Specialized One-Sport Young Athletes vs Multi-Activity Developing Youth
Athletes are cracking and it’s not their fault.
Sure, athletes choose their path so they should deal with their own stress and mental health and be fine.?That doesn’t tell the whole story and we should take a serious look at this misinformed type of comment.?
I love seeing how much I can push my body and mind. Watching others who compete at the highest levels is exhilarating and fascinating.?
When you see someone excel in any sport, art, or craft it’s inspiring.?
I think I’ll always love seeing people succeed in what what they love to do. However, it happens too often that athletes lose the passion right at the peak, prematurely, or just start to burnout all together.?
When athletes burnout or become overly stressed they can begin suffering from various mental health problems. For years, researchers and colleagues have been attributing this to causes such as:?
-Perfectionism
-Overtraining?
-Chronic Exhaustion
-Trauma (events in and out of the sport)
-Reduced Sense of Accomplishment?
-Negative Feelings About their Sport
-Competitive Expectations
-Personal Stressors
-Negative Coaching Experiences?
While this is not an exhaustive list it shows some common reasons that might cause an athlete to crack.?
The problem isn’t that athletes finish playing their sport. After all, they have to retire from it at some point. What we are looking at here is the mental toll it takes on athletes at all levels when they go from productive performance stress to overwhelming stress that to mental health problems.?
I think it’s time we start talking about something I’ve seen over the years of being a collegiate athlete myself and now having worked with elite athletes at every level I’ve seen something that is alarming.?
Kids are being trained as one-dimensional athletes. Starting at young ages youngsters are encouraged to pick one sport and do it year-round. I’ve seen this happen for a few reasons:?
-Youth coaches demand this or kids won’t play.
-Parents fear their kids won’t get the best opportunities and lose out.?
-Parents or coaches are persuading their kids to do what they want them to do and not what the kid really wants. Even though the kid says they want that they aren’t actively encouraged to explore other options.?
Being a one-dimensional athlete is very limiting on two main levels:
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As An Athlete
When kids learn to play various sports and compete in them they learn different styles of teamwork and how to focus on process, not just winning. Teamwork looks different from sport to sport. Kids become more creative with how they build their team when they understand how to fit into multiple roles. Focusing on process allows young athletes to better enjoy training, developing, and the flow of competition. They aren’t going to win in every sport but they can see the bigger picture of progressing as an overall athlete. If they are stuck in one sport they will miss out on these diverse opportunities.?
When kids are exposed to different sports they learn what they really are passionate about as opposed to what adults are passionate about. These kids have one chance as a kid and should be able to play for fun in different activities.?
Becoming really good at one sport gives an athlete leverage in another sport through the footwork, coordination, vision, and explosiveness. About 70% of NFL players were multi-sport athletes as kids, however, many of the kids now are not following in those footsteps of diversifying their experiences. Kids trained only in one sport will develop the muscles, body awareness, and agility only for their position in that sport, which limits how much they could actually progress.?
Players who love the process are able to do so because they learn to treat the sport like a craft and be less mechanical. It’s painful to see athletes who learn the mechanics of one sport and then when asked to fulfill another role they just can’t. When they are exposed to multiple movements, functions, and patterns that make them an artist and not just someone doing a sport.?
Athletes who are only trained in one sport will likely get exhausted, overtrained, and become perfectionistic. The joy of competing will easily be lost.?
As a Human?
Life has so many lessons, challenges, and pivots. Learning to adapt to the flow of life is imperative. When kids are exposed to many different roles, teammates, coaching philosophies, and diverse competitions they learn what it means to adapt. When life becomes rough they are more prepared to adapt and progress.?
Exposing kids to multiple activities allows them to learn from different mentors and develop healthy relationships with multiple adults versus just being comfortable with individuals in the one sport. Having multiple trusted influences goes a long way.?
An important life skill is decision making. When being in different sports you better learn to make decisions quickly and then learn from those decisions. When you are in one sport you more easily get stuck in routines and likely to be less confident in different decision making situations.?
Engaging in different sports builds a much stronger brain. Yes, it builds a tougher mindset but I’m talking from a neuroscience perspective. The more you use your body in different ways the more capable you are of creating new neural pathways, balance your nervous system, and feel more connection between brain and body. All of this helps people have a better relationship with their body throughout life.?
When we participate in new activities our midbrain is rewarded and these novel experiences release dopamine, which makes us happy. True novel experiences create happy neurochemical reactions and you can’t beat that. Multiple sport activities provide more opportunities for novelty.?
One of the more sad outcomes I’ve seen over the years is one-sport athletes finish their playing career and don’t continue down a path of good health. They are sick of training, working out, and don’t equate wellness with happiness in life. Instead, workouts are about only getting better in their position. We want kids to create a healthy life and carry on being an athlete for life. This is more likely to happen when they’ve had diverse fitness experiences.?
Often times athletes identify as a: “basketball player” “softball player” “golfer” and so on. What happens when these kids have worked so hard through high school and don’t make it to college sports or they do but don’t advance to professional? It’s so important that kids identify as an athlete and human being first and foremost. Kids learn best when they are moving, using their bodies, and working to achieve something with others AND that’s the perfect time to teach them their strengths that transcend beyond the sport.?
There’s a lot to be said about kids transitioning from one season in a sport to another versus going from a Fall to Spring season of the same sport. Keeping excitement for the different seasons is helpful.
It’s perfectly ok to have some weeks without being in a season. Teaching kids to love and respect their bodies by showing them how to really take care of themselves is one of best gifts we can give. It’s great that kids can go from what might have been a season of failures and take a break from that sport by getting rejuvenated through another. Successes come from learning from our failures and kids need a safe environment to reflect and grow.?
I’ve been talking about playing multiple sports but I want to clarify something. Kids don’t need to be playing more than one season at a time. There are very few reasons when we’ve seen this as helpful. It’s ok for a kid to not play a fall sport if they are playing it in spring and summer. Encourage them to play just one sport per season and really get the most out of it.?
There is a question that might still be remaining: So, when should kids start to focus on just one sport? As late as possible. Remember, we are wanting to these kiddos to have the healthiest adulthood possible. While we want to believe in our kid’s abilities and dreams, we also want to prepare them to make decisions, feel confident in themselves, and embrace wellness for life… whatever that looks like for them!?
Let’s look at one more point that shouldn’t be overlooked here. Kids need to develop identity outside of sports. Music, arts, theater, and other activities should be given time. Again, we are raising humans not just athletes.?
What can we do??
-Encourage kids to explore various sports, arts, and diverse opportunities.?
-Make sure kids who have few resources get the same opportunities.?
-Create youth trainings that aren’t just about one sport and include mental, emotional, and leadership.?
-Support each other in not being pressured to make our kids do things that we know aren’t best.?
-Have conversations with kids that relate their experiences to life.?
-Recognize when athletes are burning out or becoming perfectionistic and talk openly about what’s really going on.?