Training For Youth Athletes (Part 2)

“This is what we should have been learning in gym class.”

- Essentially every person I’ve trained

Part 1 of this blog post focused on the immediate benefits of a training and recovery program for youth athletes. Part 2 is going to focus on the long term benefits, and the possible consequences of lacking this information, with examples that most parents of youth athletes will be able to relate to. Because there is a consensus among the adult clients at Foundation Personalized Fitness that gets straight to the heart of this post. Every single one of them has experienced injury or pain due to muscle imbalances, stiffness, and poor movement patterns. And every one of them has said at one point or another that they wish they had learned these concepts of proper weight lifting and self care recovery when they were younger. And a key element when beginning to understand proper lifting mechanics is a term we like to use called form.

Form is the word we use to describe the specific movement that should be performed when doing a certain exercise or lift. It is deeply tied to the principles of physics, and how the joints in our body act as lever systems. But form is about more than just how we’re supposed to move, it’s an awareness of our center of gravity and how we maintain stability, control, and balance as we move.

When adults come to us with pain issues, movement and balance issues, or the looming threat of surgery, the thing that I can never stop myself from thinking is: if only they had been taught from the beginning how vital it is to understand the fundamentals of movement patterns. Probably the most frustrating part of it all is that this is a completely straightforward and understandable concept, all it takes is someone explaining it and helping you understand how to apply it. When a person understands how to maintain their center of gravity when they squat, or how to stabilize their position and “organize” their muscles when they set up for a deadlift, this allows them to protect their joints and spine and avoid injury. And understanding these concepts and being able to implement them directly translates into how well you run, jump, kick, throw, pick things up, and even hold your posture. For adults it can mean eliminating low back pain, hip, knee, and foot pain, and building up strength that will keep you out of the doctors office and feeling strong and capable. Learning this when you’re young is something that you’ll value and be grateful for the rest of your life.

But the issue is the same over and over again. When we’re younger our bodies are able to withstand and (generally) recover from the negative effects of poor or improper movement patterns and lifting techniques. You may feel a little joint or muscle pain that seems like it’s more than just your typical soreness from working out, but it tends to go away after a day or two. Therefore, there’s no unmistakable indicator that’s telling you something is wrong and needs to be addressed. So we continue these patterns and lifting styles throughout our lives. It isn’t until we’re older and our bodies no longer have the ability to recover so easily that we start to experience the more chronic pain caused by our poor movement patterns. We often attribute this to simply “getting old”, and why shouldn’t we? If you have been exercising and lifting weights the same way your whole life and it’s never been a *major* issue before, then why would you attribute it to that now? And therein lies the problem.

Imagine all the countless aches and pains that could have been avoided, and the time spent going to the doctor to figure out why this or that hurts, simply by understanding from a young age how to move and lift properly. People comment a lot about the failure of our medical system being treatment based rather than preventative. I recently heard it referred to as “sickcare, not healthcare”. Well, what I am suggesting is about as preventative as it gets. And this is just one aspect of why youth athlete training should be compulsory. In the immediate sense it becomes practical because when our athletes train effectively and efficiently, they become stronger, avoid pain and injury, and ultimately their ability to access and generate power allows them to be the best athlete they can be. Which is what every athlete is looking for. And in the long term it is instilling an awareness of how important movement really is, and practicing recovery work to prevent muscle stiffness that can lead to joint pain and injury.

This issue is undeniable and I witness the negative impact of this lack of education every single day, in both the adults that come in to fix whatever pain they’re experiencing and get stronger, as well as in our youth athletes that simply weren’t able to recover so easily from poor movement mechanics and have now developed an injury or chronic pain. This not only deprives them of their full potential as athletes, it potentially sets them up for a lifetime of chronic pain and recurring injury if the underlying problem isn’t addressed and replaced with a proper understanding of movement and training, along with a recovery plan that focuses on reducing stiffness and increasing blood flow to overworked tissues. Please contact us with any questions you might have about personal training for youth athletes. This is something that will not only benefit them now, but have a lasting, lifelong impact.

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Training For Youth Athletes (Part 1)

“The cure for bad mechanics is good mechanics…working on basic motor control.”

- Dr. Kelly Starrett

Two of the best books I have ever read on the constantly expanding topic of exercise and physical fitness were written by Kelly Starrett. He is a consistent source of discovery and progress in a field that, until about 20 years ago, had catered almost exclusively to power lifters and body builders, and the methods being practiced were basically hit or miss traditions that were just being passed down. In a recent interview he discussed the need for youth athletes to optimize their motor control skills, but also recognize the importance of understanding and having a plan for dealing with the aches and pains that come with being an athlete. He signed off with his usual exuberance and enthusiasm by saying, “this is the first generation where we can make it better”.

While a lot of these concepts aren’t new, they are just now barely making it into the mainstream. Terms like self-myofascial release, soft tissue restoration, compression therapy, and blood flow restriction therapy are still unfamiliar to many people, and yet these are the current methods that are producing the most significant results in protecting athletes from chronic pain and injury. And too often there seems to persist a belief that our younger athletes are somehow immune to the muscle tension and strain that exercise and high level activity can put on their joints and tendons. When in fact most likely the opposite is true. Our young athletes are still growing, meaning that the stresses put on their bones, tendons, joints, and ligaments are actually increased due to the constant, and sometimes dramatic, growth changes. And let’s add these into the mix:

• less body awareness; therefore difficulty in recognizing a potential problem “hot spot” in their muscles.

• sitting for long hours in the classroom; this creates the same “poor position” that adults face who sit in front of a computer all day.

• outside of their sport young people today are typically less active (cell phones, video games, television, classroom) meaning that ultimately they go from poor, passive positions straight into high level activity.

If we look at our elite athletes, at least the ones who are taking care of themselves properly, they’re going to be getting deep tissue work done, massages, they have a physiologist, a nutritionist, they have a recovery plan, and experts to advise them. While this isn’t practical or realistic for young athletes it also isn’t necessary. Kids are generally pretty flexible to begin with. They haven’t spent as much time as most adults living in these poor positions that lead to stiffness, which then inhibits range of motion, which then essentially becomes a lack of flexibility. The main thing that a lot of these young athletes are lacking, and then continue to lack as adults later on, is the understanding and ability to organize their movements, to create and maintain a neutral spine, and to implement a recovery routine that addresses soft tissue work and mobility. To put it simply:

• poor positions (sitting for long periods, slouching over a phone, etc.) create stiffness in the muscles.

• stiffness then reduces range of motion.

• but ROM = mobility, and mobility means being comfortable in more demanding positions.

Through training that puts an emphasis on stability and control, and a recovery plan that focuses on reducing stiffness and improving blood flow, we get athletes that are more prepared and capable of performing at the top of their abilities for the entire season, and can easily transition from one sport to another. Because now our youth athletes are safer when they move. They know how to decelerate, move laterally, and reduce the force on their joints when jumping and landing, as well as keeping their hips and core engaged, breathing properly, and maintaining a neutral spine. This is the type of training that we emphasize at Foundation Personalized Fitness, because there’s nothing that takes you out of competition faster than an injury.

Our athletes are taught the proper mechanics for squat and deadlift and how this directly translates to their running and their ability to quickly generate power and stability, as well as their ability to comfortably function at end ranges of motion. They are also taught the importance of properly warming up to ensure that stiffness or tight spots will not interfere with their performance or lead to pain, and how post workout stretching and recovery routines can reduce and even eliminate soreness and fatigue, leading to greater gains and a higher quality of athletic ability.

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Push-ups, Planks, and Modifications

Struggling with push-ups is a real thing, just ask my sister. She was recently asking me why they were so hard, and how you ever get better at them. But when she described what she was doing it was either struggling to do even just two or three regular plank position push-ups where her core would collapse and her elbows would flare out, or doing a ton from her knees that were super easy.

The answer, which is true for most exercises, is finding modifications.

It’s also important to understand the positions you’re attempting to achieve and finding ways to isolate them individually. The problem with attempting to “muscle through” standard push-ups when you don’t actually have the strength to do them is that your form is going to be awful. You’re just going to reinforce an improper movement pattern since you can’t achieve the correct one, or you’re going to hurt yourself, and maybe even both. So here are some ideas for how to progress your push-ups, as well as brush up on the movement itself.

Let’s quickly look at the Push-Up itself.

The start position for a standard push-up is a plank. Arms are straight, hands are under your shoulders, head is in neutral position, hips and core are engaged, and your body should be relatively straight from your shoulders to your heels. You don’t want your back arching so your stomach is falling to the floor, but you also don’t want your hips hiked up behind you, so your butt is sticking up in the air. A solid plank should be the first position you are able to get into. If you can’t get into this position then doing a push-up is a tomorrow problem.

Pretty much every exercise has a start position and a finish position. If you can get into both of those positions then the movement between the two should be relatively easy.

The focus then becomes on moving more weight, doing more reps, or increasing the tempo. The finish position for a push up is elbows bent and creating about a 45 degree angle between your body and elbows from your armpits, and your body braced a few inches above the floor. Hips and core are still fully engaged. If you could draw a straight line from one thumb to the other it should run across the middle of your sternum, or what some refer to as nipple line. A push-up is just alternating between these two positions in a controlled, stable manner. “Screwing” your hands into the floor (generating tension with the floor by applying clockwise pressure with the right hand and counterclockwise pressure with the left) will help stabilize your shoulder by engaging your lats and shoulder muscles as the head of the humerus bone rotates in the socket.

Now let’s get to the tips and modifications.

·        Planks – If you struggle to do a plank then this is where you begin. You need to have the arm, shoulder, core, and chest strength to be able to maintain a plank if you want to be able to do a push-up.

·        Incline Position Push-Ups – If you have access to a squat rack then you can set the bar to the height you need in order to be able to perform a push-up while practicing your form. With this method, “screwing” your hands in becomes “bend the bar. You can also try using a chair or the back of a couch, or anything that elevates your hands off the ground so you can work on building up your strength.

·        Negative Position Push-ups – With this you will start in plank position and slowly lower yourself to the ground. From there, bend your knees and put them on the ground with your feet in the air and do a knee push up back to the top. Get back into plank position and slowly lower yourself down again. These will most likely be difficult but will help a lot in building strength.

·        Finish Position Hold Push-ups – These start with you laying flat on the floor, hands just outside your chest, elbows 45 degrees off your body, and thumb line going across the center of your sternum. Push your self about 3 inches off the floor and try to hold the finish position of a push-up for 3 seconds, aiming for 10-12 reps. The time and reps should increase as you get stronger.

·        Up Downs – This method is essentially alternating between a forearm plank and a straight arm plank. Start in a forearm plank and then alternate between the arm that helps push you up into a straight arm plank.

·        Plank Walks – Any kind of movement in plank position will help strengthen your arms, shoulders, chest, and core. You can plank walk side to side, forward and backward, rotate in a circle, anything you want, get creative. As long as you’re in control of your movement and maintaining a stable plank position. I suggest doing this as a timed exercise for 30-60 seconds.

·        Dumbbell Press and Tricep Extensions – A very straightforward way to build up the strength you need for a push-up is to work the muscles that are part of the movement. Doing flat bench or incline bench dumbbell presses will build up the push muscles in your chest, shoulders, and arms. And then you can specifically target your triceps by doing tricep extensions to both increase their strength, which will help with your push-up, but also tone your arms. Toning bonus FTW!

 It’s likely that there are plenty more modifications out there besides these, and maybe there are even some that you come up with yourself. Be consistent, keep practicing, and make note of your progress so you know when to challenge yourself more. It may seem daunting at first, maybe even impossible, but you will definitely see progress and will end up fully capable of doing a push-up.