Youth Fitness: The "Quality vs. Quantity" Mistake

Here’s what IYCA Member Paul Clarke had to say in response to my
question about the biggest problem in youth fitness and sport training:

"The major problem in youth fitness as I see it is coaches that advocate and live the
mantra of working harder instead of smarter. Invariably this leads to
a quantity over quality approach."

I couldn’t agree more with Paul.

It’s being popularized in a different circle right now, but for roughly
ten years, I’ve been saying….

Any fool can make a young athlete tired, but it takes a real COACH
to make them better.

My first job out of college was as a Performance Coach at a training
center for professional, Olympic and National Team athletes in Canada.

We also did a lot of work with young athletes.

One of my first meetings as a staff member at this facility is a moment
in time that I will truly never forget.

The Head Performance Coach was suggesting that we needed to work
a touch harder as a group in order to "beef up our v-factor points" for
this coming month.

Being new and open to learning as much as I could, I naturally inquired
about what that meant (figuring it had to do with some sort of super secret
training system!)

"Shocked" and "confused" are the only two words I can think of when
I was given the definition.

A "V-Point" was something that each of us youth fitness Coaches were awarded
when we trained a young athlete hard enough so they puked.

Vomited.

Tossed Cookies.

You get my point.

But the truly disturbing thing is that here in 2009, a full decade and change
later, there are many facilities and Coaches that still live by that mantra.

Disgusting isn’t the word….

But Stupid comes to mind.

Blunt, I know, but if we aren’t prepared to advocate for kids and teenagers
than what exactly are we doing this for?

‘Till next time,

Brian

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