Anonymous wrote:Can I get this straight.. my child should do absolutely nothing in the summer. Just lay in the coach and rest their legs?

If you consider a free college tuition as average. Yes, she's average. Keep running your kids into the ground while going bankrupt. There is a lot of benefits of taking a break. Injury prevention and rejuvenation verse burn out are a couple. It not just about the frequency of playing.

The 10,000 hour rule blown up:

"A study of violinists found that merely good players practised as much as, if not more than, better players, leaving other factors such as quality of tuition, learning skills and perhaps natural talent to account for the difference."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
“Culturally, we have found that parents have unrealistic expectations for their children to play collegiately or professionally and as a result, they invest in private lessons, trainers, or personal coaches to help their kids,” said Dr. Charles A. Popkin, the study’s lead author. “When you’re investing this amount of time and resources, there can be unwritten, indirect pressure from parents to specialize.”

The number one danger of specialization is something called overuse injury: When kids strain their undeveloped bodies practicing the same motions all year round, their muscles never get the chance to fully heal when they rest. The near-constant strain can result in pediatric trauma, and the need for corrective surgeries to knees, wrists, and shoulders.

This is about baseball.

No. This is not about baseball. It's about youth sports and injuries due to over use. Over use is using the same muscles non-stop. The sport doesn't matter

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Off season or Summer is where you can make the most gains. More to time to do strength training, speed and agility work, and try to expand your field game. Whether it be playing a different position, developing more field vision, or working to gain more confidence on the ball. There is less pressure to win games and more time for coaches to sit back and watch which players are putting in work on their own.

It is true the off-season is the best time to make gains: strength and power training, speed and agility work, expand your game. That’s why summer leagues are a bad idea for technically gifted players. If you’re in a summer league, that’s more practices and games where you can’t work on you, the individual. Summer leagues are great for players that need to play more. But the excelled players? Work on yourself.

Please understand of all the soccer players in the DMV u5 thru u19. There are only a handful of "TECHNICALLY GIFTED" players. Granted there are some better than most and can play up an age or two. The truth is for almost all players unless they are playing on multiple teams full time during spring and fall or recovering from an injury will benefit from game play anytime its possible. The handful that are technically gifted should spend the Summer playing in mens leagues if they are not already training in a youth national team program.

^ This. The definition of technically gifted is relative - buty I agree that there are ~5 or so kids per age group who are clearly better than the others - so let's call that the technically gifted group. I think it's worth pointing out that those kids got that way by playing all the time. They play on clubs, they play in unofficial leagues, they play pick-up. They play futsal, they play with older kids and adults, and they play with younger kids. They play in the fall, the winter, the spring and the summer. And they don't stop playing because they have reached the level of "technically gifted". They keep doing it.

My kid is one of the more technically gifted kids on her team and she doesn't do all of the extra stuff. Zero personal training, zero Futsal, zero anything else. However, she learned a lot of technical stuff very young which gave her years to improve on it. A good technical coach very early on is key. ii

With all due respect "one of the more technically gifted kids on her team" is not at all the same as "one of the top 5 kids between Baltimore and Richmond".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Off season or Summer is where you can make the most gains. More to time to do strength training, speed and agility work, and try to expand your field game. Whether it be playing a different position, developing more field vision, or working to gain more confidence on the ball. There is less pressure to win games and more time for coaches to sit back and watch which players are putting in work on their own.

It is true the off-season is the best time to make gains: strength and power training, speed and agility work, expand your game. That’s why summer leagues are a bad idea for technically gifted players. If you’re in a summer league, that’s more practices and games where you can’t work on you, the individual. Summer leagues are great for players that need to play more. But the excelled players? Work on yourself.

Please understand of all the soccer players in the DMV u5 thru u19. There are only a handful of "TECHNICALLY GIFTED" players. Granted there are some better than most and can play up an age or two. The truth is for almost all players unless they are playing on multiple teams full time during spring and fall or recovering from an injury will benefit from game play anytime its possible. The handful that are technically gifted should spend the Summer playing in mens leagues if they are not already training in a youth national team program.

^ This. The definition of technically gifted is relative - buty I agree that there are ~5 or so kids per age group who are clearly better than the others - so let's call that the technically gifted group. I think it's worth pointing out that those kids got that way by playing all the time. They play on clubs, they play in unofficial leagues, they play pick-up. They play futsal, they play with older kids and adults, and they play with younger kids. They play in the fall, the winter, the spring and the summer. And they don't stop playing because they have reached the level of "technically gifted". They keep doing it.

My kid is one of the more technically gifted kids on her team and she doesn't do all of the extra stuff. Zero personal training, zero Futsal, zero anything else. However, she learned a lot of technical stuff very young which gave her years to improve on it. A good technical coach very early on is key.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
“Culturally, we have found that parents have unrealistic expectations for their children to play collegiately or professionally and as a result, they invest in private lessons, trainers, or personal coaches to help their kids,” said Dr. Charles A. Popkin, the study’s lead author. “When you’re investing this amount of time and resources, there can be unwritten, indirect pressure from parents to specialize.”

The number one danger of specialization is something called overuse injury: When kids strain their undeveloped bodies practicing the same motions all year round, their muscles never get the chance to fully heal when they rest. The near-constant strain can result in pediatric trauma, and the need for corrective surgeries to knees, wrists, and shoulders.

This is about baseball.

Anonymous wrote:
“Culturally, we have found that parents have unrealistic expectations for their children to play collegiately or professionally and as a result, they invest in private lessons, trainers, or personal coaches to help their kids,” said Dr. Charles A. Popkin, the study’s lead author. “When you’re investing this amount of time and resources, there can be unwritten, indirect pressure from parents to specialize.”

The number one danger of specialization is something called overuse injury: When kids strain their undeveloped bodies practicing the same motions all year round, their muscles never get the chance to fully heal when they rest. The near-constant strain can result in pediatric trauma, and the need for corrective surgeries to knees, wrists, and shoulders.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re all going to make fun of you tomorrow

Loser mentality.

Anonymous wrote:We’re all going to make fun of you tomorrow

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Off season or Summer is where you can make the most gains. More to time to do strength training, speed and agility work, and try to expand your field game. Whether it be playing a different position, developing more field vision, or working to gain more confidence on the ball. There is less pressure to win games and more time for coaches to sit back and watch which players are putting in work on their own.

It is true the off-season is the best time to make gains: strength and power training, speed and agility work, expand your game. That’s why summer leagues are a bad idea for technically gifted players. If you’re in a summer league, that’s more practices and games where you can’t work on you, the individual. Summer leagues are great for players that need to play more. But the excelled players? Work on yourself.

Please understand of all the soccer players in the DMV u5 thru u19. There are only a handful of "TECHNICALLY GIFTED" players. Granted there are some better than most and can play up an age or two. The truth is for almost all players unless they are playing on multiple teams full time during spring and fall or recovering from an injury will benefit from game play anytime its possible. The handful that are technically gifted should spend the Summer playing in mens leagues if they are not already training in a youth national team program.

^ This. The definition of technically gifted is relative - buty I agree that there are ~5 or so kids per age group who are clearly better than the others - so let's call that the technically gifted group. I think it's worth pointing out that those kids got that way by playing all the time. They play on clubs, they play in unofficial leagues, they play pick-up. They play futsal, they play with older kids and adults, and they play with younger kids. They play in the fall, the winter, the spring and the summer. And they don't stop playing because they have reached the level of "technically gifted". They keep doing it.

My kid is one of the more technically gifted kids on her team and she doesn't do all of the extra stuff. Zero personal training, zero Futsal, zero anything else. However, she learned a lot of technical stuff very young which gave her years to improve on it. A good technical coach very early on is key.


So your saying she's average ? How many years up is she playing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Off season or Summer is where you can make the most gains. More to time to do strength training, speed and agility work, and try to expand your field game. Whether it be playing a different position, developing more field vision, or working to gain more confidence on the ball. There is less pressure to win games and more time for coaches to sit back and watch which players are putting in work on their own.

It is true the off-season is the best time to make gains: strength and power training, speed and agility work, expand your game. That’s why summer leagues are a bad idea for technically gifted players. If you’re in a summer league, that’s more practices and games where you can’t work on you, the individual. Summer leagues are great for players that need to play more. But the excelled players? Work on yourself.

Please understand of all the soccer players in the DMV u5 thru u19. There are only a handful of "TECHNICALLY GIFTED" players. Granted there are some better than most and can play up an age or two. The truth is for almost all players unless they are playing on multiple teams full time during spring and fall or recovering from an injury will benefit from game play anytime its possible. The handful that are technically gifted should spend the Summer playing in mens leagues if they are not already training in a youth national team program.

^ This. The definition of technically gifted is relative - buty I agree that there are ~5 or so kids per age group who are clearly better than the others - so let's call that the technically gifted group. I think it's worth pointing out that those kids got that way by playing all the time. They play on clubs, they play in unofficial leagues, they play pick-up. They play futsal, they play with older kids and adults, and they play with younger kids. They play in the fall, the winter, the spring and the summer. And they don't stop playing because they have reached the level of "technically gifted". They keep doing it.

My kid is one of the more technically gifted kids on her team and she doesn't do all of the extra stuff. Zero personal training, zero Futsal, zero anything else. However, she learned a lot of technical stuff very young which gave her years to improve on it. A good technical coach very early on is key.


So your saying she's average ? How many years up is she playing?