"Until It Hurts" (The State of Youth Sports)

I did get the book Mind Gym as I have really enjoyed the blog for Rose Bowl's National Group. I am looking forward to reading that book, but I also picked up another book called, "Until It Hurts." The book is about the state of youth sports in our culture.

I remember reading about a year ago or so I remember reading in a youth sports magazine how medical experts had arguments on how year round sports were actually hurting our young athletes and also not producing great results later down the road. In the article they did acknowledge though that track and field didn't seem to have the same negative effect as many year round track programs utilize, "periodization" training methods. Well, had they actually looked at our sport of swimming they would have found that many of our programs use this training model as well, as swimming actually can attribute many of its early training methods to track and field.

Despite this knowledge, I was intrigued by the book because as a coach my main concern is with my young athletes, and if there is something I can do to not be a negative influence on their growth and career as a swimmer and a person, and actually provide a positive impact then it is worth reading a book that seemed to be ready to bash my profession.

I am only a chapter in, but contrary to my original thoughts on getting the book, I actually see how the book promotes what we do as a professional coach. He chronicles about how sports began at the educational level and coached by professionals and educators. He referred to as the "great blunder" when the educators released the school athletic programs and private parent-coached teams arose. The huge difference between a coach running a team, compared to a parent-coach has led to the over competitive nature of youth sports today which is hurting our young athletes.

As I read I am curious to find his opinion of professional youth sports coaches.

Interestingly enough at my groups Christmas party last night I had a conversation with a parent, and her husband coaches some other sports, and commented on the difference between swimming and other sports and that she can tell the professionalism of my coaching style which seems different from what she is accustomed to from other sports that their children have been involved in. This made me think about it, and that our sport is one of the few that have professional coaches at the youth level. Other individual sports do as well, but many times it is not done as a team practice as much as a lesson.

Again, I ask myself, "I wonder what this author would think about our structure?" I'm almost positive that he has very little idea of our structure, as he is much more involved in football and baseball. He writes in his book about how he perpetuated the intensity of youth sports with his own children, and now sees his young sons baseball career ended with a bad elbow in high school.

I may not get a lot out of this book, as it is based more on the more popular team sports, but still am curious about the key concepts that one author views as plaguing youth sports today, and if there are things that I can do better to not perpetuate the tendencies that lead to young people not getting the lessons available from sports.