1.25.2010

Early Advantage

What parent doesn't want to give their child every opportunity to succeed in life? What parent spares their aspiring athlete any competitive edge?

What your child needs, early on, is loading of the muscle-tendon interface that stimulates mechanoreceptors within the cell matrix. This, in turn, causes a response in primary and secondary afferents not directly effected by the mechanical stimulus. Gross motor skills and coordination are developed through structured and unstructured neurological sequencing.

It's like, strengthening the growth plates and stuff.

It's called PLAY. And rest.



"The incidence of overuse injuries and surgery for sports injuries in children are growing within our practice. With a greater emphasis on competition and higher performance on children, the repetitive forces exerted onto developing joints, ligaments, and growth plates frequently exceed their structural tolerance.

...There has also been less emphasis on recovery and nutrition for our younger population. Whereas we caution our older patients to get plenty of rest and proper protein intake, we assume that our children with their high metabolism and intuitive sense of sleep would naturally eat and rest. Which they would if we adults wouldn’t interfere with their natural cycle of play."

-Thomas Lee, orthopedic doc, makes the case for playing and sleeping.

Sign them up, for sure, but have some limits. And the best thing you could do for their athletic development is turn off the TV when they have to get up at 6 a.m.

At some point, it's right that THE CHILD must answer the question "do you want to get better or have fun?" But unless they have in them the desire to sacrifice a significant portion of their youth to making varsity, now is probably not that time.

Please do your best not to rob kids of this amazing opportunity of being a kid.

VIDEO FOR EARLY ADVANTAGE TRAINING HERE.

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