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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To all club coaches and technical directors:

We've noticed a lot of excessive fitness "training" requirements in youth soccer.  Enough is enough.  Beep tests, repetitive long distance running, unrealistic timed runs, penalizing players for being "unfit", mind games and ridicule, sending kids for additional "fitness" training in addition to club training, scaring players into compliance for fear of not making it to the next level, and on and on.  It must be addressed, since it is either abusive or borderline abusive.  I'm no snowflake, nor are my players, but it is time for some honesty.

Rest and recovery are essential components of training young athletes.  Running kids 6 days a week increases potential for injury.  This year alone, I've seen stress fractures, muscle cramps, muscle pulls, excess fatigue due to heat/heat exhaustion, vomiting, nausea, and emotional breakdowns, among other things.  This is unhealthy.  It is not building strong, young athletes, it is tearing them down.

Kids need more than the obvious: frequent and necessary water breaks, adequate rest and recovery, positive encouragement.  Kids have additional stressors and uncertainties of COVID, returning to school/online school, interrupted social interactions, sleep deprivation/abnormal sleep patterns, political strife and division, race relations, financial uncertainty of families, lost jobs, parents working from home, uncertainties of college recruiting, uncertainty of game schedules for the season, eating disorders/body image issues, social media pressures, and all kinds of other things.

Coaches, you're not a BUDS instructor for the Navy SEALS, weeding out the unfit and mentally weak for combat operations.  Your job is not to get kids to tap out and ring the bell, as though you're the gatekeeper to a D1 soccer career for a 12 year old girl.  Your job is to build great soccer players who are not only strong mentally and physically, but who love and appreciate the game for life.

Please take the time to acquaint yourselves with the Positive Coaching Alliance.  https://positivecoach.org/

Please, be better coaches.  Recognize what it means to be a good coach versus an abusive one.  Educate yourselves, parents and coaches, so we can all objectively spot and eliminate bad behaviors at our clubs.  And when you see bad behaviors, stand up.

I liked "Coaching ABUSE: The dirty, not-so-little secret in sports":
https://www.competitivedge.com/coaching-abuse-the-dirty-not-so-little-secret-in-sports/

Let's gather good resources to help educate our coaches and clubs.  Let's all do better.

[/quote]

When and where have you seen this?  I have had three kids play soccer in this area at every level.  I have never seen - or heard of - anything like you are describing at any club in this area.  Has anyone on this board ever seen anything that would fit this description?[/quote]

There is a difference between rec(your experience) and travel.[/quote]

As I said I have had three kids who - between them - have played at every level:  Rec, ODSL, NCSL, NPL, CCL, ECNL and DA.  I have not seen anything like the OP describes.  Nor have I heard about anything like this from any of then dozens of other families we have crossed soccer paths with.[/quote]

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