Every week (in fact, it’s not too much of a stretch to say EVERY DAY) I receive emails that read a little something like this……
‘Hi Michelle, My daughter/son has recently taken up extra training for swimming/school sport/rowing/basketball and I am little concerned. How can they balance it all? Is it too much? Is it a wise idea to focus purely on one sport, or keep a few different sports going? I would love your advice or for you to have a look at their schedule and see what you think’
While I would love to sit down individually with everyone and go through their timetable with a fine-tooth comb, I’m sure you can appreciate that is not possible.
What I CAN do is write this blog post, which will hopefully allow you to consider your child’s sporting and weekly training choices for yourself.
Here are my Top 10 considerations for scheduling your child/teenagers weekly training timetable and deciphering if it is too much or not:
- Everyone is Different
This is a concept even adults grapple with, the ‘comparison game’. The amount of adults I coach who will spend excessive energy worrying that their training program has them running four times a week…..but oh my goodness, their friend is doing five! Is four sessions REALLY enough?! #panicstations
Please do not compare your child to another. We are all SO different in our physiological make up, stage of growth, training age (more about that below) and training adaptability, plus we all have very different life circumstances and other commitments we must balance.
Instead, focus on how your child is coping with their current training load, rather than attending extra sessions because someone else is OR restricting sessions because another child is finding it too much.
Try and set this example to your children, as they can easily buy into the ‘more is better’ mentality at an early age and worry that they are falling behind if a friend is doing extra training sessions.
Another consideration is your child’s stage of development and training safely through growth spurts and puberty.
2) Concept of Training/Athletics Age
Your child’s athletic age is how many years they have been participating and training in a certain sport. For example, ‘Swimmer 1’ is a 15-year-old child who has been involved with a swimming club for 2-3 years and gradually built up to four sessions per week. A jump to five or six sessions per week is not a massive step for ‘Swimmer 1’ and it can be assumed that after a certain period of adaption, they could train at this higher volume safely.
‘Swimmer 2’ comes to swimming from a land-based team sport as a 15-year-old. They would be wise to cautiously approach their training with a gradual build in volume (length of session), frequency (how many time per week) and intensity (how hard they work). As they have a younger ‘swimming athletic age’ than ‘Swimmer 1’ they should not be expected to handle the same volume of training.
NOTE: Insert any sport you like into the example above.
3. All Training is NOT created equal
When people email me examples of their child’s training week, it is very general, such as ‘Monday – Basketball, Tuesday – Swimming, Wednesday – Gymnastics’.
However, not all training is created equal and will have the same energy demands on your child.
For example, is Basketball training a hard-physical workout OR is it mainly low impact skills like shooting hoops and practicing passing? Is the activity a weight-bearing sport (running, jumping) or weight supported (swimming, cycling)?
Have a look at the physical needs of each session, assess how much it takes out of your child and how well they recover.
As a general rule, high-impact physical training and weight-bearing activity should be separated by at least a day (depending on training age, stage of growth and individual circumstances as discussed elsewhere in this article) and limited to 2-3 sessions a week.
Aerobic training developing cardiovascular fitness, especially when it is a weight supported activity like swimming, is generally safe to do 5-6 times a week. In fact, there is a large body of research which supports the concept that developing your aerobic fitness in childhood has a huge impact on your lifelong cardiovascular fitness and health as an adult.
Skills based practice, when low impact, can happen every day with one caveat; for single-side skills (bowling in cricket, serving in tennis) please make sure it’s ‘quality over quantity’ practice to ensure no overuse injuries.
4. It takes time to adpat
It is true for any age that when you start a new physical activity, or increase your body’s level of training, you can pull up sore and tired. Unless you are showing signs of an injury developing, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should stop completely.
It takes time for your body to adapt to the new energy and physical requirements you are asking of it. I have seen so many children come to a morning swim training session once, then never come again because they ‘were just too tired’.
If the new training regime is something your child REALLY wants to start doing, then build the training gradually and allow four weeks to see if it is still affecting them as much……..it is amazing how quickly young ones adapt! Sometimes you just need to stick with something for a period rather than giving up at the first sign of discomfort.
5. Consider School Sport when balancing training commitments
All schools are different and will have various sport requirements that need to be balanced with your child’s community sport. For example, APS schools have Saturday morning sport plus quite a rigorous in-school training regime 2-4 times a week, while other schools might only have general Physical Education class once a week.
Consider your child’s whole schedule……if they are doing cross country training 3 times a week at school this term do they really need to attend the extra ‘fitness’ session the footy club is putting on? Or would they be better off resting that evening?
Also, think about non-sporting activities and where they fit into the scheme of things. Playing a musical instrument, household chores and tutoring still take energy even if they are not considered ‘training’. How do they all fit together at the end of the day and where do your priorities sit? Are you sacrificing one for another?
As you can see, you need to look at the week as a whole rather than just needing to fit in ‘x’ amount of training sessions.
6. Time for quality sleeping, eating and downtime
Teenagers can have a reputation of sleeping late/all day and the fact of the matter is, it is not laziness. It takes a huge amount of energy when the body is growing and this is the simple explanation of why they need to sleep and eat so much! When you add in increased activity, quality food and sleep become even more important. Make sure they get the sleep and fuel to adequately support how much activity they are doing.
It’s also important to allow downtime where they are doing something completely different to allow them to mentally switch off. Every spare second does not need to be pre-scheduled with a training session. A balanced athlete = a happy athlete = a fast athlete.
7. Is it their choice to train so much?
Is it the child’s choice to train so much or the parents? Or in some cases, is it the coach’s choice?
The more the athlete has buy-in to the amount of training they are doing, the greater chance you have of them staying active as an adult. Ask the kids how much training and sport they wish to do and take this into consideration. Of course, you have the final say as a parent and you have every right to ‘make’ them commit to activity 2-3 times a week as part of an active lifestyle. There is however a difference between setting standards for the amount of activity you wish your child to do for health reasons and forcing them to train excessively.
(Note: While I am not a parent, I do have a younger sister 11 years my junior who had NO interest in sport as a child. My Mum knew it was important for her to be active and I watched their battles to have her participate in SOMETHING regularly, so realise it can be quite a challenge to get your teenager moving! OR you could have a teenager like me who used to throw a tantrum every time my Mum couldn’t get me to training! I’m sure most kids would sit somewhere in between these two extremes?!)
8. Be wary of the warning signs of over-training
The warning signs for over-training are the same at any age and YES if you are seeing excessive amounts of the below warning signs, your child is potentially doing too much and may need to scale back their training;
- Increased incidence of illness and injury
- Depressed state, loss of motivation
- Interrupted/poor quality sleep/constant tiredness
- Irritability/mood swings
- Decreased ability to perform
- Falling behind in other activities
9. Single sport specialisation for young people
It has been proven again and again that forcing a child before the age of 16 to commit to one sport, at the exclusion of others, is not beneficial from both a performance and participation perspective.
I won’t post all the latest literature here (I’m happy to share some great articles with anyone who asks), however they have found that focussing on many different sports early in life decreases the chance of overuse injuries, allows a broad range of physical skills to develop and increases the chance that they will stay involved with sport for life.
They have even shown that many of those who go on to become Olympic/Australian representatives and World Champions didn’t focus on their chosen sport (or even start it!) until after 16 years of age.
For example…….
Usain Bolt wanted to be a cricket player as a kid and only started focussing on athletics in his late teens.
World Champion Swimmer James Magnusson did swimming as his summer sport and rugby as his winter sport until the age of 16.
The great Michael Jordon was initially overlooked by American College basketball scouts as he grew later than most and was deemed ‘too short’. All good, he was focussing on his Baseball.
Rio Rowing Gold Medallist Kim Brennan started Rowing at 19 after an Athletics injury forced her retirement from the track.
Is that enough examples for you?
Let’s stop making kids ‘concentrate on one sport if they are ever going to make it’ at 11 years of age.
10. Are you seeing warning signs of excessive behaviour?
People who become top athletes are often committed, highly focused, ready to go that extra mile in search of results, motivated by numbers/data and like to control their environment. Similar characteristics can be shown in people who develop serious mental health, addiction and eating disorder issues. Hence, at times sport can be a breeding ground for manifesting unhealthy and obsessive behaviours. It is important to keep an eye out about anything going ‘too far’ and speak to your child’s coach and/or an appropriately trained health professional if you are concerned. The quicker you can intervene any potential issues, the better.
In conclusion, nobody knows your child better than you.
Take the time at the start of each term/season to sit down and discuss what they want to do and where they are going to fit everything in.
Use the above principles to guide the schedule, monitor how they cope and make changes/seek referrals where necessary.
Good luck and remember it is a GOOD thing if your child wants to do a lot of sport, however you have the choice to hold them back if you see adverse effects.