Young Athletes

Young athletes are at a crucial period of their physical development. They need to master the physical literacy involved in jumping, landing, accelerating, decelerating, and throwing, with the strength and skill necessary for optimum performance.Simultaneously, young athletes seek to resolve injuries and be resilient to injury in the future. At PHYSELITE, we have designed performance training programs with long-term athletic development (LTAD) as a guiding principle. We seek to coach safe, effective training techniques, with appropriate loads, for physically immature athletes with the clinical oversight of our in-house physiotherapists and chiropractors to establish baseline physical and injury status. Our programs promote progressive, high quality, general physical preparation in order to lower the risk of overuse injury and premature athletic peaking. Thus we are able to develop athletes all the way up to college and even professional sport.

A common misconception is that strength training is detrimental to young athletes. However if your child is old enough to participate in organized sports, he or she is old enough to begin to physically prepare for the rigors of that sport. The lack of physical preparation in fact increases that young athlete’s risk of suffering overuse injuries and thus hinder their athletic development. Countless studies have supported the idea that appropriately graded strength training at a young age is the best time to develop bodyweight strength, coordination, movement patterns, and, more importantly, confidence. Basic strength developed before high school will provide athletes with a strong and solid foundation for more advanced training in the future. A review of the research published in the Pediatrics journal, June 2020 supports the safety of properly supervised resistance training. They noted that ‘It is important to incorporate resistance training into physical education classes and youth sport programs to increase muscular strength, reduce the risk of overuse injuries, and spark an ongoing interest in this type of exercise’. Further, they noted ‘certain health situations require consultation with a medical professional before starting a program of resistance training’. Thus, our integrated model of rehab clinicians and performance coaches working together is effective and recommended as best practice for the young athlete.

High Performance Training (HPT) at PHYSELITE is based on a multi-disciplinary approach where performance coaches and rehabilitation clinicians closely collaborate to develop athletes’ training programs. Athletes presenting for training programs are first assessed by our physiotherapists or chiropractors to establish the athlete’s long and short-term goals, their baseline strength and their injury status. The therapist can then provide diagnoses, prognoses and advice to parents and athletes on further intervention as needed. They are educated on how the HPT program will address the athlete’s remedial/rehab training as it progresses into performance training. Further baseline measures are recorded during the Athletic Assessment so performance progress can be tracked.