General over training syndromes impact both the central nervous system as well as the endocrine system. Given that the regulation of many hormones within the endocrine system serve to oversee and manage stress levels, it is fair to imply that general over training could be considered a stress related issue.

Two types of general over training have been recognized:

Addisonic Over training – This version is related to Addison’s disease and involves a reduction in the activity of the adrenal glands. This class of over training impacts the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, but shows no striking signs at first. A general stagnation or dip in an athlete’s performance (day-to-day) may be an indication or symptom.

Basedowic Over training – This version is connected to thyroid hyperactivity and named after Basedow’s disease (also known as Graves’ disease). This class of over training impacts the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and brings with it a host of identifiable symptoms (reduced reaction time, tire easily, poor motivation, appetite and sleep requirement changes).

When considering these definitions it is imperative to take a closer look at our athletes when they walk in the door and remember that the symptoms associated with over training can be very subtle. Additionally, other emotional stressors can add to over training issues. Simple things such as conflicts with friends, difficulty with school subjects and upcoming tests can all add to the impact of over training.

While they may seem like no big deal to an adult, it is important to think back to your school days and remember that some or all of these issues can be devastating to a kid and feel insurmountable.

In addition to psychological stressors, there are physical ones outside of practice that can cause additional fatigue. Perhaps in gym class, your athlete has to run two miles for the school’s standardized testing requirements and then had to perform push-ups, sit-ups and rope climbing and then they have hockey practice after school. This can add greatly to a player’s fatigue without a coach even knowing.

This is why it is crucial for a coach to generate close relationships with his athletes and ask them how they are – take 5 minutes to learn about what’s going on in their lives today. How do they feel? How was school? How are classes? Understanding athletes as people allows a coach to better guide their programming.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Brian Grasso for this important information.

Weight training for kids is often a controversial subject area. Many people believe that it is too taxing on a child’s growing body. In this article, Executive Editor TK Stohlman and sports trainer Ryan Lee discuss the benefit of body weight training as an effective alternative to using machines or other weights.

Stohlman: Ryan, what advantages are there to body weight training?

Lee: There are a lot of advantages. I’m a huge fan of body weight training. When you don’t have any equipment you get to be creative using just your body weight. One advantage, obviously, is you can work out anywhere. If you are a coach and you are training a soccer team with thirty kids in the middle of the field, you can do a workout without having to drag out dumbbells or benches or bring the team to the weight room. You can work out anywhere, anytime with any amount of space. The other thing is that body weight gives you just enough resistance. It doesn’t make sense to have a kid use weights if they can’t even do something with their own body weight. I always say start with body weight first then progress to resistance.

One favorite weight exercise is the bench press. However, I wouldn’t put an athlete on the bench press until they can at least do push ups. Begin with a basic push up and after they start getting good with that, change it around. You can do a push up with your feet elevated, your hands elevated or even with just one leg elevated. There are literally over a hundred ways to do a push up.

There are a lot of ways to get creative with just body weight and you don’t need resistance. For example, you can do partner exercises. Imagine you have two kids, one is on all fours and the other person is doing a push up with their feet resting on the other person’s back. That is an elevated push up. Or they do push ups with their hands on their partner’s back. That is a hands elevated push up. There are a lot of really fun and creative body weight exercises you can do. This is why I highly recommend starting with body weight training and then progressing to the resistance training.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Ryan Lee for providing his expert advice.

Endurance training for young athletes is often a misunderstood topic. On one hand, there are strength coaches who tend to disregard developmentally sound elements of endurance training in lieu of producing stronger and faster athletes, while on the other hand, there are over-zealous coaches and trainers who equate endurance to long distance / duration activities, often with little regard for the athlete’s stage of development, ability or current level of conditioning.

Endurance is defined as one’s ability to withstand fatigue or the ability to control the functional aptitude of movement while experiencing external stress. The latter definition lends itself well to the concept of athletic development and training young athletes. One thing to consider is that the term endurance has application to varying lengths and types of effort:

• Long slow distances – efforts of limited intensity but high distance or time
• Speed – efforts typically lasting 15 – 45 seconds with high levels of intensity but obviously limited time or distance
• Muscular – the ability to sustain a muscular contraction for a prolonged period of time

There are several factors to consider with respect to the development of endurance in a young athlete:

1. Mechanical / Coordination / Movement – Efficiency of movement is a key factor in the endurance capabilities of a young athlete. Poor mechanics lead to higher degrees of fatigue. To truly increase the ability of a young athlete, coaches and trainers must exercise patience and teach proper movement habits rather than prescribe endless numbers of sets. It is critical to remember that perfecting technique can effectively improve endurance without increasing training volume.
2. Body Type – The more overweight a young athlete is, the less endurance they will likely have. Excess body weight (particularly in the form of fat) decreases endurance because of increased energy cost. Additionally, being overweight often leads to poor mechanical efficiency.
3. Psychological – Many young athletes do not possess significant amounts of mental toughness. To combat this, some trainers and coaches opt to make drills and exercises purposefully difficult in order to produce some sort of perceived mental strength. Given that both the physical structure as well as mental potency of a youngster is tenuous, this philosophy can lead to burnout or injury. A more prudent approach to this issue is to systematically present challenges that respect a young athlete’s individuality as well as their current stage of development and offer positive feedback at the conclusion. This will progressively improve endurance and develop confidence to attempt new and more challenging things.

It is important to understand that endurance training is critical for long-term development and not immediate results. Developing good endurance allows the young athlete to tolerate an increased amount of exercise stimulus in the future. Don’t become pre-occupied with immediate effects. Like any other aspect of athletic development, endurance training is part of a continual, multi-tiered effort.

There are several key points to remember when designing endurance-based training programs for young athletes. The most crucial aspect is to start with a broad aerobic base. This will raise the anaerobic threshold of the athlete (delay the need to use anaerobic sources of energy during activity) and allow the athlete to tolerate increased loads in the future. Begin this aerobic-based phase with low to moderate volumes. Children, although physiologically more fit than the average adult, still must begin their training programs gradually, working up to longer durations and higher intensities.

As with all athletic development, it is important to alter the type of endurance training you do with young athletes. Think in terms of seasonal activities – In the summer, enjoy swimming. In the autumn, change to hiking or cycling. In wintertime, offer stimulus such as snow-shoeing or cross country skiing. Notice how the suggestions are movement-based activities, NOT going to the gym to run on a treadmill. Often we forget how important movement and coordination-based activities are for young athletes. Don’t train kids on single function pieces of fitness equipment. There is a definitive crossover with all exercise stimulus and young athletes.

Editor’s Note: A special thank you to Brian Grasso for this article.

The goals of any trainer or coach working with a young athlete should include increasing proficiency of motor ability, developing functional versatility and lastly, inhibiting the potential negative effects of specialized training. Upon reflection, these points, both individually and collectively, lend to the credence that when working with young athletes, the mandate should be one of global, all-encompassing development rather than specialized ventures into sport specific training.

With pre-pubescent children, muscle innervation is completed by roughly the age of 6 years. Muscle innervation refers to the final expansion of motor nerve endings within a muscle fiber’s interior. The impact of this action on motor coordination is quite profound. At the conclusion of the muscle innervation process (again, roughly by the age of 6, although individual variances occur), children are now able to learn and begin the process of establishing functional proficiency in gross motor skills and movement patterns. It is critical to understand, however, that the innervation process happens more quickly and earlier (chronologically) in larger muscles. Again, innervation being linked to coordination and motor control, it stands to reason that children gain proficiency in gross motor skills more quickly than finer skills. This remains another argument for why early specialization is counterproductive – every sport requires various degrees of fine motor skills, which can simply not become functional abilities in younger athletes. Global aspects of gross motor skill development are most understandably the crucial component of training pre-pubescent children.

No one can learn how to create 6 or 12 month plans in a day. It takes time and diligent effort to acquire this skill, but your ability to get better over time will have a direct and positive impact on both your young athletes’ success rate as well as your businesses ability to attract new clients. Set an objective for yourself to create a system or plan that allows you to develop long-term and wide-focused agendas for your young athletes. Take several days or weeks if need be to create a system that is streamlined and easy to implement – although your are looking for a comprehensive system, the more basic you make it, the more easy it will be to adhere to.

Start simply. Take a piece of paper and write out where you want your young athletes to be in 4 weeks. Create headings and then just fill in each category. For instance, what skill sets are you working on now? To what degree of competency do you want an athlete or team to be able to demonstrate that skill set in 1 month’s time? This can also be applied to elite adolescent athletes. Are you working on squat or power clean totals right now? If so, where do you want these numbers to be in 4 weeks?

Once you have organized your thoughts on where you would like to be in 4 weeks, you have to consider how you are going to get there. On the same or a different piece of paper, right out how many training sessions or practices you have with this athlete or team between now and 4 weeks from now. Date each training session or practice on your piece of paper. Now, using your skills as a Trainer or Coach, literally, just fill in the blanks. Compare where you want to be in 4 weeks with the number of training sessions or practices you have between now and then. In order to accomplish your 4-week goal, what action steps along a critical path must be taken? This is the essence of how to develop a long-term approach to working with young athletes. You will simply just write out your next several training sessions or practices in order to meet the objectives you have laid out for 4 weeks from now.

This system can easily be applied to 6 months or even a year. Just follow the same type of procedure as mentioned above – set out an objective for the time frame and decide where this athlete or team needs to be within that time frame. Let’s say you have a 13-year-old athlete for 6 months and you want to determine an objective and critical path. Take out a piece of paper and write out where you want this athlete to be in 6 months. Be descriptive with this – what skill sets do you want him to have mastered? What kind of movement-based techniques will he show great competency in. Once you have decided that, break those large objectives down into more manageable ones and make them your first 4-week objective. To get to your end destination, where to you have to be at the end of this month? From there break it down even farther by deciding on how many training sessions or practices you will have over the course of the next 4 weeks and design them in accordance with your 4 week objective. Next month, do the same thing.

An amazing thing happens when you create objectives and critical plans like this. You will start seeing results in your athletes and teams beyond what you ever-dreamed possible. Failing to plan is one of the biggest concerns facing this industry. It seems everything is taken on a session-by-session basis with no vision or thought to the long-term. It could be argued that individual trainers and coaches didn’t know how to plan for the future… well; now you do!

Practice the skill of objective writing and critical path creation. It will take time to design a system that flows well for you, but it is more than worth it to your young athletes and teams.

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Brian Grasso of Developing Athletics for this article.

TK: So when parents have identified particular instructors or trainers and think, “I’ve done my research and this person has the potential to be a good instructor for my child. Now it’s time to go talk to this trainer/instructor.” What are some questions that a parent could ask this trainer/instructor to help them with this decision? Again whether it’s a short term training decision over a couple of months, or they’re looking at making maybe a year long decision for specific training instruction program, what are some questions that parents could ask this potential instructor or trainer to help them decide if this trainer is the best for their player?

Brian: Yeah, I love where you’re going with this stuff because this is really prudent information that parents need to hear. It’s primarily a North American ideology right now. It is infiltrating other parts of the world to be sure, but what we’re doing a great deal of here in North America is we’re shooting for what we call the ’short, quick bio-motor gain’.

Now bio-motors are speed, strength, power or those athletic commodities that we perceive make us better athletes. And so we’re shooting for those and really trying hard to make young athletes as fast as possible, as strong as possible, as powerful as possible. But the defining part, TK, is that we’re trying to do so in as short a time frame as possible.

What we’re finding is that a lot of facilities, trainers, coaches and franchise type facilities around North America are saying to mom and dad, “For 0 or 0, I’ll put together a six-week program that makes your young athlete as fast as powerful as possible, as strong and speed based as possible.”

But that really is inappropriate on a number of levels, and let me explain as briefly as I can. The developing human body and the corresponding parallel developing mental/emotional part of young person really does take time. It’s not about making kids as fast or as strong as possible in six or eight weeks, it’s about developing over a long term, and there’s a lot of ways to look at it.

First of all, I always say to mom and dad, “Do you really want your 10 year old to be as strong and as fast as possible now and win the plastic trophy at the end of the year? Or do you want them developed properly in combination and in sequence with what the human body is doing naturally on a developmental basis, and have your kid as injury resistant, as powerful, and as strong and fast as possible when they’re 17 or 18, and sports really starts to matter?” At 10 years old, sports should be fun and engaging. But as we get older, it becomes more competitive and more important, especially if you’re looking to go on to collegiate or beyond.

So you really can’t just take training young athletes into short bursts of time. So that would be the first question: How long do you train my kid for? Is this a year program? Is it a six month program? Is it a six week program? And I would advocate parents to try and stay away from trainers who talk about ’six weeks to maximum performance’, or ‘eight weeks pre-season’. Those things shouldn’t really be involved in youth development; it really should be more of a long term scope.

And TK, if I could say one more thing about that, the best and most appropriate way to get parents understanding the concept of long term development is to parallel it to academics. What I mean by that is that you can’t get a masters degree before you get your bachelor’s degree and you can’t get your bachelor’s degree before you go to high school, you can’t go to high school before you go to elementary school and the reason that is, is that everything is a cognitive building block upon itself. Does that make sense?

TK: Definitely.

Brian: The same with training and developing young athletes. It is not about being as fast as you can be at ten years old, it’s about developing motor patterns and skills and execution standpoints that when you’re 12, you can build on and at 14 you can build on some more.

Editor’s Note: A special thank you to Brian Grasso for this interview.

1. Multi-directional forms of running, jumping and skipping
2. Single leg balancing games
3. Mirror games (mirroring each other’s movements)
4. Known exercises starting or finishing in new positions (start sprints from belly or one knee; end with hands up or on all fours)
5. Opposite arm circles (right hand circles forward, left backwards)
6. Simultaneous arm and leg circles
7. Jump in place with 180 or 360 turns while in flight
8. Balance exercises on a low balance beam
9. Cross step-over running or carioca
10. Somersault to balance (somersault to standing one legged balance)
11. Skipping A, B and C’s
12. Obstacle running (place hurdles directly on floor and have athlete run over them)

Editor’s Note: A special thank you to Brian Grasso for this article.

Flexibility is an important component in overall fitness. However it is only a small part of true fitness. There are many misconceptions about flexibility and many less than reliable measurement tools. The following article from Brian Grasso helps to debunk some of these myths and provides age appropriate flexibility expectations.

Flexibility remains a mysterious avenue within the sport industry, cluttered with myths, half-truths and opinion. Questions purvey in many trainers’, coaches’, and parents’ minds as to the type of flexibility training one should perform, when they should perform it, and for how long. Of critical importance to this conundrum is the young athlete and how flexibility training should be applied to this demographic. This article will not answer every question you may have, but it will shed some light on a few key points.

The scope of confusion regarding flexibility can be seen when considering the assessment tools most commonly used to test one’s suppleness. The standard ‘sit & reach’ test is most often incorporated into pre-training assessments as the ‘flexibility test’. In fairness, many coaches and trainers I have worked with cite the fact that the sit & reach is an indirect assessment of flexibility at best, and does not give a truly accurate picture as to the ‘global’ suppleness an athlete may posses considering that flexibility is joint specific. Also, it does not allow us to assess any dynamic qualities, which is important because static flexibility is quite different than dynamic flexibility, and dynamic flexibility is critically more important in sport.

The degree of flexibility a joint exhibits is not entirely determined by the tightness or pliancy of the muscles that act on that joint. While elasticity of the muscle is a key component to flexibility, so is the elasticity of the corresponding ligaments and even the emotional state of the individual. Additionally, the physical length of a muscle can play a very large role in determining the flexibility or ROM of a joint. Muscle length is largely determined by genetics, but can also be positively influenced through strength training. This certainly contradicts a common myth that strength or resistance training INHIBITS flexibility. Furthermore, as the elasticity of a muscle reduces with age (which we generally accept as true), strength training can also positively influence this concern. Yes… Strength training has a positive impact on flexibility and suppleness! In fact, when working with younger athletes, basic static stretching habits can increase the length of a ligament and lead to joint instability. This can lead to poor posture and increased dependence on muscles for joint stability. Strength and flexibility (through full ROM) must work hand-in-hand to ensure optimal development and decreased injury occurrence.

In terms of young athletes, flexibility develops in correspondence with growth. In terms of training, type, frequency and duration also change with age.

Ages 6 – 10:

Hip and shoulder mobility declines, resulting in the need for dynamic ROM exercises within these two joints (multi-directional raises and rotations). Maximum flexibility of the spine is reached by the age of 8 or 9 – increases beyond normal ROM can be made, but is unnecessary and considered potentially harmful.

Within this age group, STATIC STRETCHING SHOULD BE AVOIDED. Excitement within the nervous system is much more pronounced than inhibition, which means that kids this age cannot truly execute a held stretch. They cannot gain the appropriate feedback from their body needed to ensure the safety and optimal effectiveness of the stretch.

Additionally, Isometric stretches (as found in Yoga) should also be avoided completely in this age category. These kinds of stretches may increase the resting tone of a muscle, which can negatively affect movement skill and coordination. Remember – Fitness fads come and go, but the critical science of athletic development and human physiology is what it is. Yoga has its place to be sure (although I know many skeptics who disagree with that), but coordination and movement MUST dominate this age bracket.

Ages 10 – 13:

Children incur gains of body mass at a quicker rate than gains in height at this age, which leads to an increase in strength. Flexibility training should intensify in this age category. Increases in strength and changes in body mass can combine and lead to poor bio-mechanical habits – most critically in not using full ROM during movement. Ensure that kids incorporate full ROM and dynamic exercises into their training.

Ages 13 – 15:

Height can increase as much as one inch per month during the growth spurt. Muscles and supporting connective tissue do not grow as quickly as bone, which can result in general pain throughout the body. Flexibility training can and should target the areas most prone to pain – this would include quadriceps, hamstrings and muscles of the lumbar spine specifically. Poor posture, reduced movement skill and injury are all potential concerns of rapid growth, but can be limited with appropriate flexibility habits.

Ages 15+:

Now is the time to start adding sport-specific means of flexibility training into an athlete’s routine.

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Brian Grasso for this article.

In the initial phases of training with a young athlete (technically referred to as General Preparatory or GPP), the undeniable key and focus (outside of fun!) should be aptitude development. This aptitude should transcend to both movement-based skills in their basic elements (balance, jumping, throwing, linear and lateral motion progressions, etc.) as well as strength-based exercises. I have always firmly believed that basic squatting techniques, for example (along with squatting variations and unilateral efforts), should be introduced into the training sessions of young athletes.

That being said, how does one begin the process of teaching movement habits?

When working with truly young athletes (6 – 7 years old), you need to adopt a progression template within which to work. No template can ever be applied to 100% of your athletes 100% of the time – that is the beauty of coaching; understanding what to apply, when, and for how long (i.e., knowing when to progress or regress on an individual basis). Trust me when I say that no system is foolproof and that any strength coach or trainer who claims to “have all the answers” is completely full of crap.

After 10 years of working with young athletes, I have reached one undeniable conclusion: the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know and the more I want to change my methodologies.

Having said that, these are the first three progressions I use in teaching a movement habit:

Skill: Lateral Deceleration

First, break key points down into skill sets that are easy to remember so that kids can recite them both to you and to themselves (this makes teaching and cuing much simpler).  I have four points I want my athletes to learn/know/commit to memory with respect to lateral deceleration:

1. Bend your knees and drop your hips
2. Be on a flat foot or slightly on the ball of the foot
3. The toe/foot of the decelerating leg should be square to the angle of the body (i.e., not out)
4. The foot placement should be outside the box (the “box” is a reference to an invisible line drawn from the shoulder to the floor. Any placement outside of that line is good; within or too close to the line will result in a poor deceleration and potential injury).

Have the kids understand each of these items individually and then in conjunction with each other.

Progressions

These represent the first three of my progressive steps:

1. Repeat Statically – have the athletes assume an athletic position or stance. From here, they will “hit” the decelerating position upon command. Be patient with this step and make sure all your athletes are comfortable and competent with the motion. Add fun to this by calling out different legs unpredictably.
2. Repeat Dynamically – when you feel your athletes are ready, have them perform one or two moderately paced side shuffles prior to “hitting” the decelerating position. The side shuffles should be slow and easy. At this point, you will begin to ascertain if further teaching is necessary (it likely will be). With the additional movement prior to the deceleration, a common mistake you will see is athletes not planting their foot outside of the box far enough. This results in a poor alignment and a less than satisfactory deceleration (even at these slow speeds). My colleague, Lee Taft, calls this a shoulder sway (because the shoulders lean toward the decelerating leg rather than sitting back in a “braking” position). I love this term and it reflects what the actual concern looks like.
3. Repeat Randomly – Now that the athletes are comfortable with the motion, create games and situations within which they react to a particular signal and move (unpredictably) different directions. On your “point” for example, the athlete will take one or two moderately paced side shuffles and then “hit” a deceleration. Have them hold the position so that both you and them can ascertain what is right and wrong with their posture.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Brian Grasso for the above article.

Drink lots of water or sports drinks during practices or games.

Not getting enough fluids in your body during games or practices will accelerate your overall fatigue and heat stress. As your body temperature increases, performance decreases, fatigue increases, and you can become ill. The best way to stay hydrated and fueled for hockey workouts is to drink water or sports drinks during workouts (we recommend a high-quality sports drink as it also contains carbohydrates, proteins, and electrolytes, which will give you more energy than simply consuming water). You should consume 4 to 8 ounces of water or sports drinks every 10 to 15 minutes. (Avoid sports drink with too much sugar).

Be sure to give your body the rest it needs.

Nutrition and proper hydration alone are not enough to enable your body to fully recover from strenuous hockey workouts. Rest and sleep are also very important. To ensure that your body has the necessary rest it needs, you should aim at having at least 8 to 10 hours of quality sleep every night (especially the night before your hockey games or practices). If your body doesn’t get the sleep it needs, your body will become tired a lot quicker and your performance will suffer. You should also try to go to bed no later than 10 o’clock, as the best sleep quality occurs between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. Also, try to have a few days a week with very little or no exercise to give your body enough rest to recover faster.

Work on your endurance and stamina.

If you lack endurance and stamina, your body will use a lot more energy and become exhausted a lot quicker. For this reason, it is very important that one of your main goals as a player be to become fit and in shape. There are a few ways to do this:

1. Work on conditioning during practices.
2. Undertake cardiovascular exercises away from the ice (inline skating, jogging, and biking). Remember, however, not to overdo any exercise you undertake, as too much exercise will deplete your body more than it will do you good.

Treat injuries and take time off from hockey if needed.

Hockey is a fast-paced game with intense movements, and with contact involved, many injuries can occur. The most typical injuries suffered from hockey players are muscle strains, back ligament sprains, groin strains, hip injuries, knee injuries, shoulder injuries, wrist injuries, hand and finger injuries, head and neck injuries, concussions, contusions, and dental injuries. If you suffer from one of those types of injuries, consult a medical professional and follow his recommendations to treat and heal your injury. Many players don’t take the necessary time off to let the injury heal, and they end up aggravating the injury. Give your body the time, rest, and nutrition it needs to heal.

Here is a simple guideline to follow if you suffer a bruise or strain during a game: RICE.

Rest – For most injuries, rest the area until the pain decreases. For simple sore muscles, however, gentle stretching will reduce stiffness more quickly. Hold the stretch for 30 to 60 seconds, then rest and repeat five to 10 times).

Ice – Ice is the most effective treatment for reducing inflammation, pain, bruising, and swelling of injured muscles, joints, and connective tissues such as tendons and ligaments. Apply ice for 20 minutes every two to three hours while awake. For best results, place crushed ice in a plastic bag and wrap with a moist towel.

Compression – Between icings, wrap the injured area with an elastic bandage to help control swelling and provide support. Don’t wrap to tightly!

Elevation – Raising the injured area above your heart will allow gravity to help reduce swelling by draining excess fluid.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to HockeyShot.com for the above article.