Spinal stress fractures, Severe’s Disease, Osgood Schlatter’s Disease amongst other things are the scourge of every young cricketing team. With my background in academy cricket physio and national pathway cricket, I now find myself working in private practice based at a cricket ground and so still see a lot of young cricketers, and the stories really haven’t changed that much. School, club and county are all competing for time with the kids, and parents either feel pressured or are doing the pressurising of the kids to do all of the training and matches laid on by all of the entities. Coupled with the fact that children no longer play in seasons, a perfect storm begins to brew.
It’s an area I’m fascinated by and listen to a lot of interesting speakers who are passionate about the topic (I’m the queen of the podcast and so a list of those pertaining to this topic can be found below).
I’m definitely leaning on the side of early specialisation being a negative thing. From a physical, cognitive and emotional development point of view, picking one sport you love (or are just good at) at age 7 and then focussing everything into that sport, and only that sport has some serious effects on potential. There have been great athletes who have done this, but how many do we lose; through burnout, boredom, but most importantly long term injury?
A few days ago an old friend, Steffan Jones (bowling coach, school sports director, sports scientist) posted this really interesting piece on LinkedIn.: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/steffan-jones-51263744_coaching-pacelabeducation-ltad-activity-6857676499726700544-8AXI. The standout line of which was this statement ‘ Youngsters can bowl everyday. That comment will get a few going I think, but let me clarify why I think bowlers before the age of 13 years can bowl short periods everyday… Prior to circa pubertal daily bowling is key. Myelination requires frequency of practice & pre pubertal is perfect both technically & physically for a fast bowler.’ I agree, in many ways, with Steffan. They are more flexible, their muscles aren’t that strong so they are less likely to cause any epiphyseal injuries and they have little endurance (due to most of their muscles being fast twitch), so they tend to self limit in how much they can do.
A few other points to ponder though
· I don’t think we should put a number on it. I know ten year olds who look fifteen, and vice versa. Skeletal maturation begins to happen at really different times in different individuals and I’m a big fan of measuring your kids regularly. Like weekly. Doorframe at home, mark it off, and if they’ve had a bit of a spurt, they’ve got to do less back and tendon loading for the following 4-6 weeks while they add some strength and neural control.
· I think they CAN bowl every day but I doubt they SHOULD bowl every day. And if they do, it should be REALLY VARIED. I recently heard a great podcast from Stuart Armstrong who spoke about his war on drills. He subsequently clarified it to say a war on boring, uncontested drills. In other words, I think if kids are doing something as repetitive as bowling, there has to be variation: targets, challenges, surfaces, imaginary/ real field settings, to a variety of batters (also can be real or imaginary). I’ve seen plenty of kids getting stress fractures running in night after night in the nets, bowling the same delivery to the same batters, wanting to practice the same shot.
· Kids need to bowl in overs, not non-stop for a time period. There is no brain engagement when you’re circling around and doing the same thing again, again, again. They still need to be active between their bowling overs, for example simulating fielding, but they should bowl in overs, and spells. Different neural input. Different strength requirements.
· I think their bowling needs to be taken into context of their whole week. If they are doing winter bowling, and playing football too, that’s great that they are getting a different sport in, but the reality is, in terms of their spines and their tendons, the mechanisms are the same (particularly for example if they have a left sided pars defect (where most stress fractures are in the back) and they are a right-footed footballer). If kids are starting to display symptoms of overload I use the 7-4-2 principle, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s easy to understand.
In any 7 days (sliding scale, not calendar), there can be no more than 4 days of the SAME TYPE OF LOAD TOTAL, and not more than two consecutive days.
I find this can get most of them through the season, certainly without symptoms worsening.
Kids can be active on the other days that are not their heavy load days… bike riding, swimming, dog-walks, tree climbing are all great examples of things that are great to do on the 3 days a week they aren’t working hard at the crease.
· They also need to establish what their hierarchy of institutions is. If they are playing county, this is often the top, but if they are on a sports scholarship from school, then they have to play those games over all others. There is a limited amount of the pie and the parties involved can’t all have the biggest slice.
· There has to be a coach who is the one doing most of their coaching. Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth…
If they are bowlers and have 3 different bowling coaches, the kid will break down either from bowling too much with 3 different coaches, or if all of them are trying to watch his or her workload, there may be an issue of the child’s loading actually being too low for what is being practised, both for muscle development and for skill acquisition.
· Covid created an additional storm for coaches and physios to deal with. Having had very little proper games and training for over a year, players were suddenly thrust into a short preseason of training and then into games. No S&C programme could have properly accounted for match-day intensity, and every club has seen really high numbers of injuries at all ages from my understanding. Kids who grew during lockdown were even more susceptible to this as they were layering up very little resilient tissue.
· Kids’ device addiction is a massive issue, far more than before. Not only are they doing less incidental exercise (playing football in the garden is a wonderful way to do some low level conditioning, as unless you live in the lap of luxury, it’s probably a small playing area, of variable surface, with more resistance type football than full out sprinting), but they are sleeping less due to all that blue light activation. Eric Cressey recently said on another podcast I was listening to that teenagers who get less than 6 hours of sleep a night are 1.7 times more likely to get injured than those who get 8 hours.
· You have to look at nutrition too. Most teenagers have fairly poor diets unless their parents are onto it. I’m not talking about this causing bone fractures because of lack of calcium (although it could be a factor!), but I’m talking about fatigued muscles due to eating a load of crap, and being inappropriately hydrated with sports drinks, fizzy drinks or energy drinks (the caffeine feeding into the lack of sleep thing too). There is also childhood obesity, which is not only a weight issue, but abdominal fat in particular drives inflammation around the body and therefore injuries are more difficult to settle.
· Lack of general strength is also becoming more of a factor. Kids don’t walk to school as much as before so aren’t lugging big bags around. Household chores have either become obsolete, or they’ve become significantly easier. We need to work really hard on their strength, and I’m afraid this needs to have some weights involved in order to make real change. UNDERLOADING our kids is as much of a risk factor to injury as OVERLOADING..
I welcome discussion and feedback on this issue, and I hope it helps, even a little!
Take care
Kate
List of my best of podcasts and reading material on early specialisation and kids training
Podcasts (in order of where to start and journey through!)
1) This is a great podcast in general for all things to sport (my favourite). Start here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-real-science-of-sport-podcast/id1461719225?i=1000446817014 and then head here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-real-science-of-sport-podcast/id1461719225?i=1000447936269 They are both really interesting if you are a parent or work in sport.
2) The Ready State Podcast does a lot of stuff around kids development. First up is Eric Cressey on movement for kids: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ready-state-podcast/id1334232884?i=1000451276160 and then Nic Gill (All Blacks S&C coach) is fab https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ready-state-podcast/id1334232884?i=1000451276158. Epidsode 19 onwards is all about kids, so if you are really interested, keep going on this podcast
3) If you liked David Epstein on the Real Science of Sport and want more then watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_why_specializing_early_doesn_t_always_mean_career_success
4) And if you still want more then I listened to his book https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509843523/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MSW2BR0FACJS102B8TK9
5) The Science for Sport Podcast (different to the first one, also good!) did this really cool interview on LTAD with some great minimal requirements on physical capabilities for kids. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/science-for-sport-podcast/id1506431005?i=1000534395281
6) Now that you are really getting into this head for Stuart Armstrong’s Podcast: The Talent Equation: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast/id1209549739?i=1000499156431. Start at the first one and keep on going through stuff that interests you. There’s a lot you’ll find applicable if you enjoy learning more about kids development.