Top 3 Mistakes Youth Athletes are Making During Season
As I am writing this, school is about to start back from summer vacation and high school tryouts are up and going. You have an athlete that has (hopefully) put in the work over summer vacation to prepare and is ready to show what they have on the field.
While there are a plethora of mistakes athletes often make during the offseason… some of the biggest mistakes that dull performance and growth are made during the season! The best way to avoid those mistakes is to shine a light on it and address them head on.
Good news… the solutions are fairly simple.
The challenge… it’s going to take effort and doing things differently than the average athlete.
Top 3 Mistakes Youth Athletes are Making During Season
1. Not Continuing to Train During the Season
Let’s think about your body and your training like a bank account. In the offseason, you are putting deposits into the account and the account grows. During the season, you are making withdrawals, and when it gets depleted, the higher the risk of injury and performance lowers.
If we are going to model what the best in the world do, they continue to make deposits into the account throughout the entire year. This is where many fall short, because they hope that the deposits they made for 3 months will carry them for the next 9 months of playing.
Studies have shown that with as little as once a week of training, performance losses are drastically reduced as well as injuries.
The typical worries about training during season are that there isn’t enough time, and that the athlete needs to rest to be ready.
As with anything, you will prioritize what is most important to you. If training and continuing to increase performance throughout the season is important to you, you will find a way to get training in. What you will do in the gym during season will be different and will address the second fear that most athletes have, which is being too tired.
Athletes often think they need rest… but what they really need is recovery.
Sitting around and doing nothing isn’t recovery. To ensure that you are ready for your next game or match, you must be stimulating your body and encouraging it to heal. One of the best ways to do that is through workouts, myofascial release, great nutrition.
This is why every professional and major college athletic team continues to prioritize training throughout the season… and why you should too.
You don’t want to be at your best just for tryouts… You want to be at your best when the game is on the line, late in the season… and you are healthy, strong, and ready to be at your best when your best is needed most!
2. Not Working on Recovery
One of the biggest fears that athletes have is that they will be too tired if they train, or too tired to workout. Therefore, the preferred actions for many is to do nothing. But doing nothing isn’t progress forward and isn’t the best option for preparing for your next game.
Truth is, there are lots of things you can do to move from “Resting” to “Recovery”
Getting proper sleep
Eating healthy
Staying hydrated
Foam rolling
Stretching
Meditation and Journaling
But let’s be honest… many of the people who don’t have time to train during season don’t have time to do these things as well. Thats why “Rest” and doing nothing is the option for most.
It’s because Rest is the easy option. It doesn’t require anything of you other than a willingness to do nothing. Definitely not our idea of doing what it takes to be your future best self.
Recovery takes work. Recovery takes discipline. Recovery takes a willingness to do what it takes, even when you don’t feel like it.
If you aren’t going to train during season and use that as part of your recovery process… you need to be doing all of what is above. If you aren’t willing to do that either… you need to have an honest conversation with yourself about how serious you are about preparing and being at your best when your best is needed most!
3. Playing ALL THE TIME…
One of the newest and concerning trends (in my opinion) is that teams are filling their schedules with an endless amount of games and tournaments.
The focus, especially at the youth level, should be focused on long term development. If you are playing so much that you don’t have time to train, develop or work on your skills, there needs to be a look at whether the actions you are taking are helping you become the athlete you are dreaming to be.
Usain Bolt didn’t just sprint all the time to become the fastest man in the world. Michael Jordan didn’t just play games to become the greatest of all time. (Yea, I said it… MJ is the GOAT). Michael Phelps didn’t just do swim meets to become of the best Olympians of all time. Sure, the competition was part of it, but there were far more hours spent preparing and refining the skills needed to be at their best when the lights were on.
Instead of being so focused on showcasing what you are now… invest in building something worth showcasing!
Abraham Lincoln famously said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Wrap Up
What are you doing to sharpen your axe during season?
We know that it is easy to fall into the traps we wrote about above… that’s why so many athletes fall into them. It is easy to settle for “Good”, especially when you can look around and everyone else is doing the same.
But truth is, not everyone else is doing the same. The ones who are moving beyond good. The ones who are chasing their dreams and not just dreaming them. Those are the ones who are finding a way to avoid these traps.
They prioritize what has set them up to be at their best.
They prioritize their training.
They prioritize their recovery.
They prioritize their mindset.
They Cherish the Challenge
They prioritize chasing the long term dream and not settling for their short term comfort.
Everyone on a journey toward greatness faces a moment like this… Where they ask themselves…
“Am I willing to do what it takes?”
We know you CAN do it…
The questions stands… Are you willing to?