Dear Mr. Obama: Help our kids play

I thought since we all have been glued to the news rather you voted for the new President or not this past election, this blog post was appropriate for the occasion. It was taken from ESPN.com on my blackberry and it's an open letter to President Barack Obama. I hope you enjoy it.

Dear Mr. President:

Every 50 years or so since the rise of the U.S. as an industrial power, someone with your impending job title takes a hard look at the athletic activity of children.

He finds neglect and opportunity.

He takes action.

He leaves the nation -- and, ultimately, the sports nation -- in a better place.

Just over a century ago, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Ascending to the presidency at a time when America was about to make its play as leader of the free world, he didn't like what he saw happening with teenage boys. Roosevelt grew up an asthmatic, a sickly boy from polluted New York who made his body strong by embracing a life of vigorous exercise. He wrestled and lifted weights, and he boxed even after moving into the White House. He worried that the comforts of urban life had rendered middle- and upper-class boys soft and effeminate, raised, as many of them were, by their mothers. They hardly seemed fit, the way he saw it, to take over the businesses that their more manly fathers were hard at work creating. At the same time, the nation needed dependable laborers to pave the expansion into new markets. Sports, and team sports specifically, became seen as a way to indoctrinate immigrant boys into the ways of American capitalism. "Only aggressive sports can create the brawn, the spirit, the self-confidence, and quickness of men essential for the existence of a strong nation," Roosevelt roared.


Stirred, TR's contemporaries introduced organized sports to school systems in Gotham and other large cities. And they built thousands of playgrounds, green spaces where kids could get off the streets and get into games like baseball.

A half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower was fighting a Cold War that seemed as if it might turn hot on a moment's notice. As a former general, he knew that half of all men who had shown up at draft boards around the nation were considered physically unfit. And a study presented at the American Medical Association had shown that U.S. children were far more out of shape than their European peers. Over there, kids still walked or rode bikes to school and chopped wood for home heating. In the new suburban America, boys and girls were being driven everywhere. Home chores consisted of making their beds. As for school sports, they were focused on interscholastic competition, the province of the certified jock.

An alarmed Ike created in 1956 what ultimately became known as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which promoted physical education classes as early as first grade. Intramurals exploded, giving the less athletically gifted kid a chance to compete. Also, the groundwork was laid for passage a few years later of a federal program to help fund the construction or renovation of 40,000 parks and recreation centers in just about every county in the country. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with an exercise ethos, were the chief beneficiaries of these investments.

Your turn, No. 44.

I know you have a lot on your plate, between fixing the economy and smoking out bin Laden. But you've got a big brain, so let me introduce you to another mounting crisis that will require your leadership to solve: That of our sport system at its base. Maybe as you're trying to modernize our schools and mend our health care system, you can think about building in reforms to the opportunities our children have for physical activity.

From the top down, the system looks pretty good. Our pro leagues are thriving, as are the owners of their franchises. Our athletes are worldwide brands -- Kobe; A-Rod; Peyton Manning; the Williams sisters; and, especially, Tiger. From the window of an airplane, our mega-stadiums sparkle like 10-carat diamonds amid urban and college-town landscapes.

But viewed from the bottom up, the setup looks a lot more like the Wall Street we have come to know of late: a system compromised by greed and ignorance, in which the haves increasingly get rewarded at the expense of the have-nots, with the support of government.


To understand where the priorities lie today, start in America's largest burg. Last week, officials for the city and the New York Yankees were hauled before a state assembly committee to justify the most expensive stadium project in U.S. history. The $1.5 billion ballpark is being built on one of those historic playgrounds built a century ago, Macombs Dam Park, whose fields over the years have served countless youth and school teams in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. The city effectively gave a 22-acre parcel to the richest team in baseball, then allegedly jacked up the estimated value of the land to gain access to $940 million in federal tax-exempt bonds. Now the Yankees have been granted another $370 million in such bonds -- just weeks after signing Mark Teixeira and two other free agents for a combined $423 million.

The city promises to build a series of smaller replacement parks elsewhere. But some won't be ready for years, one will be on top of a parking garage, and another is in an industrial area far from the neighborhood. And we'll see what residents really get once the economy wreaks full havoc on city budgets.

"In New York City, 70 percent of kids are kicked to the curb at the end of the school day," said Al Bevilacqua, a wrestling coach whose nonprofit organization, Beat the Streets, is trying to reintroduce that sport to public schools using private funding. In the city that pioneered the uniquely American tradition of school sports, the options for many students are very limited. As an undergraduate at Columbia, you lived in New York long enough to get a sense of the experiential gap between that of a large public high school there and an elite private school such as the one you attended in Honolulu. Well, it's grown. Intramurals and quality P.E. classes are scarce, and only so many kids can make varsity basketball. Do you know how many U.S. Olympians the Big Apple sent to Beijing? Just eight. Four fencers, one boxer, one judoka, one riflewoman and one table tennis player originally trained in China.

Australia, which draws from a population only some two and a half times the size of New York City, won 46 medals.

Just about everywhere in America, inner-city kids struggle to find athletic opportunities. That's true even in places like Miami, with its reputation for producing elite football players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School won the mythical national championship in 2007 with a team that sent more than a dozen seniors to D-I programs, yet the school profile shows most students at the school couldn't pass the annual fitness exam. So is Northwestern a jock factory -- or a fitness flunkie?

You'd never know it from watching pro sports, in which African-American presence has grown, but black teenagers play sports less often than they did decades ago. In 1980, no ethnic group had a higher participation rate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. Not anymore. In fact, since then, no group has lost more participants. The obesity crisis is a national problem, but especially in black and Hispanic communities.

Those at the top of the sports pyramid aren't unaware of deficits at the bottom. Perhaps no league does more than the NFL, which has created an endowment that spends $25 million a year on refurbishing community football fields in distressed areas, according to a league spokesman. But such gifts are table scraps in the all-you-can-eat feast that is pro sports, where growth has been fueled by billions in public subsidies and tax advantages.

"They're more or less P.R. campaigns," says Scott Lancaster, who ran the NFL's youth programs for 12 years until 2007.

The NFL recently stopped funding one of its main youth programs. Junior Player Development, created by Lancaster, had helped repopularize football in poor urban areas by introducing the game to hundreds of thousands of kids through trained coaches. Many went on to play in college. Now the well-regarded program has been shut down, likely for good. The NFL cites the economy. Lancaster suspects it had more to do with posturing for negotiations with the players' union, a desire to plead poverty where none exists. "They've put youth in the middle and made it a victim," he says.

In tough times, sports funding for kids is always an easy cut. Even in the 'burbs now, school districts are talking about eliminating teams -- or even entire athletic programs. "You're going to see decisions made in the next two years that we've never seen made," one Connecticut high school athletic director told me. Youth sports in these communities will become further privatized, the realm of parents who can afford to sign their kids up for an endless slate of organized activities, from sport-specific camps to private lessons to travel teams with paid coaches.

It's hard to get your mind around how much the sports activity of children has changed since we were boys. As recently as the mid-1990s, the average age at which kids began to play organized sports was 8. Now, many start slipping on uniforms by 5, and after that you rarely see kids playing games without one. When my daughter was in second grade, there were girls on her rec league soccer team who were in their ninth season of soccer, having been signed up each fall, winter and spring since kindergarten (three seasons a year).

By third grade, in some sports, elite travel teams are being formed that stand apart from the in-town rec leagues that historically have provided opportunities for all kids. Ghettoized, the rec leagues begin to wither, while the travel kids go on to dominate varsity rosters. We're effectively holding high school tryouts now in grade school, sorting the weak from the strong before kids even hit puberty.

You seem like a man who can appreciate that youth sport is the most important institution in all of sports, because that's where the magic begins. It's where we learn to love these games, picking up fitness habits and rooting interests that can last a lifetime. But many kids start falling away from sports around age 11 now. The system has become less accessible to the late bloomer, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other: the clinically obese.

We also risk burning out the "winners" of this premature struggle. It's worth keeping in mind the modern cautionary tale of Elena Delle Donne, the 2008 national high school player of the year in girls basketball. Soon after arriving at UConn with a full ride, she quit the game, later explaining that she had stopped enjoying hoops back in middle school. All those AAU national championships, all those sessions with the personal trainer her parents had hired for her since second grade, led to no return on investment. She chose to walk on instead with a volleyball team at the University of Delaware, closer to home and friends.

Government policies have shaped this landscape. It's tempting to point to Title IX for the spread of scholarship mania among parents, as the amount of athletic aid handed out by NCAA programs has quadrupled since the early 1990s, to $1.5 billion annually. But that law also has been the greatest tool for growing participation since, well, the advent of organized youth sports, by forcing high schools and middle schools to create opportunities for girls.

It's clear that you, Barack, get that.


"I am the father of two young girls who are growing up playing sports and who are the beneficiaries of the doors Title IX opened," you said last year, signaling your intention to strengthen enforcement of the law down to the "pre-kindergarten" level.

Far more problematic is the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which charters the U.S. Olympic Committee and makes requirements of the national governing bodies of individual sports. The law asks that the USOC coordinate amateur sports activity in the country, but it's an unfunded mandate, a real bridge to nowhere (which was a specialty of its author, former Senator Ted Stevens). The USOC has focused its limited resources on the elite of the elite, making little effort to push coaches' education down to the youth level. In Europe, coaches are certified and trained in athlete development; here, the scene is dominated by millions of parent volunteers, well-meaning but winging it.

Attrition drops when coaches are trained in working with kids. It's been proven.

You are no doubt looking for ways to cut, not add to, the federal budget. But look at it this way: The economic consequences of Americans' physical inactivity are huge, costing more than $76 billion a year in direct medical costs alone, according to one academic study. Health care is a major priority of yours, with an emphasis on prevention. There's no better preventative care than finding a sport for life, like those weekly pickup hoop games you'll soon bring to the White House, Cabinet members in tow.

A bunch of your advisers got game, from education secretary nominee Arne Duncan (former Harvard co-captain) to attorney general nominee Eric Holder (former Columbia player) to brother-in-law Craig Robinson (current Oregon State men's coach). So get them in a huddle and come up with a new model for grassroots sports, built from the bottom up with a simple premise: sport as a human right, just like education. Here's how to do it:

• Offer incentives for schools to create more teams, not fewer, which is what is happening in the era of No Child Left Behind, with its strictly academic focus. The least that schools can do is modernize P.E. by connecting teens with local clubs that sponsor lesser-known sports in which they might find success. "You have to connect the national governing bodies with the schools," says Judy Young, a top expert on school-based sports. "Schools just can't teach the full array of 45 sports seen in the Olympics."

• Restore funding for urban parks and rec centers that have been gutted in recent years. Perhaps you can pay for it with a tax on the pro leagues that do business in these cities and whose empires have been built on the public dime.

• Rewrite the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act so that Job 1 for the USOC is tending to the base of the participation pyramid. While you're at it, enlist Larry Probst, its new chairman, who comes from the video game industry, to share what he knows about creating games that engage today's children. "A lot needs to be learned about making sports a contemporary experience for kids," says Lancaster, who while at the NFL experimented with hybrid games that married hand-held video with real play. "We're still asking them to play games the way their dads did a generation ago."

The key is getting progressive, not sentimental, about youth sports. Parents just aren't going to let their kid ride a bike halfway across town anymore to play sandlot ball, unsupervised. The murder of Adam Walsh changed all that.

And now, you can change it again, for the better. Imagine a Chicago Olympics in 2016 -- the first truly "Sport for All" Olympics, as you can pitch it when the host city is selected in October 2009, deploying an ideal celebrated by the IOC. An Olympics in which national governing bodies like U.S. Swimming and U.S. Badminton already are making new efforts to go into the inner city and get kids involved. An Olympics with a legacy of facilities that will benefit regular athletes, not just elites. An Olympics measured by growth in the number of Chicago kids who play sports into their teenage years and beyond. An Olympics that can cap your eight-year run as a president known for fresh ideas, with a statement in your adopted hometown about the possibilities of American sport.

The moment is there for the taking, Mr. Obama. It's one Teddy and Ike would surely seize.

Hope that gets you thinking.

Sincerely,

Tom Farrey

Tom Farrey is the author of "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," an exploration of the culture of modern youth sports. The book, his first, was recently named the 2008 Sports Education Book of the Year by the Institute of International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com

Youth Fitness Professional in Charlotte, NC

The 3 Common Mistakes with Running Form for Youth Athletes

I remember when I was young playing football I was never the fastest kid on the team. Even though I wasn’t the fastest kid on the team, I was one of the toughest and roughest, “the get things done” type of player, “the work horse”. I can remember one particular incident where we were required to turn around and take a side step in the backfield before receiving the ball. The reason was to slow the runner down so that it gave time for the linemen to pull to block for the runner. However, I was so slow that the coach just told me that by the time I would receive the ball I could just take the ball and run with it. That tore me up inside, and I think I even cried either during practice or afterward on the way back home or probably both. I can remember that during the offseason I worked my tail off to get faster and by the time the next season had rolled around, I had gotten a little bit faster and was able to do the play like the rest of the running backs.

You probably have noticed in recent years that sports teams are focused on speed, speed, and more speed. It's not surprising that parents and coaches of youth athletes now want their youth athletes to get faster. Runners who competed in track during club, high school, and university are lucky to have a coach early in their running career, critiquing form and offering pointers for more efficient running. Those who don’t run competitively may never receive any tips on form from a coach or a professional runner. During the years, I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of athletes ranging from youth all the way to collegiate and semi-professional with regards to enhancing their performance on the court/field.

Running seems simple in theory, but yet complex with application. I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of different athletes from a variety of different backgrounds and sports. From youth aging from 6 to 46, from youth to semi-professional, from males to females and what I have found is that they all have the same common issues with dealing with running. Breaking bad habits in an athlete’s running form isn’t easy; it takes years of practice before the athlete learns the proper form for running. Even though running is primarily a lower-body activity, your arms aren't just along for the ride!

In running, your legs move you forward but your arms propel your body. If you carry your arms properly and use them in the right forward motion, they will help you maintain good balance and rhythm. If the arms are held poorly (too high, too low) or the arm swing is incorrect, you will lose energy and speed. The proper arm form that an athlete should have when running is as follows:

Arms should be held low, bent at a 90-degree angle and relaxed. As you run, swing your arms up and down. The term I use is “elbow/ uppercut”. The analogy that I use is the athlete envisions themselves elbowing the air with the downswing, bringing them back behind your body, brushing them past their waistband, and upper cutting the air at the top of the swing. The arm movement should be just that — arm movement — and should minimize the rotation of the torso. Arms should move in conjunction with their legs. The majority of the motion should take place in the shoulder (deltoids) with regards to the arm swing. The athlete, if performing the motion correctly, will feel it there instead of any other place.

There are 3 common mistakes that must runners encounter when running. They are the train, the twist, and the drummer. These are some terms that I use with my athletes when teaching them the improper arm swing form with running.

The locomotion/ train: The arms are held too high when the athlete runs. During this illustration, the athlete swings outward in a jabbing motion similar to imitating a train going down the tracks. The majority of the motion is incorrect during the top swing in which the athlete’s arms are fully extended outward.

The twist: The arms are maximizing during the rotation of the torso. Image there is an invisible zipper that runs down the middle of the athlete’s body separating the left side from the right. The athlete during “the twist” will rotate across the imaginary zipper and perform a twisting motion, the athlete’s arms cross their body, between waist and lower-chest level. As a result, the athlete looks as if they are twisting when they are running.

The drummer: The arms are held too low when the athlete runs. During this illustration, the athlete’s arms are bent at a 90-degree angle, but instead the extension happens during the downswing, at the waist. The athlete extends their arms at the elbow as if they are trying to receive a baton pass from a sprinter coming up from behind them. The athlete is looked upon as beating a drum when they are running.


Remember, it’s not easy to break old habits, and athletes run the way they do because their body has found it efficient, and it’s now probably become a habit. To make their new effort a habit, practice concentrating on their new running style for a few minutes at a time.

Youth Speed/ Strength Coach in Charlotte, NC

Celiac Disease and Autism

Americans spend about $2 billion per year on gluten-free products that assist not only individuals that have an allergic reaction to the protein that is in wheat, barley, oats, and rye, but also those individuals that have been diagnosis with such mental health diseases as autism and ADHD (attention deficient hyperactivity disorder). Over the past year or so, manufacturers in the US have sold over $2 billion worth of products with "gluten-free" claims according to Nielson Co.

As posted previously, gluten is found in everything from commercial baked goods to pastas, to medications and lipsticks, to kids toys such as Play Doh. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disease of the small intestines caused by the body's reaction to the gluten protein gliadin. The only treatment is a diet free of gluten based ingredients.

We will shift gears a little today and look at how a gluten-free diet assist those with autism.

Proponents of the gluten-free diet say that many children with autism have gastrointestinal difficulties that make it hard for them to digest certain grains properly. There are different possibilities for ways in which this could affect children with autism. The most studied theory is that eating gluten leads to high levels of protein by-products, called gluteomorphines, in some children with autism. These by-products may then affect behavior like a drug would. Specifically, in these children, gluteomorphines could reduce their desire for social interaction, block pain messages, and increase confusion. If gluten is taken out of the diet, the idea is that this will reduce the level of gluteomorphines, and behavior will improve as a result.

What is the theory behind it?

Gluten is broken down in the intestines into several by-products, including one called gluteomorphine. These by-products are much more common in the urine of children with autism than in children without autism. Some scientists have concluded that they are leaking from the intestines into the blood of these children. Many research studies report that children with autism often have gastrointestinal problems, including intestinal leakage. The argument is that, if gluteomorphine is being absorbed into the general circulation in children with autism, then it could affect behavior. In support of this theory, there is evidence that blocking at least some of the action of gluteomorphine improves the behavior of children with autism. Moreover, recent evidence of a genetic mutation common among children with autism has been traced to a gene involved in gastrointestinal function

Does it work?

The effectiveness of elimination diets in improving the behavior of children with autism has only recently been scientifically researched. This research has almost always examined diets that are both casein- and gluten-free.
One well-controlled study focused on children with autism who had abnormally high protein by-products in their urine, and therefore were more likely to be sensitive to casein and gluten (see What is the theory behind it?). One group of these children was fed a strict casein- and gluten-free diet for 12 months. This group had significantly fewer autistic symptoms than the remaining children, who were not fed this diet. Another well-controlled study of casein- and gluten-free diets focused on children with autism regardless of the level of protein by-products in their urine. Overall, the study found no significant differences in behavior between children on the elimination diet and children on regular diets, although individual parents reported behavioral improvements. This overall lack of effect in the second study could be because the elimination diet only lasted 6 weeks, or because the children were not pre-selected according to the level of protein by-products in their urine.

Regardless, in both cases, the tested diets were casein- and gluten-free, so it is not clear whether it was the elimination of casein, gluten, or both that resulted in any improvements. A third study that did examine the effect of a gluten-free diet on the behavior of children with autism did not compare children on the elimination diet with children not on the diet. Therefore, even though there were improvements seen in the behavior of children on the diet, these may also have occurred over the 5 months of the study without the elimination diet.

The current thinking is that there is at least some evidence showing that a gluten-free diet, when combined with a casein-free diet, can help improve the behavior of some children with autism. Although the casein-free diet combined with a gluten-free diet is popular, there is little evidence to support or refute this intervention and reviewers have determined that meaningful conclusions cannot be drawn from the existing literature.

Is it harmful?

The major health concern for a child on a gluten-free diet is whether the child receives adequate nutrition. A recent report showed that the protein and nutrient intakes of children with autism on casein- and gluten-free diets were not different from those of children with autism on standard diets, but there was a trend towards lower calcium and copper intake in children on elimination diets (11). As a result, some researchers suggest that all children on elimination diets should be under the care of a nutritionist or physician (1).

Resources

Cookbooks as well as casein- and gluten-free diet starter kits for children with autism can be found at: http://www.gfcfdiet.com/.

The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network provides many resources to help children live with a gluten-free diet: http://www.foodallergy.org/.

Several books that might be helpful in understanding the casein-free diet approach are:
Diet Intervention and Autism: Implementing a Gluten Free and Casein Free Diet for Autistic Children and Adults: A Guide for Parents by Marilyn Le Breton and Rosemary Kessick. 2001. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

How to Eat Well Again on a Wheat, Gluten and Dairy-Free Diet by F. Crosthwaite. 2006. Merton Books.

Special Diets for Special People: Understanding and Implementing a Gluten-Free and Casein-Free Diet to Aid in the Treatment of Autism and Related Developmental Disorders by Lisa S Lewis 2005. Future Horizons.

The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet by P. Compart and D. Laake. 2006. Fair Winds Press.

article taken from this website http://autism.healingthresholds.com/therapy/gluten-free-diet

Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC

Women And Sports: The Building Blocks Of A Positive, Confident Person

I am very active in my church's youth ministry. There I have the chance to interact with the males and the females that participate in the program. It is amazing to observe the group dynamics of the kids interacting with each their same gender and opposite gender peer group. Last year, one of the females in the program graduated from high school. She was a varsity basketball player, who had picked up the sport in grade school. She was graduating with honors and attending one of the state universities here in the state. In addition, she had enrolled in their competitive engineering program this fall. She was one of our strongest, if not the strongest member, of our youth group. I watched how she interacted with her peers as well as the confidence she exhibited when she had to do projects or speeches in front of the congregation in comparison to the other females that were in the group. To me, she displayed an aura of confidence and leadership that the other girls seem to lack. She never really seem to concern herself with the way she looked or how much makeup she needed to have on if we were going to a public event.

She isn't the only female that I have noticed this correlation of sports and confidence with either. My little sister has played numerous of sports while growing up. She started with basketball in middle school, then transitioned over to soccer and tennis in high school. She went to college as a walk-on in tennis and later was awarded a tennis scholarship the following year.

There are many benefits that females receive from participating in athletics. In this blog today we will briefly go over some of them as to encourage those that are reading that may be on the fence to participate or to allow their daughters to participate in athletics.

Benefits of Females In Sport

Not long ago, being serious about sports was considered appropriate only for men and boys". Throughout the 20th century, women's increasing participation in sports has challenged our conception of womanhood. In the post-Title IX era, female participation in sport has skyrocketed. In 1970, one in every twenty-seven girls played high school varsity sports; compared to one in three today. Overall, women currently outnumber men as active sports/fitness participants. Sports have many more positive effects on women than are recognized in our everyday lives. Sports are not only positive physically, but they are also very important for the psychological and social well-being of women in today's world.

Studies have shown that sports participation for girls has significant health implications:
• Sports and other exercise helps to lay down bone mass. Therefore sports can be an influence over the prevention of osteoporosis.

• Girls that participate in as little as two hours a week of exercise can reduce her risk of breast cancer.

• High school girls who participate in sports are less likely to experience unwanted pregnancy and more likely to graduate

Psychological effects of sports are equally as strong as the physical aspects. Here are some psychological benefits for girls that participate in sports:

• They have a higher self esteem and a higher level of confidence and lower levels of depression

• They have a more positive self image and experience higher states of psychological well-being than those that don't participate in sports


Through sports girls can learn intangible people skills that will help them throughout the working world. Traditionally, girls can learn teamwork and goal-setting. Sports help women learn how to work together to achieve common goals, much like that of the business world. In an age where women are rising in the corporate world, women should be as familiar with those skills as men are. In a study, 80% of the female executives that were employed by a Fortune 500 Company, identified themselves as a former "tomboy" or a former athlete of some sort.

Girls and Women Need Encouragement and Aspirational Role Models

Many people think that girls are not as interested in sport as boys. Women's Sports Foundation research shows that boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 9 -- and their parents -- are equally interested in sports participation. However, by the age of 14, girls drop out of sport at a rate that is six times greater than boys. Girls and women simply do not receive the same positive reinforcement about their sports participation. Boys receive balls, gloves and sports equipment by the age of two. They see their images on television as sportsmen, they see their photos in the sports section and know from their parents and friends that they are expected to play sports.

So what must be done to alleviate this problem?

We must do a better job of supporting our daughters' sports participation. For Christmas and birthdays, we must find books about girls in sports, give gifts of sports equipment and sports lessons. We need to take our sons and daughters to see women playing sports so they grow up appreciating and respecting the sports skills of women and so our daughters see images of themselves excelling in sports -- because she is not going to see those images on television or in the newspapers. It's no accident that girls' sports participation in Olympic sports increases significantly following the Olympic Games, one of the few times that coverage of women's sports is equal to that of men's sports. Aspirational role models drive youth demand for sports. This top to bottom synergy has not yet become commonplace in women's sports because of limited college and professional sports opportunities and television coverage.

However, the trend is clear: the increased participation and success of female athletes equates to a healthier more productive female in society. Not only will she be a force on the playing field/ court, but once she takes the sneakers, cleats, etc. off she will also be able to contribute and be a force in our community. I think with the raise in female coverage and participation "We ain't seen nothin' yet! Bust that ceiling open.-Girl Power"

Reference:
Women's Sports Foundation. http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC

Top 5 Sports Every Child Should Play

As a kid, my mother never allowed me to play organized football early on, even though each year I would ask her to sign me up in the local Pop Warner organization. However, what she did do was sign me up for a plethora of other sports such as soccer, t-ball, baseball, and basketball to name a few. I never really understood why she wasted her time (and mine) with making me play those boring sports when she knew my heart was in football. Maybe she knew that I needed those motor skills from the other sports to make me a better athlete in football. (Nah! I think she was scared seeing her only son out there on the football field). I guess whatever the reason I thank her for it because it made me a better athlete overall in the long run.

When I work with youth athletes the main stories that usually have me cringe and run for cover deal with the adults (coaches and parents).

The first scenario deals with the over-zealous, poorly educated coach that prides his program or team on how many wins or league championships that he has taken then to thus robbing the kid of a great experience and potentially being one of the factors that cause the kid to drop out early in that particular sport never to play again. Instead, less focus should be placed on the outcomes of the sports (though we do want our athletes to develop that drive to be the best that they possibly can be without developing a quitter's attitude), and more focus should be placed on teaching and instructing the proper way to play the sport and building a firm foundation not only physically but mentally by addressing the motor skills needed at that particular age.

Coaches are so often limited in their knowledge about the necessary building blocks needed for physical success for the age group that they are coaching. In many cases, they are just volunteers, who may have had some experience with sports because they either played or watched the game and have been asked by the head of the organization to coach the team because no one else is proficient enough to take on the task. Less time is spent on building a foundation of motor skill development and addressing the bio-mechanical needs of the group, while more time is spent on drilling the kids with age-inappropriate drills that usually predispose the child to learning the technique wrong (in which most cases an expert has to re-teach the drill correctly) or predispose the child to injury.

The second most common scene is the parents who are way too invested in the success of their kid. They either themselves are constantly training their kid, or the kid is participating year round in sport. Many children today start specializing in one sport way too early -- playing year-round, joining competitive club or travel teams and participating in specialized training programs -- believing they'll put themselves on the fast track to college scholarships or maybe even a pro sports career.

But for too many of these kids, that fast track leads straight to injuries, sometimes serious ones. More concentration should be on allowing the kid to participate in as many different sports as possible so that it exposes them to a variety of motor skills and different presentations/ situations for those motor skills.


A story was once told to me about a parent who had their kid participating in baseball. This kid played pitcher. The parents were so invested in wanting their kid to be the best in town that they had enrolled him into three different leagues simultaneously in three different towns that were in close proximity with one another. The kid would play the first game, hop in the car drive over to the next town and pitch in second game. Once the second game was over, he would participate as the starting pitcher in the final game one town over. When the story was presented to me, the storyteller posed the question should this be considered a form of 'child abuse'? Of course, this story is extreme but my point is that year round training exactly stunts the growth of the athlete in the long run because it can predispose them to detrimental outcomes (1) burn out/ early drop out which could result in being turned off to fitness altogether and (2) overuse injuries i.e. Little Leaguer's Elbow.

Youth sports have become big business in this country. If you don't believe me, then turn on your television, you can find some type of sporting event sponsored by some big corporation promoting the youth event. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer that sports are one of the best tutors to nurture and develop kids into becoming great leaders and possessing great skills sets that can be utilized over a lifetime; however, the emphasis should not be placed on the wins and loses. The emphasis should be on developing a 'global' athlete and preparing them for the next phase in their athletic career.

My athletic career is similar to the above. I loved to play football. I couldn't get enough of it. Even though, some of my best experience during the years was learned playing football, I truly felt as if I was underdeveloped as an athlete skill wise when transitioning from one competitive level to the next. It was seen when I moved from Pop Warner to high school football. I had to learn twice as hard as my teammates because I couldn’t comprehend and demonstrate the necessary skill sets needed to play on the high school level. While playing Pop Warner, the coaches' main focus was outcome driven- going to the next bowl game or trying to have a perfect season. Less time was spent on the fundamentals of football i.e. receiving a hand off properly from the line of scrimmage or switching the ball from one hand to the other properly. I just couldn't do it. So, I had to practice and teach myself the fundamentals during the off-season or after practice so that I could compete and keep up with my teammates. Likewise, the same happened when I transitioned from high school to college (which I was constantly reminded daily by my college defensive back coach). There were areas that my college coaches were amazed (and usually frustrated with me) because I couldn't perform. As you know, on this stage the stakes are the highest and usually patience for error is at a all time low. The end result cost me playing time and even scholarship money. I always felt like the kid that had to "catch up" with learning the skills needed to excel not only in the sport but excel at the position that I was playing. This is the reason why when I train youth today, the majority of my coaching style is based upon teaching the fundamentals needed to not only excel with performance at the current level, but be a ‘global’ athlete with a strong foundation of motor skills.


So what sports should a young athlete start off participating in?

Here are the top 5 sports that a young athlete should play early on:

1. Tennis-it's fun and keeps the child in shape and develops the child hand-eye coordination and kinesthetic differentiation of ball play. Kinesthetic differentiation refers to the knowledge of how much force is necessary to produce a desired result. Kids have to judge how hard they need to hit the ball in order for it to stay in play and score. Likewise, it teaches great mental development in strategic play with placing the ball away from the opponent to score. Also it's great for developing balance and reaction skills.

2. Soccer-improves on foot dexterity and hand-eye coordination. It is a great opportunity to also stimulate their mental capacities as well base upon the tactical nature of soccer which can be applied to other field and court sports. Examples of tactical development is seen with learning the give and go, moving without the ball to invade the opponent's space, etc. Also it is great for developing change of direction (i.e. agility), explosive movement and acceleration and deceleration training- going from a near standing position to a full sprint and back to static position.

3. Swimming-every muscle is used in this sport which builds great mobility in the shoulder and hip joints. At the same rate, it adds a great deal of pliability to the frame of a young athlete. Additionally, kinesthetic differentiation is developed in this sport. Swimming is the essence of building kinesthetic differentiation – kids simply won’t last long in a pool if they put as much force as possible into every stroke.

4. Gymnastics and dance (yes, dance is cool thanks to former NFL running back, Emmitt Smith and 'Dancing With The Stars')-spatial awareness, flexibility, upper and lower body strength, coordination, being able to control and manipulate their body, dynamic and static balance, etc are all learned with participating in these sports. Just the ability to learn how to fall properly is priceless because it can prevent injury for any sport that they participate in.

5. Martial arts-not for the brutal or self defense component, but to stimulate their mind and teach self discipline (which is important in sport and life), balance, spatial awareness, coordination development, as well as overall fitness.

Here is a mock annual calendar for the youth athlete:

Summer-Dance/gymnastics
Fall-Soccer
Winter-Indoor Swimming
Spring-Martial Arts/ Tennis

Parents should seek out a programs, performance coaches/trainers, and/or coaches that expose their child to a wide variety of components in motor skill development. They should enroll their children in seasonal sports instead of year-round programs geared towards one sport. If parents keep to a schedule as the above then they will alleviate a lot of the risk discussed in this article (1) their athlete will stay stimulated and engaged because of the constant change in activity. (2) injury due to overuse injuries is minimized. (3) the child is able to develop the motor skills needed to become a 'global' athlete which spells FUTURE SUCCESS.

Until next time, keep playing and keep active.

Reference: Brian Grasso http://www.DevelopingAthletics.com

Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC