Sometimes my frustration level reaches such a high I do a poor job of communicating my feelings regarding poor training methods with young athletes.

There is a youth volleyball coach that coaches at a local club. She is currently working with 12- and 13-year-old girls. Her practices are absolutely brutal. An extreme volume of suicide runs, shuffles, holds in a defensive stance and more. Yet, none of that has to do with making the young kids better volleyball players.

At a young age it is all about skill development and motor programming. Volleyball isn’t exactly the like an ultra triathlon. It isn’t like the matches at that level are so physically demanding the kids won’t last. Teach the kids skills so they improve their game.  All this coach is doing is giving a bad name to coaching and setting a lot of young girls up for injury.

Here is another one. I recently had a talk with a father who wants his son to play quarterback at the college level. His son is only 13 years old now. This is great. A goal has been set and they are doing things to improve his athletic ability. Most importantly the young boy plays lots of sports- very smart!

This is what bothers me. A high profiled organization that coaches quarterbacks has a system where they take kids from a young age and coach them over several years. The problem I have is they told this young boy and his father he should be taking supplements such as zinc. Why would you be telling a young athlete to take anything like that when the youngster should only be focusing on a whole foods diet with no junk food? It drives me nuts.

Next, they talk to this young boy about working on his bench and squat plus all the other agility tests so they can track him. I don’t have such a problem with the testing, but what are you really going to find out from a 13-year-old who has not gone through puberty yet. If you start testing him and he goes through puberty and has a loss of body control for several months, then he will become frustrated because he is not gaining. Just let the boy workout correctly and gain control of his body. Stop putting pressure on these kids by saying you want to track them to see improvement at such a young age.

When I do my combine clinics I simply want to expose athletes to things they can work on and how to perform the skills. Period! If they train correctly they will improve. If they don’t train correctly they won’t.

I am so tired of seeing coaches who work with young kids destroy the true essence of youth athletic development. It is no wonder our drop out rates are so high.