When Early Specialization is OK

If you look at every Youth Fitness or Sports specialist, there is a common theme about early specialization. Many of the experts strongly feel that kids MUST play multiple sports and avoid early specialization, and for good reason I agree. Multiple sports create a balance of skills and athletic ability that can be hindered by specialization. I am completely on board with this concept and believe playing multiple sports at a young age truly develops physical literacy, which creates better athletes in the long term. Many world class athletes credit playing multiple sports as a reason why they are so effective.

However, in certain circumstances early specialization can be very beneficial for developing athletes, under one circumstance: it is self imposed because of a deep love of the sport. I shouldn't even use the word specialize. It's more of a deep obsession that has been ignited by special circumstances.

A great example is Ted Williams. If you've read anything about his childhood, he played baseball ALL THE TIME. He would search for anyone to pitch to him, day after day, year after year. He enjoyed playing baseball at a level that few people can comprehend. In our perception, he specialized at a very early age, and according to most experts he would not fulfill his athletic potential. I think his athletic career turned out to be pretty decent.

Many world class athletes actually did specialize at an early age, but their specialization was self imposed. I will steal two concepts from two of my favorite books and authors, that leads to this early obsession. First is from Daniel Coyle who wrote The Talent Code. Coyle writes about the idea of ignition in this article, and sums it up with these three points.

1. The moments are serendipitous. Nobody sets it up; there’s no mediator. It happens by chance, and thus contains an inherent sense of noticing and discovery.
2. They are joyful. Crazily, obsessively, privately joyful. As if a new, secret world is being opened.
3. The discovery is followed directly by action.
   

Go read the rest of that article, and The Talent Code while you're at it.

The next concept is what Malcolm Gladwell centered his message around in the book Outliers. They need the right opportunity and environment to grow this ignition and skill. Gladwell's research and interviews discovered that many so called "gifted" performers actually were given an incredible opportunity to consistently practice their passion. Often at a young age, or the right age. If Ted Williams was born in the Rhode Island instead of San Diego, he would not be able to practice hitting day after day, all year round, and my guess is would not have been as good of a hitter. A big reason why you see most great baseball prospects from warm climate states and hockey players typically come from the northern states.

Where our culture goes wrong with early specialization is when the passion and desire comes from external sources, e.i. the parents or coaches. Now kids have a full time job playing baseball or soccer, before their legal age to work. Kids are now unwillingly forced to play a sport most of the year if not all because they showed "potential" in their local league. The special cases where early specialization is beneficial, usually comes out of chance and letting the love of the game naturally develop.

So it's OK if a kid who loves playing basketball all the time to play it a lot more than other sports. If he's playing out of a love for the sport, let him be. My guess is most of the time they will want to play other sports with their friends anyway, but letting them have this special bond with an activity they love is something we shouldn't say is wrong. What is wrong is when take a kid who just likes to play and tell them they must love to play, and play a lot because if you don't make the all star team when you're 8, you'll have no chance at a college scholarship. Like Ron Burgundy says, "It's science."

3 Techniques to Improving Coaching Communication

My readers will know I absolutely love the idea of deliberate practice. Daniel Coyle even made a great acronym for it in his last post, R.E.P.S..

R-Reach and Repeat
E-Engagement
P-Purposefulness
S-Strong, direct, immediate feedback

As I learn more and more about deliberate practice I think of ways to apply it to improving as a coach. How can I deliberately practice coaching better? It's not a very easy question to answer. Practicing a sport, instrument, or new skill can be much easier to find ways to deliberately practice better. But how can we do it as a coach? Of course we can read books about new drills and progressions, and constantly look to improve our program. What I want to talk about is how can we deliberately practice communication. We must take a proactive approach, and figure out where we need improvement.

Step 1: Have a notebook with you at all times during the workout.

I have to thank fitness pioneer Alwyn Cosgrove (picture left) for truly waking me up to this idea. Everyone knows it's a good idea to have something handy to write down ideas but he put it in a whole new context for me. When Alwyn started training and coaching he would write down 100 words for every session. He had 30 sessions a week (30x100=3,000 words) x 50 weeks? He literally wrote 150,000 words per year. If a average book is 250 words per page, he wrote a 600 page book every year.

Now I don't always write 100 words per session but I always keep a notebook handy for new ways I coached a drills, things I see that need to
be improved, areas of weakness with my communication, or a joke that wasn't funny (which is probably in the 90% range). This is the utilizing reach and repeat method for communication. Push yourself to find weaknesses! Once again thank you Alwyn, this significantly improved me as a coach.

Step 2: Ask Athletes for Honest Feedback

The best part of coaching is the relationships you build with your athletes. Having them on a friendship, but I'll still do anything necessary to improve you even if that means breaking you, bond is unparalleled. Asking your athletes at the end of sessions of what they liked or disliked, what areas were unclear, what parts do you think could be improved. The better the relationship, the more honest the feedback will become.

Hug it out bro....

Step 3: Ask other Coaches to Critique

This is hard for me as I am the only coach now at my school and getting another coach to come watch isn't always easy. However, this is a very powerful tool that can really be beneficial. In the sport performance industry we always talk about how important it is to go to watch other coaches, usually the experts. How often could we ask a fellow coach down the street to just come observe and see if he finds any areas that need sharpening? I certainly don't have coaches emailing me that often about coming to watch my small program develop, time to go find them. However I do live in San Diego aka a whales..... oops I mean "America's Finest City", what they $%*^ are you guys waiting for!

Having a coach who is from a whole different sport is probably even better. They look at it with a beginners eye, but still with the eye of a coach. Use that to your advantage. In fact I need to get on that now, have a great 4th of July weekend. My beer of choice will be Leinenkugel. A great summer wheat!

Applying Delibrate Practice to the Weight Room

There is a belief in the athletic development world that strength is a skill. I personally agree because strength is developed over long periods of time with LOTS of practice. No baby is born into the world strong or powerful. Developing skill takes practice, and also comes with frustration over how optimally to improve that skill.

If you're an experienced weight lifter you know all about the plateau. You try and push through by doing more weight, less weight, or try doing something a body builder told you about in Muscle and Fitness. We end up plateauing often because of poor long term programming, trying to much weight too early, or not adequately regenerating our body through diet, sleep, and recovery.

Our body also loves to adapt to what it's doing. That's why after living in San Diego for four years not, it's hard for me to go back to Vermont on the days when you spit and it will freeze before it hits ground. This (adapting not spitting) is called the SAID principle, Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands, fancy way of saying our body and mind try to adapt to our environment. That's why all the great strength coaches will changes phases with regards to volume, intensity, and tempo.

In Daniel Coyle's book The Talent Code, he talks about how great athletes, musicians, and performers go into deep/deliberate practice by either slowing the task down or speeding it up. This always for the brain and body never to become comfortable or completely adapted. By either slowing it down or speeding it up, one also becomes incredibly engaged and aware, focusing all energy towards improvement. Depending on what your trying to accomplish one might be better for the other, but for many skills, using both is a viable option that can be programed.

Lets apply this to the weight room. Even with guys who are trying to get stronger, many consistently stay in a comfort zone that labels them to their sport. Getting out of this comfort zone helps develop skills. In this case its strength and power, two concepts that all athlete's look to improve.

Deliberate Practice: Power
Power is often developed through Olympic lifts, plyometrics, med ball throws, and kettlebell swings. If we looked at the two options of deliberate practice, undoubtedly speeding it up would have to be the best option. You really can't move powerfully, slowly. It's so awkward that you can't even say it in a sentence correctly. A great way to make sure you bust through a power plateau is to reduce the weight and focus on the speed of the bar. Put your feet through the floor and make the bar move with purpose! Program this in early on, but don't be afraid to periodize a "light" week within a heavy block.

For example, in a 4 week phase that is going from 80-87.5% into another 4 week phase that goes into the heavier 90-95%, it might be smart to go back down to 60-75% in the last week in between phases. I heard Bill Hartman talk about how they accidentally stumbled upon this technique that works wonders for them at iFast (though their %'s may differ).

Deliberate Practice: Strength
We can use the same technique as above by reducing the weight and moving the load faster. Especially on the concentric phase, letting go of some of the weight and really working on the speed of movement has helped me and my athletes get through plateaus that we hit.

Another option is to slow the tempo of the weight, especially on the eccentric phase. Often coined eccentrics or negatives, be prepared for some serious DOMS. Again you must reduce your weight especially when going for 5-10 repetitions. Many strength coaches will include this as an eccentric phase for 3-4 weeks. Slow concentric movement is usually frowned upon, but if it's only for 3-4 weeks it might not be a bad idea to try controlling the bar on the way up as well.


What really makes this interesting is relating deliberate practice, which is proven to improve skills over time, to increase power and strength. These techniques that many strength and conditioning coaches use to progress physical tools, it also may be influencing cognitive connections as well with our ability to learn the movement more efficiently by focusing on it in a completely different way. I don't have any research to back this up (yet?) but my guess is we would see some pretty cool brain activity going from these different phases. That's just the geek in me.

These techniques can also differ from person to person. If a linebacker has been benching in the 85-95% range since they were in high school, I will put down a lot of money that taking some time in a lower percentage and speeding up/slowing down will improve there power and strength. If you took the opposite, a female XC runner, who only uses dumbbells under 20 lbs for 15-25 reps, it maybe time to change the speed or weight of the movement to create progression in the body and brain.

Note that these phases do not need to be long term, but are useful for creating new avenues in the body and brain for strength and power to be developed. Maybe I'll coin it muscle confusion......HAH!