Are children becoming less active? Should children be doing more gym work? How much is too much sport? Does lifting weights get you injured? Should my child do squats? Is stretching good or bad?

These are all perfectly normal questions I have heard over the years from concerned parents. Whilst there is now pleasingly more and more research being undertaken on the stages of growth and maturation and physical activity, in my opinion it probably isn't translating onto the “shop floor” - the school’s athletic development levels.

Rather than add to more reviews of literature and science, in this article I’ll attempt to answer some ambiguity around youth athletic development based upon a reflection of my work to date and some key aligned values of a system I’ve created called “The Production Line” and the P’s of Productivity.

1. Inspire & Influence PEOPLE

I have spent more than 25 years learning new ways of improving athletes' performance and how to integrate with other professions. The key concept to consider here is that children are NOT mini adults. What motivates them on a particular stage of their athletic development depends upon their stage of maturation and the complex interaction of social factors.

The most important aspect to consider is where they are on the continuum of development. The stages of long-term athletic development have been highlighted across the literature and we have adapted them to create the following framework:

Once you’ve identified the different phases your athletes are in, you can then decide on the best way to engage them. This is possibly more important than deciding on the actual type of content that is appropriate for them to undertake, within boundaries of health and safety.

What Does That Mean? 

Certain age groups will respond well to playground style games, others will respond better to individual style games and challenges, or perhaps even gymnastic style obstacle courses or team based multi-sport games.

It's important to consider whether the mode of delivery of physical literacy exercises such as squatting, lunging, jumping, skipping, hopping etc. needs to be a strict authoritative key coaching-point-learned model, or a more freestyle guided discovery process (again within the boundaries of accepted health and safety practice), or whether it should be a combination of the two.

How Else Can We Influence Engagement?

A final modality to consider in terms of influencing engagement is the use of buddy coaching, peer led small group coaching, and whether to introduce healthy competition in the form of measuring exercise outputs for either individual progression or team style leaderboards.

All of these concepts warrant further detail and can be discussed further, if of interest.

2. Periodised PLANNING & PROCESSES

The next P's are Planning & Processes. 

As a practitioner there should be a desire to plan, deliver and review the effectiveness of training. In certain sports this may be delivered via bespoke macro, meso and microcycles of holistic development by identifying windows for specific and collaborative interventions.

And That Means What, Exactly?

Essentially, you should have a long term plan split into specific phases, as previously identified, but each year should then be split into blocks of work. Furthermore, each block should be split into specific sections of content.

I have tried to follow some simple rules to planning which is summarised in a philosophy I’ve called “The Great Wall of China Theory” –

Consistency is the Secret to Success… Complacency is the Fuel for Failure!

You need to consistently do the simple things well. From Day 1. Here is the conflict of interest.

• Doing the same thing repeatedly gets boring.
• When things get boring they are done less often.
• When things are done less often you don’t get good at them.
• If you don’t get good at them, you stop wanting to do them!

So, the key is to create a framework whereby you have a syllabus of work split into specific content categories, and then each category has sub-categories. Each sub-category has modes of delivery.

The Syllabus in Action

From the above, let's focus on improving strength. Next, from the content we decide to pick lower body exercises. And we can identify a squat as a whole body exercise. 

Now, we can see how many different ways we can perform a bodyweight 2-leg squat. Or what if we change it to a single-leg squat, or a split stance squat? We can then change number of repetitions, or change the leg position, arm position, close our eyes, add in equipment. We can alter the same exercise to make it more challenging, or refined. 

And from that, we have gone from just a squat, to many different variations of the same exercise, ensured the consistency is maintained, and encouraged engagement.

In sport we require all facets of physicality at different times and in different quantities. Therefore the need for a progressive and structured syllabus that covers all facets of athletic development and is delivered within a framework of continual progressive challenge, and with multiple engagement modalities is essential and similarly mind-blowing at times when you stop to think about it.

THE LIST IS ENDLESS! You just have to create a "menu" to work from to ensure some structure and consistency of delivery, which in turn means you'll obtain one the most sacred of athletic development principles: Progressive Overload.

3. The Final P: Performance Monitoring

Measuring Progressive Overload is the final P. Performance Monitoring. 

This, again, is a whole other topic and whilst there is a plethora of new technology out there that can add fantastic value to objectifying athleticism, its importance is arguably less than the actual journey of undertaking good physical literacy programs within a safe and effective environment, with exciting and appropriate training equipment and facilities.

Progressive Overload or Consistent Adaptation to Stimuli. In simple coaching terms – getting better through practise every day and challenging the task regularly to create the need to get better.

Written by Kevin Paxton, ASCC, CSI, HPSA. September 2024. For more information contact kevin.paxton@chirosportfitness.co.uk