week with no rest while the quadriceps muscle is pulling on the knee tendon during growth?

Remember, appropriate buckets in youth athletic development need to be filled equally: technical, tactical, and physical. Skills trainers aren’t totally necessary in-season if they take away from recovery days because they’re just adding more fuel to the overuse fire. They’re only keeping the muscles in a catabolic, not anabolic state. More breakdown, not enough build up.

Muscles require a new stimulus from resistance to grow, namely, in the gym. The same, repetitive movements in skills sessions, that have carryover to what’s already being done at practice, only provide more wear and tear on the muscles, bones and joints. There’s no progressive overload for the body to truly become strong. Pair with with the epidemic of malnourishment and lack of protein in kids, and it’s even worse.

[Anonymous]

I agree, overtraining can become a big issue. I was disheartened to see U10 girls trying out at a big club with single and double knee braces on as a result of end of season overuse.

[Anonymous]

Yep. My older son had a late big growth spurt. Knees and groin/hip. Knees- osgood type thing kept him out for 6 months. Then a year later osteitis pubis (hip inflammation and causes severe groin pain) had him miss his entire junior year season (age 17). Ortho said it was directly related to the rapid growth spurt while keeping up intensive training.

I think some kids have it easier. His younger brother is built completely different and is never injured. He bends like a rubber band. Older one is larger framed, big bone, muscular.

[Anonymous]

yes! i know the person that wrote this article and I write articles about this on my website. I am a phd student in human and sports performance. I work with athletes of all ages. I have kids as young as 7 through college. We just customize to each athlete on where they are so they don't get hurt, continue to develop physically and biologically.

Yes what she talks about in this article is true. These kids play way to much of there sport, don't recovery, and they always have nagging injuries due to the overtraining and not properly dealing with the injuries they have cause of the fear they are going to lose their spot or never play again on their team. they are not pro athletes.

The issue is you have soccer coaches they don't understand how to properly physically develop their own athletes. They really are not taught this and I have experience because I have gone through some of the licenses that many of these coaches claim to have.

Physiology is never covered so they run these kids into the ground, practice hard every practice which is not good at all. This puts more wear and tear on your kids and then they do this 10-12 months out of the year....and to be honest, if many of you knew how the pro do it they don't do it like this at all.

I would be more that happy to answer questions. I probably pissed some people off but I just want to be honest.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]yes! i know the person that wrote this article and I write articles about this on my website. I am a phd student in human and sports performance. I work with athletes of all ages. I have kids as young as 7 through college. We just customize to each athlete on where they are so they don't get hurt, continue to develop physically and biologically.

Yes what she talks about in this article is true. These kids play way to much of there sport, don't recovery, and they always have nagging injuries due to the overtraining and not properly dealing with the injuries they have cause of the fear they are going to lose their spot or never play again on their team. they are not pro athletes.

The issue is you have soccer coaches they don't understand how to properly physically develop their own athletes. They really are not taught this and I have experience because I have gone through some of the licenses that many of these coaches claim to have.

Physiology is never covered so they run these kids into the ground, practice hard every practice which is not good at all. This puts more wear and tear on your kids and then they do this 10-12 months out of the year....and to be honest, if many of you knew how the pro do it they don't do it like this at all.

I would be more that happy to answer questions. I probably pissed some people off but I just want to be honest. [/quote]

I believe you are correct. I have a few licenses and a D license; there is not much on the topic of over training, if any subject matter at all. I would be interested in contacting you further about this topic. For some reason, the licensing body seems to have thrown out warm-up and cool downs. The kids do not stretch their muscles any more, instead the focus is on just get out there and play. Let me know, Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Has anyone had success pushing back on this for a talented kid who wants to play at a high level, and hopes to play in college?

My kid’s coaches seemed shocked when I said he wasn’t doing summer practices, Super Y or any soccer camps or private coaching this summer, but they didn’t kick him off the team. I am curious if we can just make that a policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone had success pushing back on this for a talented kid who wants to play at a high level, and hopes to play in college?

My kid’s coaches seemed shocked when I said he wasn’t doing summer practices, Super Y or any soccer camps or private coaching this summer, but they didn’t kick him off the team. I am curious if we can just make that a policy.

DD has a friend who takes off winter and summer for other sports. They play ECNL and will likely end up playing D1 if they stay healthy. If a player is good enough, they get to make decisions

[Anonymous]

Our high school soccer coaches are the WORST. Their 4-day tryout, all day always starts the season off with half the team injured. They practice or have games 6 days per week and are threatened if they miss anything. My rising senior was out with season destroying injury twice after this.

This year he’s not doing it.

Then you have the boys going from high school practice directly to club practice and still doing those games too. It is AWFUl for a player. My one son is doing only Club this fall and skipping high school after talking with several college coaches that point blank said they don’t care about high school soccer at all and that it’s a lower level where bad habits develop.

My younger son really wants to play both but I am drawing the line with academics at his tough private school. There isn’t enough time in the day.

I also notice very few clubs stretch or teach how to properly treat the body.

[Anonymous]

My 17-year old had to miss an entire year with a growth-related hip/groin injury and when he came back he was better than before. The time off didn’t hurt his play- if anything the rehab, stretching, muscle imbalance exercises, strength training and PT made him a much better player and he had now learned how to “read” and treat his body properly…something on all the thousands of dollars we made to “elite” clubs never taught him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our high school soccer coaches are the WORST. Their 4-day tryout, all day always starts the season off with half the team injured. They practice or have games 6 days per week and are threatened if they miss anything. My rising senior was out with season destroying injury twice after this.

This year he’s not doing it.

Then you have the boys going from high school practice directly to club practice and still doing those games too. It is AWFUl for a player. My one son is doing only Club this fall and skipping high school after talking with several college coaches that point blank said they don’t care about high school soccer at all and that it’s a lower level where bad habits develop.

My younger son really wants to play both but I am drawing the line with academics at his tough private school. There isn’t enough time in the day.

I also notice very few clubs stretch or teach how to properly treat the body.

Clubs don't teach stretching because there is no scientific basis for it, it's just something that was always done.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15233597/

[Anonymous]

^ they don’t teach proper warm up or cooldown. Or rest days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our high school soccer coaches are the WORST. Their 4-day tryout, all day always starts the season off with half the team injured. They practice or have games 6 days per week and are threatened if they miss anything. My rising senior was out with season destroying injury twice after this.

This year he’s not doing it.

Then you have the boys going from high school practice directly to club practice and still doing those games too. It is AWFUl for a player. My one son is doing only Club this fall and skipping high school after talking with several college coaches that point blank said they don’t care about high school soccer at all and that it’s a lower level where bad habits develop.

My younger son really wants to play both but I am drawing the line with academics at his tough private school. There isn’t enough time in the day.

I also notice very few clubs stretch or teach how to properly treat the body.

Clubs don't teach stretching because there is no scientific basis for it, it's just something that was always done.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15233597/

The article concludes that stretching is beneficial for sports that require explosive moves (eg soccer) and not so much for low impact sports (biking, swimming, etc).

Stretching is also good for flexibility which is important for athletic ability/performance.

That said, yeah, clubs don’t teach proper warmup and cooldowns and stretching. My kids do bc we taught them to but they’re often the only one doing them at practices and games.

[Anonymous]

We recently switched programs. The new programs warms up and stretches. Old program never did any of it yet their pro team you watch do all the stretching.

My kids do group training 1 time per week that has warmup plus only 10 mins per drill to utilize different muscles.

[Anonymous]

the parents listen to the stupid coaches about the more they touch the ball the better the chances of the scholarship.

Soccer coaches around here are a bunch of hardos that might have had a taste of some very low level professional league and they take out their lack of success on the kids.

[Anonymous]

How many kids on the top teams have osgood or something similar like sinding larsen johnasson? On our middle school team, 3, including my kid. The odds are insane. The only way my kid finally recovered was because he got an even more serious injury (not a growth plate injury) that required a 3-month break, and then he did PT before returning. My kid is a multisport athlete too and the other sport was just more of the same. Mine is the goofy teenage boy in yoga classes now, FWIW.