On a personal note, my soon to be 13 year old son was just offered a position on an Elite Baseball team. Although extremely happy and proud, the time commitment required would ultimately force him to choose among the other activities (high level hockey, school basketball, track and field) that he does. As a parent I am hesitant.
What are your thoughts on specific training early in athletes careers?
Aug 22, 2023Liked by Dr. Michael Chivers, John Quint
Congratulations Michael, this is a great achievement and personally (i speak in quality as a former PE teacher, 15 years experience at elementary schools and kids karate coach) i think is the right age to start specializing for one specific sport if passed years have been a multi sport kind of approach, if in family has been promoted and continuing to be promoted diverse movement experiences and outdoor activities. What I’m trying to say is, with INTENTION family can help the child to overcome these next years of highly patternized /skill focus sport practice and keep the kid away from injuries until fully development.
This video below is from a highly specialized karate summer camp in Italy where I was teaching, you can see the type of exercises kids/teenagers are practicing and how actually promotes all those movement capacities necessary for karate but without insisting in a repetitive practice of kicks and punches or just sparring. This method has lead to many Italian National/World Champions, we have an Olympic champion also, it was a 20 years of constant promotion of this methodology throughout Italian clubs and karate coaches and other countries European adopted, too!
If your son’s Elite Baseball Team doesn’t embrace a teaching method/plan with specific prerequisites and multi-directional movement promotion then probably it will be on you as a parent the additional work to be done.
Aug 22, 2023Liked by Dr. Michael Chivers, John Quint
Do you want a well-rounded athlete who has a lower chance of repetitive strain injury or...to develop a super-competitive, highly-specialized athlete who may want to try to go pro? A limited, focused, super-elite lifestyle, vs. a broader focus. I personally found performing at a pro level (when 13 - 15 yrs old) to be super-intense with a hyper-aggressiveness that did not suit my personality. So, it comes down to individual choices. Best when they are made from and informed base. Cheers.
Aug 22, 2023Liked by John Quint, Dr. Michael Chivers
I quit soccer in early middle school and overspecialized kicking footballs (age 11/12). Continuing soccer would have been better for general development and long-term kicking performance. I suffered many hip and spine connective tissue issues in high school and college due to overspecialization in formative years. Specializing makes sense when college/pro recruiting starts. Injury risk of unrelated sports might not be worth continuing to play. Otherwise, play multiple sports to develop maximum qualities as long as possible.
Aug 22, 2023Liked by Dr. Michael Chivers, John Quint
13-14 is usually when I have the conversation with my young athletes about picking 1 or sports to commit to to really thrive in. Especially when working speed and strength training plus all the practice I find the kids who don’t commit to one or two get burnt out. I also coach with in the Parisi Speed School network which is where I pull this info from.
As someone who was involved in Elite Travel Baseball Organizations, (Evoshield Canes andGrandslam BlueRocks) since I was 15, As long as you believe the coach has your son's best interest in mind and will allow for the development of his skills, and he actually wants to play on the team, I think it would be a great opportunity to see greater competition! In my experience, this is not the case though, between the money to be had, wins over player development, parental politics, etc. Travel ball can be extremely toxic and cause burnout. The dichotomy exists since you cannot deny the level of competition of pitching/hitting within travel ball. This was a huge part to my trajectory that allowed for me to get a starting spot when I committed to college. So, definitely pros and cons.
I would say the biggest detriment to my career and to those around me who I saw throw it all away was inappropriate use and intent with Strength training. Fortunately, for your son, I dont believe he will make the powerlifting mistakes myself and my peers have made that caused us to get "really strong" but somehow all of our baseball skills diminished, but damn we were good at powerlifting.
I do not believe specialization is all that bad, but not losing sight of the fact that all activity beyond the diamond is an accessory to getting those skills better. Getting your squat from 400lbs to 500lbs will not necessary make you a better hitter/thrower. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way and never found out my full potential as a collegiate athlete due to this mistake. I am just preaching to the choir, but definitely made this mistake! Either way, glad he is showing out and getting those opportunities. Pretty sweet!
I personally think early or late specialization depends on the person you have in front of you, therefore you will always have a discussion about this topic. I think it has to be the choice of the individual rather than it is the choice of 'someone else (for example the parents)' or 'the system'. I think that with youth sports the quote in the paper 'driven by fun' says it all. Driven by fun = more intrinsic motivation = optimized motor learning and finally leads to more optimized performance on the long term. Generally in professional sports the better the athletes the smaller the differences between them, therefore the psychological component will probably play a much bigger role at the end of the day and makes the difference in training/competition.
Aug 22, 2023·edited Aug 22, 2023Liked by John Quint, Dr. Michael Chivers
What is your son's opinion? Is baseball the sport he absolutely loves to play and wants to specialize at? Is he willing to let the other activities go? Working with specialized high school athletes, I think that plays a major role in your decision.
I think it depends on the individual. Cosiderations being; the physical capacity to become specialized and stay healthy, the psychological/emotional capacity to maintain fulfillment, desire, and joy. If becoming a "high level" athlete as a young adult/adult is the goal, many examples can be made for specialization at this age, however there are also many examples of "high level" athletes that were multi-sport athletes even through college. Which is why i think, it depends.
Go with your ‘gut feel’ on whether or not you believe your son has matured sufficiently to withstand the rigours of specialisation. Self regulation in difficult situations is best learnt through broad exposure. Greater maturity is never a a bad thing.
Last to the party on this post, but figured I’d try and contribute some thoughts.
As someone who played 3 sports from 5 to 16 years old (Basketball, Football, and Baseball) I am a huge advocate of playing multiple sports for multiple reasons.
As someone who has coached every age from Elementary to College since finishing a collegiate Basketball career almost 20 years ago, I still maintain that strong advocacy, even if the sports landscape has shifted to add even more pressure to specialize for certain reasons.
This was even prior to taking the FRS seminars and learning that there may be a biological reason as well.
I have a 2 part answer to this question: 1) Biological, 2) Psychological.
From a Biology standpoint, I think if the “right type” of training is done to ensure that the patterns of a particular sport don’t predispose the kids to overuse injuries or constrained tissue ecological development (Point B), then I’m all about it. But, all too often, when we start adding words like “Elite” to the team names and competition levels, it leads me to believe that it’s very unlikely that this would be the case because, for the most part, any “Elite” program just simply isn’t focused on the holistic development of any single player. There are too many competing factors as a coach in one of these programs for you to align the services you provide the individual with the requirements and constraints of keeping that “Elite” status as a program. And that’s before you get to where you have a apparel company sponsorship factors, travel logistics, and questionable tournament structures come into play.
The bottom line is, as a parent, given your skillset, I believe your child will be fine. But in a general sense, the families that don’t have that inherent knowledge and mindset under their roof would not get that actual service provided to them in any “Elite Team” offering. It’s just not what those teams are set up to be. They get to that status through wins and marketing. Not through making sure every single one of their athletes hit their “Point B” as a player or as a person.
From a Psychology standpoint, I tend to lean towards staying away from having kids get too much praise too early…..for what they do in a manufactured sport setting….which is almost unavoidable with the way youth sports is marketed and structured these days. At the early teen level, calling any player “Elite” is laughable in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to say there are players and teams that are better than others, but the reality is, it DOES NOT MATTER in terms of their long term development, so why saddle kids with these titles and resulting false superiority identities? Most times the “Elite” are really just the kids that developed physically faster or had access to resources to develop limited skills earlier and they got praise and playing time for it to continue to show those skills. But it’s hard to correlate most “Elite” players at older ages to those that were “Elite” at younger ages as well…..too many variables to factor in.
The bottom line for me here is, there’s more to lose than to gain by specializing and having a kid begin to see themselves and be recognized for being a ___________ player, as opposed to just a kid who loves to play all sports and be defined as a general competitor. In the long term, I think that serves the individual kids more. The “Elite Team” is really about the Team themselves and driving more interest to serve their interest (which is a whole different rabbit hole).
Just my (really long) 2 cents.
Thanks for this post though and for everyone’s feedback and perspective. Very interesting to read and I learned a lot myself, so I hope this adds to the convo.
I don't have a lot of experience working with many kids over time and mine are still pretty young.
I would think that if he specializes too soon that it might pigeon hole him into that sport, making it difficult to be elite in another later if he figured out that he liked a different one better. However, if baseball is the one that he loves the most, assuming as an individual he was ready, I would think specializing at 13 would be appropriate.
I don't really follow sports legends but, from my observation, we talk about Woods as an example of specializing young but he was barely walking when he started, right?
If you look at Michael Jordan, I believe he was a phenom in baseball, football and basketball before going pro.
Not knowing either of them, Jordan seems more well adjusted as a human than Woods.
This might be deeper than your question was asking, but as a parent I would think more about their future happiness, even after a career in the pros, if that happened.
I'm already struggling with some of these questions in figuring out which direction to help guide my children in movement/athletics.
Depending on his position, volume of overall movement patterns that baseball makes up of in his day to day and the approach of the baseball coaches. They would be strong factors in decision making.
I think it was Mike Boyle who was asked by a hockey parent what their child who played at a high level fall, winter, and spring should do to train during the summer and he said something like, "go ride a bike with his friends." Isn't Tiger Woods a good example of specializing at a young age? He may be among the GOATs but what caused him to have back problems pre-car accident. Being overspecialized is a good guess.
Tiger became one of the all time greats probably in part due to his early specialization. Now his later deterioration may* have been in part caused by his early specialization, but was the juice worth the squeeze? Few athletes would ever say no.
*Tiger, later in his playing career, had a training schedule that almost undoubtedly aided in his deterioration. Little if anything that is public about his physical preparation would have aided in his longevity. Therefore, it's hard to say how much early specialization played a role.
Congratulations Michael, this is a great achievement and personally (i speak in quality as a former PE teacher, 15 years experience at elementary schools and kids karate coach) i think is the right age to start specializing for one specific sport if passed years have been a multi sport kind of approach, if in family has been promoted and continuing to be promoted diverse movement experiences and outdoor activities. What I’m trying to say is, with INTENTION family can help the child to overcome these next years of highly patternized /skill focus sport practice and keep the kid away from injuries until fully development.
This video below is from a highly specialized karate summer camp in Italy where I was teaching, you can see the type of exercises kids/teenagers are practicing and how actually promotes all those movement capacities necessary for karate but without insisting in a repetitive practice of kicks and punches or just sparring. This method has lead to many Italian National/World Champions, we have an Olympic champion also, it was a 20 years of constant promotion of this methodology throughout Italian clubs and karate coaches and other countries European adopted, too!
If your son’s Elite Baseball Team doesn’t embrace a teaching method/plan with specific prerequisites and multi-directional movement promotion then probably it will be on you as a parent the additional work to be done.
https://youtu.be/5MLl1SfmTPA
https://youtu.be/X8JZIaYDdVE
Thanks for your insight Monica!
Do you want a well-rounded athlete who has a lower chance of repetitive strain injury or...to develop a super-competitive, highly-specialized athlete who may want to try to go pro? A limited, focused, super-elite lifestyle, vs. a broader focus. I personally found performing at a pro level (when 13 - 15 yrs old) to be super-intense with a hyper-aggressiveness that did not suit my personality. So, it comes down to individual choices. Best when they are made from and informed base. Cheers.
I quit soccer in early middle school and overspecialized kicking footballs (age 11/12). Continuing soccer would have been better for general development and long-term kicking performance. I suffered many hip and spine connective tissue issues in high school and college due to overspecialization in formative years. Specializing makes sense when college/pro recruiting starts. Injury risk of unrelated sports might not be worth continuing to play. Otherwise, play multiple sports to develop maximum qualities as long as possible.
13-14 is usually when I have the conversation with my young athletes about picking 1 or sports to commit to to really thrive in. Especially when working speed and strength training plus all the practice I find the kids who don’t commit to one or two get burnt out. I also coach with in the Parisi Speed School network which is where I pull this info from.
As someone who was involved in Elite Travel Baseball Organizations, (Evoshield Canes andGrandslam BlueRocks) since I was 15, As long as you believe the coach has your son's best interest in mind and will allow for the development of his skills, and he actually wants to play on the team, I think it would be a great opportunity to see greater competition! In my experience, this is not the case though, between the money to be had, wins over player development, parental politics, etc. Travel ball can be extremely toxic and cause burnout. The dichotomy exists since you cannot deny the level of competition of pitching/hitting within travel ball. This was a huge part to my trajectory that allowed for me to get a starting spot when I committed to college. So, definitely pros and cons.
I would say the biggest detriment to my career and to those around me who I saw throw it all away was inappropriate use and intent with Strength training. Fortunately, for your son, I dont believe he will make the powerlifting mistakes myself and my peers have made that caused us to get "really strong" but somehow all of our baseball skills diminished, but damn we were good at powerlifting.
I do not believe specialization is all that bad, but not losing sight of the fact that all activity beyond the diamond is an accessory to getting those skills better. Getting your squat from 400lbs to 500lbs will not necessary make you a better hitter/thrower. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way and never found out my full potential as a collegiate athlete due to this mistake. I am just preaching to the choir, but definitely made this mistake! Either way, glad he is showing out and getting those opportunities. Pretty sweet!
Thank you for sharing your experience and insight Nick!
Also an interesting read around this topic:
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sports-columnists/story/2022-07-20/zeigler-norway-youth-sports-track-field-world-athletics-championships-eugene-karsten-warholm
I personally think early or late specialization depends on the person you have in front of you, therefore you will always have a discussion about this topic. I think it has to be the choice of the individual rather than it is the choice of 'someone else (for example the parents)' or 'the system'. I think that with youth sports the quote in the paper 'driven by fun' says it all. Driven by fun = more intrinsic motivation = optimized motor learning and finally leads to more optimized performance on the long term. Generally in professional sports the better the athletes the smaller the differences between them, therefore the psychological component will probably play a much bigger role at the end of the day and makes the difference in training/competition.
Thanks for sharing the article. Karsten Warholm is a beast!
I assume you have listened to "The Real Science of Sports: Why How We Select Young Sporting Talent Is Probably All Wrong"?
Not an overly earth shattering episode, but the talk of chronological age vs. physiological/biological age was interesting and seems highly relevant.
Yes, good episode
What is your son's opinion? Is baseball the sport he absolutely loves to play and wants to specialize at? Is he willing to let the other activities go? Working with specialized high school athletes, I think that plays a major role in your decision.
Not sure he’s willing to let the other stuff go yet.
I think it depends on the individual. Cosiderations being; the physical capacity to become specialized and stay healthy, the psychological/emotional capacity to maintain fulfillment, desire, and joy. If becoming a "high level" athlete as a young adult/adult is the goal, many examples can be made for specialization at this age, however there are also many examples of "high level" athletes that were multi-sport athletes even through college. Which is why i think, it depends.
Some great feedback coming out of this thread!
Agreed!
Go with your ‘gut feel’ on whether or not you believe your son has matured sufficiently to withstand the rigours of specialisation. Self regulation in difficult situations is best learnt through broad exposure. Greater maturity is never a a bad thing.
Thanks for this Shane
That’s a deep insight as a parent. What does he “want”
Last to the party on this post, but figured I’d try and contribute some thoughts.
As someone who played 3 sports from 5 to 16 years old (Basketball, Football, and Baseball) I am a huge advocate of playing multiple sports for multiple reasons.
As someone who has coached every age from Elementary to College since finishing a collegiate Basketball career almost 20 years ago, I still maintain that strong advocacy, even if the sports landscape has shifted to add even more pressure to specialize for certain reasons.
This was even prior to taking the FRS seminars and learning that there may be a biological reason as well.
I have a 2 part answer to this question: 1) Biological, 2) Psychological.
From a Biology standpoint, I think if the “right type” of training is done to ensure that the patterns of a particular sport don’t predispose the kids to overuse injuries or constrained tissue ecological development (Point B), then I’m all about it. But, all too often, when we start adding words like “Elite” to the team names and competition levels, it leads me to believe that it’s very unlikely that this would be the case because, for the most part, any “Elite” program just simply isn’t focused on the holistic development of any single player. There are too many competing factors as a coach in one of these programs for you to align the services you provide the individual with the requirements and constraints of keeping that “Elite” status as a program. And that’s before you get to where you have a apparel company sponsorship factors, travel logistics, and questionable tournament structures come into play.
The bottom line is, as a parent, given your skillset, I believe your child will be fine. But in a general sense, the families that don’t have that inherent knowledge and mindset under their roof would not get that actual service provided to them in any “Elite Team” offering. It’s just not what those teams are set up to be. They get to that status through wins and marketing. Not through making sure every single one of their athletes hit their “Point B” as a player or as a person.
From a Psychology standpoint, I tend to lean towards staying away from having kids get too much praise too early…..for what they do in a manufactured sport setting….which is almost unavoidable with the way youth sports is marketed and structured these days. At the early teen level, calling any player “Elite” is laughable in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to say there are players and teams that are better than others, but the reality is, it DOES NOT MATTER in terms of their long term development, so why saddle kids with these titles and resulting false superiority identities? Most times the “Elite” are really just the kids that developed physically faster or had access to resources to develop limited skills earlier and they got praise and playing time for it to continue to show those skills. But it’s hard to correlate most “Elite” players at older ages to those that were “Elite” at younger ages as well…..too many variables to factor in.
The bottom line for me here is, there’s more to lose than to gain by specializing and having a kid begin to see themselves and be recognized for being a ___________ player, as opposed to just a kid who loves to play all sports and be defined as a general competitor. In the long term, I think that serves the individual kids more. The “Elite Team” is really about the Team themselves and driving more interest to serve their interest (which is a whole different rabbit hole).
Just my (really long) 2 cents.
Thanks for this post though and for everyone’s feedback and perspective. Very interesting to read and I learned a lot myself, so I hope this adds to the convo.
I don't have a lot of experience working with many kids over time and mine are still pretty young.
I would think that if he specializes too soon that it might pigeon hole him into that sport, making it difficult to be elite in another later if he figured out that he liked a different one better. However, if baseball is the one that he loves the most, assuming as an individual he was ready, I would think specializing at 13 would be appropriate.
I don't really follow sports legends but, from my observation, we talk about Woods as an example of specializing young but he was barely walking when he started, right?
If you look at Michael Jordan, I believe he was a phenom in baseball, football and basketball before going pro.
Not knowing either of them, Jordan seems more well adjusted as a human than Woods.
This might be deeper than your question was asking, but as a parent I would think more about their future happiness, even after a career in the pros, if that happened.
I'm already struggling with some of these questions in figuring out which direction to help guide my children in movement/athletics.
Did your family come to a decision on this yet?
Depending on his position, volume of overall movement patterns that baseball makes up of in his day to day and the approach of the baseball coaches. They would be strong factors in decision making.
I think it was Mike Boyle who was asked by a hockey parent what their child who played at a high level fall, winter, and spring should do to train during the summer and he said something like, "go ride a bike with his friends." Isn't Tiger Woods a good example of specializing at a young age? He may be among the GOATs but what caused him to have back problems pre-car accident. Being overspecialized is a good guess.
I like the Boyle quote.
Tiger became one of the all time greats probably in part due to his early specialization. Now his later deterioration may* have been in part caused by his early specialization, but was the juice worth the squeeze? Few athletes would ever say no.
*Tiger, later in his playing career, had a training schedule that almost undoubtedly aided in his deterioration. Little if anything that is public about his physical preparation would have aided in his longevity. Therefore, it's hard to say how much early specialization played a role.