June 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Managing the growth spurt phase in young athletes requires patience, education, and strategic training modifications to prevent injuries and maximize long-term development. Athletes experience significant physical changes between ages 10-14 that directly impact performance and create temporary challenges that should be viewed as developmental opportunities.
• Growth plates are vulnerable to injury during rapid growth phases
• Peak Height Velocity (PHV) is when children grow fastest, typically around age 13
• Physical changes include dramatic bone growth that outpaces muscle adaptation
• Athletes naturally lose flexibility, power, and coordination during growth spurts
• Training should shift to 70% basics/flexibility/soft surfaces and 30% skills during growth phases
• Strength training is safe and beneficial for young athletes when properly implemented
• Cross-training helps develop athleticism while reducing sport-specific impact
• Coaches should consider reducing competition schedules during peak growth
• Modern elite gymnasts peak in their 20s, not at 16, showing the benefits of patient development
• Post-puberty athletes gain significant power and strength advantages for higher-level skills
Training hard through puberty isn't about pushing skills; it's about building foundations. Every day you pay your dues by doing the harder thing when it's the right thing to do.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
All right, back in action.
Leah, how's your fruit?
I ate it all, so I know I stillhave more of my bagel from last
episode, so I'm gonna bechomping and normalize eating on
podcast.
That's okay.
(00:26):
This week we are going to chatabout growth, growth, and
particularly with younger kids,um, and the unfortunate reality
that many people in gymnasticsand sports are excelling in
levels and wanting to learn newskills and do things that are
harder.
At the same time, their bodiesare going through crazy amounts
of growth related changes um,hormonal, you know, know,
(00:47):
physical, all that kind of stuff.
So it makes it very challengingto navigate the waters of
keeping them healthy.
And you know there's a lot ofgrowth plate stuff we'll talk
about that comes up.
But yeah, aliyah, you also werethe one who kind of
brainstormed this one.
So what was on your mind whenyou started outlining this one?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean I think I just I see a lot of kids with growth
plate injuries, so it's and yousee them.
I think we talked about this alittle bit when we were talking
about like increased volumes inpreseason when we're at so
usually when I start to see alot of like increase in the
growth plate injuries.
So I was thinking a lot aboutlike how to differ like training
volumes or if there are othervariables that we can think
about to help decrease the likeinjury risk of a growth plate
(01:26):
injury in gymnasts, especiallywhen you're getting like more of
those like severs injuries, orI get a lot of like tibial
tubercle injuries, sometimessome like medial epicondyles in
the elbow, but I've had quite alot of those lately.
So I've just been trying tothink a lot more about like
different variables that you cantry to modify in order to
decrease the risk of thoseinjuries, and phd is one of
those things that is kind of new, like we're still trying to get
(01:50):
research on whether or notthat's something that is
something that matters at alland, if that, if it does matter,
how we change our trainingaround that variable yeah,
absolutely, and I think I thinkhonestly, this conversation and
this approach is is easier and alittle bit more um manageable
than it was 10 years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I think 10 years ago we were still in the push to 16,
16 to 18 that's when we peakall that kind of stuff and that
has just been obliterated by,you know, ellie, black, becky,
downey, simone, you know the theaverage age of the world's in
olympic teams being like 20 to24, jordan, childs, all them.
So, thankfully, you know, wesee in the vast majority of
people that they're notsprinting to do really high
level skills at 10 to 12.
(02:31):
And I think you know elite isobviously a very big thing
globally but it's like 1%, 2% ofthe gymnastics population is
going to get to elite.
So that conversation aroundlike well, if we can go till 30,
you know, maybe we should slowdown at 10.
Yes, for a very small portionof people that are elite, most
people want to go to college andcompete in college and then
also most people just want to dogymnastics and have fun and
(02:53):
move on with life.
It's not like they're trying todo this high level 30 year
career and so with the majorityof people in the college or like
high school bucket.
I think you have to rememberthat while, yes, they're not
going to go to 30, there's somuch more opportunity now for
them to keep getting better incollege, like college men's and
women's.
There's so many, like higherquality coaches, of people that
go to college as a freshman andlearn more skills and get better
(03:15):
and have four ascending yearsversus 10 years ago.
I think a lot of times it waslike secure my scholarship, get
through, and then I kind of justlike survive for four years,
right, or like slowly fall apartbecause I got beat up so much
in club.
And that just is like the mostheartbreaking thing I saw like a
long time ago when I was firststarting out, as so many kids
would just literally grind, giveup their childhood and grind
(03:36):
homeschooled or double sessionsor pour themselves into sports
to get a college scholarship forgymnastics.
They get to college, they haveto medically retire.
You know there were three girlsthat I work with that tried so
hard through college, throughhigh school, to get their
scholarship and then they had tomedically retire like their
sophomore year because years ofgetting beat up and their
injuries and stuff like that.
So that just breaks my heartRight.
But thankfully now, 10 yearslater, there's a lot more
(03:57):
resources.
There's a lot more like advicewe can give to people, which
we'll talk about in this episodearound, like why it's 10 to 14
is really the most importantarea of having to be very
careful.
And then within that four yearwindow there's probably a six
month window where they're goingto grow super duper fast.
You have to really slow thingsdown and almost, you know, take
it as like I think I called it agap year in the in the outline
(04:18):
like just except for the factthat for a year it's going to be
awkward, they're going to beflexibility go down, strength
goes down, toes are hitting thelow bar.
You know can't really do myskills anymore and you have to
normalize it and say like thisis normal, happens to everybody,
no big deal, and in the longrun it's going to be really good
because all your power, allyour high level strength comes
from post puberty type changes.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, it makes so much sense when you think about
it a little bit more and I don'tthink I really came to a full
appreciation of just the conceptof, obviously, when you're done
growing and you have moremuscle mass and you're fully
grown, like that makes sense,for that to be.
I feel like I've, I'm finallyat like peak performance age.
Like I feel like the best thatI've ever felt.
(05:02):
And comparing that to like Iprobably would have thought when
I was younger that like at ageyou know, 16, 17, 18, then like
that's going to be like my peakperformance, and it's just not
true, like you're peaking, likein your twenties.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Right, correct, exactly, and you know for the
background of those that are notas familiar.
So, essentially, um, in thosefour year windows is there's
like a very slow, uh onset ofchanges from like a a multiple
systems point of view.
Right, like, your body goesthrough like um physical
development your bones getlonger, your muscles are trying
to keep up, but the biggestthing that comes to orthopedics
(05:43):
and what we deal with is thatthe bones in which have growth
plate centers are not hard fusedfirm bone, right, they're soft,
calloused bones.
So like, um, there's a lot ofdifferent spots in the body
where, uh, typically growthplate issues come up and you,
you kind of close those growthplates, starting at your feet
and working your way back up.
So the ones by your hips andyour spine are the last ones to
close.
But, like in the ankle, it'slike the outside, your fifth
(06:06):
metatarsal right, like yourshins, they have growth plate
centers.
And, of course, like your knee,your kneecap below is all good
slaughters.
The kneecap itself has a growthplate.
Um, the back of your hamstringhas a huge growth plate which a
lot of gymnasts have problemswith, like apophysitis injuries.
Um, and your spine has growthplates.
Your wrist wrist, your elbows,your shoulders, has like a
humeral growth plate with likethe league shoulder.
So all these things are areas inwhich the bone grows very fast
(06:29):
and then, of course, whathappens is that the muscles
attached to those things havehigh strain.
So that's the risk of like bonyinflammation.
But also, when the bone growsdouble as fast as the muscle can
get up with, you lose all yourflexibility, right?
You're like asking a muscle,it's getting stretched out like
crazy.
You're not going to have fullsplits.
You're not going to have fullshoulder flexibility.
You're not going to.
It's just going to naturally godown over time, despite
stretching every single day overthe course of six to eight
(06:50):
months as you grow.
You know that's that yourbody's literally getting
stretched out and your body'strying to keep up with the fact
that it's it's not really goingto be as flexible.
But also that's why your powergoes down Because, like, from a
physics point of view, thetorque production and the force
length optimal production is nowchanged.
You don't have the samedimensions right that you had
before, so you're not asequipped, or like you don't know
(07:14):
your body as well, becauseyou're changing dimensions right
, it's like harder, but youthink that's just one system,
but on a hormonal level it'sliterally a hurricane, right?
You're just like dumping sexhormones into your body.
Growth hormone is changing,right.
Like puberty is happening,estrogen testosterone obviously
guys and girls go through rapidchanges so like there's that
whole physical change piece.
But then also, like hormonally,your brain is just constantly,
(07:35):
you know, in a hurricane state,so that's really hard to deal
with too.
And then neurologically, youknow you're, you're
recalibrating your entire systemto new dimensions, new length,
you know you're.
You're usually eating like asmall horse because you're
growing so fast, you're workingout so much, so you're dealing
with like that whole aspect oftrying to supply enough fuel to
your body.
This is all happening under theradar and some practice, right?
(07:55):
So now you think about likejust living your life, let alone
not hitting my feet on a lowbar and getting a full around,
or like learning a new skillwhen my body doesn't really
agree with me, right?
And then, of course, the subniche of all this is like this
very different female type of,you know, menstrual cycle,
development stuff, like thatthat is completely different
than a guy and like that's a.
That's a nightmare in itself,Right?
So all this is happening andlike, generally speaking, doing
(08:15):
backflips on beams is a lowpriority to your body growing
and surviving, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I love going through kind of that full education
piece that you just kind of wentthrough with.
Like my patients and parentswhen they come in and they're
like talking about all thisstuff that's happening and like
why they can't move well anymoreand like all and it makes sense
.
I'm like you're growing so fastand like the thought that your
brain has to recalibrateeverything.
You have a new length of yourleg, like your brain has to
figure out how to move that wellnow.
(08:41):
Yeah, but you're going to beawkward and you're going to be
like having all these otherchanges go on too.
And I think that educationpiece of like the patient and
the parent knowing that so theycan give themselves some grace,
and then, from like a coachingstandpoint too, I think it's
important to be able to.
If you're noticing those things,they're growing a lot and
they're going through thosethings, giving the kid grace too
, because it's not like nottrying to hit their skills or
like they're split down becausethey're not trying to hit their
(09:02):
skills or like get their splitsdown Cause they're not trying.
Like they're going through allthese other changes too.
So and then in addition, likeyou were talking about, with
like the hormone changes, fromlike an emotional standpoint and
like mental point too, it'slike okay, these kids are going
through all these hormonechanges, they don't know how to
move their body anymore.
They're trying really hard, butlike they're probably getting
yelled at because they're nothitting their sales or they
don't have their splits down orlike whatever it is like that
(09:24):
just adds fuel to the fire.
So I'm a education part.
Portion of this is reallyhelpful for everyone involved in
.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I'm laughing in my head because we joke around in
the clinic and coaching.
It's like the juice world andtaylor swift era.
It's when, like that's like allthe sad breakup songs and all
the heavy emotions coming thatyou like blast a juice world
album because you got broken upwith, or a Taylor Swift sad song
at midnight, that's like thepeak time.
Yeah, and I think two pieces ofit that are really important.
Like this is me as a coach, butalso just me as like an
(09:51):
educator, and kind of overall isyou have to reframe the period
of growth to one just say likethis is normal, everyone goes
through it and unfortunately,different times like from 12 to
14, you'll have someone who hitsit at 10, someone at 11,
someone at 12.
And then someone who just has alate you know 15 year old onset
.
That's just a normal process.
(10:11):
That happens.
Everyone goes through it.
Everyone has a six to eightmonth season where they're just
super frustrated and it sucks.
So like it's going to happen,and the faster you can just say
like this sucks, but I'm goingto get through it, the better.
But also, too, as reframing itas a good thing, right Like to
the point in the beginning, islike, how do you think that
Ellie black and Simone and Sunnihave these ridiculous skills
right?
Ridiculous routines, it's justpower, right that.
All gymnastics is a lot of likepower to body weight ratio and
(10:34):
strength and technique.
All of that comes from theability to train super duper
hard and give yourself theability to get stronger and more
powerful.
And all of that is dependent ongoing post puberty right.
Like all of the good chemicalsand the good hormones that make
you get stronger and make youget faster and make you learn
skills, all of the you know, uh,longer bones can have more
(10:55):
muscle on them, which means theycan produce more force to go
faster.
Everything is dependent ongetting through puberty properly
.
So, like, yes, in the shortterm it sucks and nobody wants
to go through it, but in thelongterm it's the only way you
get to really high levelgymnastics.
There's no other way to get tolevel 10 and level college.
If that's your goal, um, then,going through this process of,
like post puberty type growthright.
Like, yes, there are somephenoms who, by 12 and 14 years
(11:17):
old, are doing crazy skills, butthey can't compete them, they
can't handle them, because ifthey try to do them on hard
surfaces.
Eventually they break down withoveruse type injuries.
So you have to go through it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And then are you seeing any ofthese like like any, I don't
know higher level teams or clubteams that are tracking PHV?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, exactly so.
Most people, I would say, at theclub level and below, it's just
like an important thing.
They monitor and they know thatwhen you know the boat starts
to rock in terms of you know uh,growing a lot, you know skills
are kind of fumbly and, uh,flexibility goes away, they kind
of know like the storm iscoming and they just kind of
like accept it.
Um, or, as I would say, higherlevel club teams that are more
(11:58):
like um level 10, elite, collegebound.
They often, almost times we'llhave parents touch base with
pediatricians and try to get auh, a marker of when you know
they're growing the fastest.
The way you track this is thatwhat we're trying to look for is
is this article talks about.
It's called peak heightvelocity.
It's the period in which yougrow the fastest in that four
year window and this study was agood study that kind of looked
(12:21):
at like a sample across a bunchof European football players and
other kids and 13 seems to bethe spot for most, um, sometimes
a little bit older and guys,but um, generally speaking
around like this, like 12, 13,14 age.
You're going to have thisperiod of six months where you
grow like an absolute weed rightwhere, like everything, grows
the fastest.
And you can almost always seeit when people sit in the table,
because they have these long,lanky legs and their torsos are
(12:43):
still really simple, right.
So, like their legs hang offthe treatment table, but they're
just like this little tinycanister of a torso.
Like you're growing into yourlegs is the expression they use
and the way they gyms will trackthis is that every month they
have someone measure theirstanding height, their sitting
height and their wingspan.
And that's what Esteban Balieris like a big person in the
Canadian world for.
Like long-term athleticdevelopment is you can track
(13:03):
someone's growth metrics by, youknow, month over month.
What is the change?
It's like a one centimeter, onecentimeter, one centimeter,
nine centimeters, Like Whoa,wait a minute, you know, like,
like something, something, some,somebody ate, miracle grow, you
know, in their, in theirWheaties this morning.
And so if you see someone whoselegs are growing rapidly and
their arms are growing rapidly,you know that they're probably
entering some of that peakheight velocity.
(13:24):
And then also a pediatriciancheckup when they do all like
the medical testing for thatkind of stuff, they can tell you
um, uh, the percentile chart oflike, their, um, you know their
growth and then sometimesthey'll do like an x-ray of
their um normal growth plates.
I'll just check, like theirwrist radial growth plate, to
see how close that growth plateis and that will give them an
indication of where they're atalong that timeline.
So I would say it's probably 10%of clubs that I've worked with
(13:48):
or coached or kind of done stuffwith that are measuring those
things consistently and it'susually those that are on the
very competitive track foreither like 10 to college
scholarship and or elite.
But I would say 90% of people.
Just keep an eye on it and thenyou know.
If you work with kids everysingle day and you work with the
same kid every single day for acouple of years, you clearly
realize when you know they'regoing through some, some rapid
(14:09):
changes.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sure, yeah, that's a good point.
Um, some of the I know there'sa lot more research on this and,
like the soccer community,there's like I think that having
like soccer clubs are a littlebit more controlled, so you can,
you like, have those kids aredoing pretty much soccer and
only soccer, and so you have alittle bit more control over the
conditioning that they're doingand the practices and all that
(14:30):
fun stuff.
And so there've been a lot ofteams, I think, in research on
tracking that and then whenthey're in that phase, they'll
pull them out of certain typesof training or just like back
off volume on certain things.
Have you seen that at all?
Or have you recommended thatever?
Or?
Or in the gymnastics world,that's similar to that.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I think the new approach that many people take I
think great coaches who arehave gone they've seen, you know
, like a lot of cycles of kidsbe six, then 10, then 14.
And once you see it enoughtimes, you know, I think, that
it comes to be a natural thingyou are ready for and you're
just like expecting that it'sgonna to, it's going to happen
and you have to like modifythings around it.
So and this kind of leads tolike the, the podcast, like
(15:13):
suggestions of what we can do islike you just have to accept
that you're going to have a year.
One of those years from 10 to14 is going to be a building
year, it's going to be a gapyear, it's going to be not the
most competitive.
Like you can still do meets,you can still compete, but like
the expectations of like movingup in level, getting a new skill
, getting all these things tofall into place where you just
like have a really great year,it's probably not going to
(15:33):
happen.
You know it's just like youmight have an absolutely great.
You know you're 10 years old,you cook it, you're 11 years,
you move up a level, you crush.
It takes another three years ateight, three years at nine,
because you're like you're goingthrough the waves of like
getting a skill, your wrist kindof flares up.
You have to back off, you getback into it, then your back
(15:53):
kind of sore, like you just gothrough this thing of growing
and you just know that one ofthose years is probably going to
be just business as usual.
Nothing electric happens.
And then the opposite is true,which is that you're probably
going to have, after that's alldone, one year where you just
like, literally are shot out ofa cannon.
You get three new skills, youhave a great competition season.
(16:14):
You make it to Easterns orWesterns like out of the blue,
like Holy hell.
I can't believe like she hadsuch a great year.
It's because we, we got themthrough the storm of growth
without accumulating a growthplate thing, without
accumulating a back problem,without accumulating a back
problem, without accumulating awrist thing that's now nagging
them all the time.
So they're going to kind oflike it's like I always
analogize it with patients likeyou're pulling the, the, the
slingshot, back right.
You're just like for a yearyou're slowly winding back up
the slingshot and when theyfinally are post-puberty, you
(16:36):
can let go and get rocketed upto whatever you want to do.
So it's just that you you haveto accept that it's happening.
And if you have a lot ofexperience with people going
through this, you have to kindof have in your in your head a
set of things you're going to door modify or change to make
sure they get through it safely.
And if you're a brand new coachor someone who's younger and
you haven't had a bunch of yearsof generation, you lean on
(16:56):
people who are 10, 23, 30 yeargangsters who have had 40 girls
go through cycles of collegesand ask their advice about like,
what do you do?
Do you change drills, how doyou change their meet schedule,
and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
What general advice, knowing that they're at higher
risk of injury during this phase?
If you're noticing that withyour athlete or in your coaching
.
What recommendations generallywould you change as far as like
a training principle?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah for sure I think .
Um, the best things I think youcan do is, generally, when you
approach training, I would saymy rule of thumb is like 30% of
your, 33% of your time is onbasics, 30% is on skills and 30%
on strength conditioning.
I think you shift that to like70, 30.
So 70% of your time should be,uh, basics, drills, flexibility,
um, softer surfaces, crosstraining, like it should be.
(17:43):
The majority of your timeshould not be based on hard new
skills, on hard or hard landingsor hard impacts.
You know that should happen fewand far between.
So trying to shift your focusinto more development mode of
like you know the meets arethere and we want to get ready
for meets.
But if we get two weeks beforea meet and we're really
struggling with skills, aren'tconnecting because you know I
(18:04):
got arms or legs are longer orsomething sore, like we're just
going to, we're going to scratch.
You know like maybe youintentionally don't book as many
meets that year.
So say you do eight meets ayear, but you know, in the
summer this girl starts to growlike a weed right, or this guy
in preseason is like reallygoing through it.
Maybe you talk to their parentsand you say like, yeah, we're
going to do four meets this year.
We'll do four meets.
We make the regionals cool, ifyou know.
(18:24):
We make the nationals cool, butwe're not expecting you to do
eight full meets and stageregionals, nationals and have
this like electric gear.
So maybe you pull off a fewmeets, you don't do the travel
meet, or you just do the travelmeet.
You don't do those two homemeets as well.
So you're still involved in thecompetition season.
You have stuff going on, butyou're not really like in a
dense competition season.
Softer surfaces, I think, arevery important.
Most of your time is on tumbletrack, tramp um math, that are
(18:47):
there sting mats, um going toresi pits, stuff like that.
Um, definitely per.
Our last episode is trying tohave a skill cap on like seven
per day.
So seven dismounts per day,seven tumbling passes per day,
so that we don't have this likeopen ended um you know
infinitely number higher ofrepetitions in a couple hour
practice.
Um, and I think honestly thishas been something that
(19:08):
thankfully, has become more andmore popular.
But this is the best time tostart somebody in a cross
training kind of GPP program.
So our, our approach is that at12 years old, most people.
At 10 years old you can startdabbling with like teaching
people how to cross train alittle bit, but you're not
loading people at 12.
The research is pretty clearthat 12 years old, you're not
going to stunt someone's growth,you're not going to hurt their
growth plates, like all thefears of injuries.
(19:29):
It's completely, you know, uh,written away.
Um, esteban Balier has likeextensive research on why weight
training is good for athleteswhen they're younger helps
strengthen their bones,strengthens their coordination.
Um, so doing some sort ofcross-training program is really
good.
So sometimes what will happenis people will get hurt, they'll
have growth plate flare up,they back off a little bit and
(19:50):
they have this like two monthwindow where they're not really
ready to compete but they're notreally in PT and we start them
on a two day or one day or twoday cross training program where
they'll come in on their offday and do a GPP program.
So it allows you to keepdeveloping athletic qualities,
keeping them strong, keepingthem kind of flexible, but not
putting a lot of hard sportbased impact on them.
So, um, yeah, a lot, of, a lotof that too, as well as trying
to get somebody started so thatby 14, um, it's fully part of
(20:13):
their program.
We have, like I said, 20, 20something, college and club
girls and guys that are trainingwith us to champion the summer,
two days a week throughout thewhole summer.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, I think there's a big misconception around,
like with growth plates,especially if you're loading
them like you're doing strengthtraining, you're loading them up
that it's going to cause likeincreased risk of injury to that
growth plate.
And I think, if you think aboutit in the reverse way, where
they're going through thisawkward phase, they're trying to
learn how to do things fromlike a neuromuscular control
standpoint, doing things whereyou're like basic functional
(20:42):
strength exercises, like a squatand a step up and a split squat
, like those things are greatways to help your brain learn
how to move your body.
Again, do you like a splitstance movement, how to like in
in safe ways which are muchsafer than them going through
the space where they don't knowhow to move their body and then
doing these skills that theydon't know how to do yet, like
they're doing upgrades and likelearning new skills.
And I I think when you thinkabout it from that standpoint,
(21:04):
like the skill difficulty, it'sgoing to be much safer and less
difficult for them to do afunctional strength program with
a progression versus doingreally difficult skills they
don't know how to do yet whenthey, even if they know how to
do the skills, like they'reagain like if you've got a leg
that's longer than it used to beand you're trying to learn how
to move that leg again.
Is it really safe for them tobe doing like aerials or big
(21:26):
flips in the air like on hardsurfaces from like other things
that you've?
I know you've talked a lotabout with the ground?
Reaction forces are so muchhigher when you're doing skills
and when you're doing like asquat with a 20 pound kettlebell
.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's.
There's always two approaches.
Here I think most people fallinto the category of like a
little bit of education goes along way.
So always two approaches.
Here I think most people fallinto the category of like a
little bit of education goes along way.
So this paper is phenomenal.
Um Esteban Balier and then LloydOliver, I want to say, are two
of the more like pronouncedresearchers.
They've written multiplearticles and textbooks around
dispelling the myths of youthweightlifting and why it's
important.
And it kind of like goesthrough all the research and the
(22:00):
fact of saying like it's notgoing to hurt your growth plates
, it's not going to stunt yourgrowth, it's not going to cause
injuries.
So like there's the rational,logical, scientific approach
which is like, yeah, I totallyunderstand mainstream media,
maybe social media throws it offas like if you, if you squatted
up with a 12 year old, you'regoing to hurt their growth
plates or whatever.
But it's been more or lesscompletely debunked over the
last like five to 10 years,pretty substantially.
(22:20):
But then there's the other sideof it.
It's just this is like a littlebit of example that she said.
But she's like okay, let's likelogically think through this
thought process.
So the forces of gymnastics are15 times body weight relative to
the athlete.
So if you're a 10 year old girldoing layouts, it's still 10 to
15 times your body weight,versus an elite doing a double
double on floor, right?
So that is known.
That's like pretty hard sciencethat we have.
So you can't say that, okay,it's okay for someone to do 15
(22:45):
layouts and double backs onfloor at 15 times their body
weight, but it's unsafe to do agoblet squat with 20 pounds,
right?
Because a 20 pound goblet squatis one 50th of the force of a
double back.
So the point is that we usegoblet squats, we use cross
training to build more strength,to absorb landings better and
spare forces off the growthplate, right?
So it's very hypocritical tosay that squatting is bad for
(23:09):
your knees but doing the doubleback is okay, right, like.
And if that was the case too,if it was like I always joke
around people like okay, if theforce of a goblet squat was
enough to damage your growthplates, your legs would explode.
When you did a layout, right,like, you would turn to dust,
because there's no way thatmakes sense rationally that it's
okay.
So you, you use squatting andcross training as a way to to
(23:29):
maintain workload and strengthensomebody, to prepare them
against the high forces ofskills, but also if somebody is
making the claim that this isdangerous, well, that is not.
It's so hypocritical betweenthose two things.
And almost always it's aboutexercise selection and technique
.
It's about like yes, some girlshave ankle mobility that
doesn't support a good squat tofull depth.
Like, do you have to squat allthe way down and touch your butt
(23:51):
to a low beam, just box squatright To a a a resi mat, with
your ankles and your heelsslightly elevated, because maybe
their calves are stiff, becausethey're growing a lot?
Like, or just do a step up or asplit squat exercise.
There's a, I think, becausethere's a little bit of a gap in
knowledge around.
Like, strength conditioning isa full-time profession of a
doctorate level, so if coachesfeel as though they don't have
enough information to properlystrength train people and
(24:13):
program people, they worry.
Like, oh, that's something thatI should be good at.
I'm a coach, I've beenprogramming for years.
Why is this person going totell me how to do things
differently?
And I think that that's whereyou kind of fall off the wagon.
So, yeah, it's, it's.
There's the research approach,there's the rationale approach
and then there's like the thelack of knowledge approach that
all three of those things can beeasily amended.
But the two years it'softentimes a year and a half of
(24:33):
this like starting to grow,going through puberty, getting
on the other side of it and kindof like normalizing that like
18 month period, can be used asa massive benefit If you treat
it with the approach of we cancross train here, we can clean
these basics up, we can work onall your technique.
There's so much stuff that wecan improve upon so that when
you do get to be 14, 15 yearsold, you're not only stronger,
(24:53):
more powerful and more flexible,you also have a just absolute,
you know monster closet full ofbetter technique that you're
going to use for all theseskills.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, and I really liked that from the it went.
Once you get like further downin the article, it starts
talking about a lot of the likeperformance benefits that you
get with the strength training,especially once you start like
if you started at a younger ageand you worked your way up it
(25:22):
starts to.
I think I put that quote inthere.
Um like eight to 12 years oftraining is necessary for a
gifted athlete to reach elitelevels.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yep.
I really was going to um.
I forgot that.
Sorry if I had the audio in thebackground, but we actually did
a really popular episode withum Ellen Casey, and can I full
screen this?
Yeah, so me and Nick and Ellen.
This uh is called how tonavigate puberty and gymnastics
with Ellen Casey and NickRuddock.
(25:51):
So this was like me.
So Ellen is the women's teamphysician for team USA, along
with Marcia, and then Nick isobviously Nick.
He's like a prolific uhinternationally gymnastics coach
who's coached hundreds ofpeople through the elite level
and whatever.
So Ellen works with you knownational team people and very
elite high-level people and kindof helps them there, and then
Nick obviously is coaching.
So the three of us essentiallyfor an hour and a half just chop
(26:13):
it up on like what do you dowith people who are 10 to 15
years old, who are going throughthese growth periods?
Like what's the best approach?
Nick talks about it from like anin the trenches skill level of,
like drills and skills and likehow we change training, how we
change the things and a lot ofthings that I talk about in this
podcast are things I've learnedfrom Nick.
And then Ellen talks more aboutlike what is growth, what is
happening, the medical stuff,and then what are we doing on
(26:33):
the, on the um overall healthperiod, but then in her subset
of specialty, like femaleathlete health and that kind of
stuff.
So this is probably like, ifyou have any questions at all,
you want more information.
This is like probably your,your next thing, you want to
listen to.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, I really liked this, the portions where they
kind of started talking abouthow starting strength training
when you're younger so you canstart to learn like those
foundational strength trainingmethods and then working your
way up to being able to get tothe point where you're, you know
, 8 to 12 years down the lineand you're like elite career
level life that you can start todo those higher level strength
training things that will helpyou improve your performance
(27:07):
down the line, rather thanwaiting until you're I don't
know 16, 18 or even in collegeto start working on actually
knowing how to like lift andstrength train and then using
that not that it wouldn't stillsupplement and help you perform
better.
But if you started younger andlearned how to like strength
train from a foundational leveland got to the point where
you're in that elite level likethe, there's just only an upward
(27:30):
progression from there.
It's only going to help youimprove your performance at that
elite level.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
A hundred percent and my number one go-to like
cheerleader style thing let mesee if I can feel it I think
it's Ellie.
Ellie Black and Scott Wilgrisare like the best example of I
can't find it right now, sorry,but they're like the best
example of like why right?
So Ellie, if you look atellie's instagram, she's working
out in cross training everysingle day and her coach, dave,
(27:55):
and I have talked on a podcastand like on a symposium about
like, why they do that, how theystarted that.
But ellie started her crosstraining type stuff when she was
16 with scott wilgris, who'sher strength coach at um csc I
think it is in canada, thenational team institute but they
started working together at 16.
She's done five o five Olympiccycles and she's lifted from 26
or, sorry, from 16 to I don'tknow how old she is now, but
(28:16):
five full Olympic cycles worthof cross training and she's like
the textbook example of like.
Wow, it's beneficial, she's sopowerful, she's so strong, she's
got longevity, she's gonethrough so many injury cycles,
but like she is like the pivotalexample and I know that like um
the Downies, becky and Ellieboth strength trained quite a
bit, like so many people do,cross training, strength
training at the elite level.
Every college program I consultwith um cross trains in the
(28:38):
summer, lifts in the summer,does everything and then in
season does a power program.
That's cross training with astrength coach.
And the vast majority of clubsNow that I work with either have
some sort of supplementary workor come to a place like
champion and do it.
So it's the best possible thingyou can do um at the age of
like 10 to 14 to start them onthat.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I think.
And then if you've got it setup, then when they get to that
point we're in there, they're intheir awkward phase, like going
through puberty then that wouldbe an easy thing to just be
like okay, we're going to likeshift back to some of these
programs.
You already know how to do it.
(29:18):
It see how, if you weretracking it with your whole team
and then it already had been aneducation point with coaches
and the parents and the and thekids that, like this will happen
and when your time comes, thenthis is how we're going to shift
things.
I think that's a lot easier tocreate buy-in versus like if you
were just you got to this pointand you're not hitting anything
, and then all of a suddenyou're like, oh well, you're
just growing, so let's just like, take you out of needs and like
yeah, you got to some of thispractice stuff and we'll just do
(29:39):
this, but like that ambiguitycan get really tough to get
buy-in.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah, yeah, and just make it a normal thing, right.
Hopefully your coaching staffis on board to make it a normal
thing.
That by you know, 10 years old,you're probably doing some sort
of like squatting and you'reconditioning and you're learning
the basics by 12.
You're starting to do a bit ofit in your gym anyways, and then
whenever the time comes thatyou're going to have that year,
that's kind of tougher it's verynormal to go to a facility.
So like locally, to like beyondgymnastics, which Justin now
owns, my friend.
(30:05):
He has a bunch of girls thatcome on Wednesdays and reason
you can be late to practice isif you're at, you know, champion
lifting or doing PT, likethat's acceptable.
You're not on the beachsomewhere.
But he knows that a lot of thegirls in that window and that
age group are probably not goingto tolerate tons and tons of
reps because they're goingthrough it metaphorically and
physically and that the bestthing they can do is have one
day during the week where maybeit's a little less gymnastics
(30:26):
and a little more cross trainingthan they come on Saturday, you
know, when they're on their offday.
So, um, yeah, I think when younormalize it and not make it a
reactionary negative, but it's aproactive positive.
Um, it's really.
It's really a good thing forthe entire culture.
Yeah, and it's fun.
It's fun to get out of the gymand go do other stuff and hang
(30:46):
out like a bunch of peoplecompete and train together and
it's, it's a vibe, you know it's.
It's a gym, you know, that hasit inside of it.
They just work with it nonstop.
So like that's cool too, go anddo it.
But most people don't havethose resources.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I think it's really rewarding to do hard
things with, like, lifting heavyweights.
It feels cool, like sometimes,than just doing some gymnastic
skills, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, dude, and coaches, get off your b pretty
good.
Any other last minute thoughts?
No, dig it.
Okay.
So we'll be back in anothermonth with some new ones, but
these will go out, and thenwe're trying our best to get a
couple guests lined up on thepodcast too for some of the
future ones.
So I think Duash was dope tohave on, but maybe we'll get Len
down here and talk about newstuff for some of the people.
So if people have suggestionsof things, that topics they're
(31:32):
they're interested in or thingsthey want us to cover, I'm
totally open to absorbing someof the fan feedback.
Um, leave comments on Spotify,which now has video, by the way
and then also, um, you can uh,email myself or Leo or DM on
Instagram office and we'll chopthem down the list.
But so far, so good.
Cool, Alrighty, enjoy yourweekend, everybody.
Bye.
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
All right, back in action.
Leah, how's your fruit?
I ate it all, so I know I stillhave more of my bagel from last
episode, so I'm gonna bechomping and normalize eating on
podcast.
That's okay.
(00:26):
This week we are going to chatabout growth, growth, and
particularly with younger kids,um, and the unfortunate reality
that many people in gymnasticsand sports are excelling in
levels and wanting to learn newskills and do things that are
harder.
At the same time, their bodiesare going through crazy amounts
of growth related changes um,hormonal, you know, know,
(00:47):
physical, all that kind of stuff.
So it makes it very challengingto navigate the waters of
keeping them healthy.
And you know there's a lot ofgrowth plate stuff we'll talk
about that comes up.
But yeah, aliyah, you also werethe one who kind of
brainstormed this one.
So what was on your mind whenyou started outlining this one?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean I think I just I see a lot of kids with growth
plate injuries, so it's and yousee them.
I think we talked about this alittle bit when we were talking
about like increased volumes inpreseason when we're at so
usually when I start to see alot of like increase in the
growth plate injuries.
So I was thinking a lot aboutlike how to differ like training
volumes or if there are othervariables that we can think
about to help decrease the likeinjury risk of a growth plate
(01:26):
injury in gymnasts, especiallywhen you're getting like more of
those like severs injuries, orI get a lot of like tibial
tubercle injuries, sometimessome like medial epicondyles in
the elbow, but I've had quite alot of those lately.
So I've just been trying tothink a lot more about like
different variables that you cantry to modify in order to
decrease the risk of thoseinjuries, and phd is one of
those things that is kind of new, like we're still trying to get
(01:50):
research on whether or notthat's something that is
something that matters at alland, if that, if it does matter,
how we change our trainingaround that variable yeah,
absolutely, and I think I thinkhonestly, this conversation and
this approach is is easier and alittle bit more um manageable
than it was 10 years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I think 10 years ago we were still in the push to 16,
16 to 18 that's when we peakall that kind of stuff and that
has just been obliterated by,you know, ellie, black, becky,
downey, simone, you know the theaverage age of the world's in
olympic teams being like 20 to24, jordan, childs, all them.
So, thankfully, you know, wesee in the vast majority of
people that they're notsprinting to do really high
level skills at 10 to 12.
(02:31):
And I think you know elite isobviously a very big thing
globally but it's like 1%, 2% ofthe gymnastics population is
going to get to elite.
So that conversation aroundlike well, if we can go till 30,
you know, maybe we should slowdown at 10.
Yes, for a very small portionof people that are elite, most
people want to go to college andcompete in college and then
also most people just want to dogymnastics and have fun and
(02:53):
move on with life.
It's not like they're trying todo this high level 30 year
career and so with the majorityof people in the college or like
high school bucket.
I think you have to rememberthat while, yes, they're not
going to go to 30, there's somuch more opportunity now for
them to keep getting better incollege, like college men's and
women's.
There's so many, like higherquality coaches, of people that
go to college as a freshman andlearn more skills and get better
(03:15):
and have four ascending yearsversus 10 years ago.
I think a lot of times it waslike secure my scholarship, get
through, and then I kind of justlike survive for four years,
right, or like slowly fall apartbecause I got beat up so much
in club.
And that just is like the mostheartbreaking thing I saw like a
long time ago when I was firststarting out, as so many kids
would just literally grind, giveup their childhood and grind
(03:36):
homeschooled or double sessionsor pour themselves into sports
to get a college scholarship forgymnastics.
They get to college, they haveto medically retire.
You know there were three girlsthat I work with that tried so
hard through college, throughhigh school, to get their
scholarship and then they had tomedically retire like their
sophomore year because years ofgetting beat up and their
injuries and stuff like that.
So that just breaks my heartRight.
But thankfully now, 10 yearslater, there's a lot more
(03:57):
resources.
There's a lot more like advicewe can give to people, which
we'll talk about in this episodearound, like why it's 10 to 14
is really the most importantarea of having to be very
careful.
And then within that four yearwindow there's probably a six
month window where they're goingto grow super duper fast.
You have to really slow thingsdown and almost, you know, take
it as like I think I called it agap year in the in the outline
(04:18):
like just except for the factthat for a year it's going to be
awkward, they're going to beflexibility go down, strength
goes down, toes are hitting thelow bar.
You know can't really do myskills anymore and you have to
normalize it and say like thisis normal, happens to everybody,
no big deal, and in the longrun it's going to be really good
because all your power, allyour high level strength comes
from post puberty type changes.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, it makes so much sense when you think about
it a little bit more and I don'tthink I really came to a full
appreciation of just the conceptof, obviously, when you're done
growing and you have moremuscle mass and you're fully
grown, like that makes sense,for that to be.
I feel like I've, I'm finallyat like peak performance age.
Like I feel like the best thatI've ever felt.
(05:02):
And comparing that to like Iprobably would have thought when
I was younger that like at ageyou know, 16, 17, 18, then like
that's going to be like my peakperformance, and it's just not
true, like you're peaking, likein your twenties.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Right, correct, exactly, and you know for the
background of those that are notas familiar.
So, essentially, um, in thosefour year windows is there's
like a very slow, uh onset ofchanges from like a a multiple
systems point of view.
Right, like, your body goesthrough like um physical
development your bones getlonger, your muscles are trying
to keep up, but the biggestthing that comes to orthopedics
(05:43):
and what we deal with is thatthe bones in which have growth
plate centers are not hard fusedfirm bone, right, they're soft,
calloused bones.
So like, um, there's a lot ofdifferent spots in the body
where, uh, typically growthplate issues come up and you,
you kind of close those growthplates, starting at your feet
and working your way back up.
So the ones by your hips andyour spine are the last ones to
close.
But, like in the ankle, it'slike the outside, your fifth
(06:06):
metatarsal right, like yourshins, they have growth plate
centers.
And, of course, like your knee,your kneecap below is all good
slaughters.
The kneecap itself has a growthplate.
Um, the back of your hamstringhas a huge growth plate which a
lot of gymnasts have problemswith, like apophysitis injuries.
Um, and your spine has growthplates.
Your wrist wrist, your elbows,your shoulders, has like a
humeral growth plate with likethe league shoulder.
So all these things are areas inwhich the bone grows very fast
(06:29):
and then, of course, whathappens is that the muscles
attached to those things havehigh strain.
So that's the risk of like bonyinflammation.
But also, when the bone growsdouble as fast as the muscle can
get up with, you lose all yourflexibility, right?
You're like asking a muscle,it's getting stretched out like
crazy.
You're not going to have fullsplits.
You're not going to have fullshoulder flexibility.
You're not going to.
It's just going to naturally godown over time, despite
stretching every single day overthe course of six to eight
(06:50):
months as you grow.
You know that's that yourbody's literally getting
stretched out and your body'strying to keep up with the fact
that it's it's not really goingto be as flexible.
But also that's why your powergoes down Because, like, from a
physics point of view, thetorque production and the force
length optimal production is nowchanged.
You don't have the samedimensions right that you had
before, so you're not asequipped, or like you don't know
(07:14):
your body as well, becauseyou're changing dimensions right
, it's like harder, but youthink that's just one system,
but on a hormonal level it'sliterally a hurricane, right?
You're just like dumping sexhormones into your body.
Growth hormone is changing,right.
Like puberty is happening,estrogen testosterone obviously
guys and girls go through rapidchanges so like there's that
whole physical change piece.
But then also, like hormonally,your brain is just constantly,
(07:35):
you know, in a hurricane state,so that's really hard to deal
with too.
And then neurologically, youknow you're, you're
recalibrating your entire systemto new dimensions, new length,
you know you're.
You're usually eating like asmall horse because you're
growing so fast, you're workingout so much, so you're dealing
with like that whole aspect oftrying to supply enough fuel to
your body.
This is all happening under theradar and some practice, right?
(07:55):
So now you think about likejust living your life, let alone
not hitting my feet on a lowbar and getting a full around,
or like learning a new skillwhen my body doesn't really
agree with me, right?
And then, of course, the subniche of all this is like this
very different female type of,you know, menstrual cycle,
development stuff, like thatthat is completely different
than a guy and like that's a.
That's a nightmare in itself,Right?
So all this is happening andlike, generally speaking, doing
(08:15):
backflips on beams is a lowpriority to your body growing
and surviving, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I love going through kind of that full education
piece that you just kind of wentthrough with.
Like my patients and parentswhen they come in and they're
like talking about all thisstuff that's happening and like
why they can't move well anymoreand like all and it makes sense
.
I'm like you're growing so fastand like the thought that your
brain has to recalibrateeverything.
You have a new length of yourleg, like your brain has to
figure out how to move that wellnow.
(08:41):
Yeah, but you're going to beawkward and you're going to be
like having all these otherchanges go on too.
And I think that educationpiece of like the patient and
the parent knowing that so theycan give themselves some grace,
and then, from like a coachingstandpoint too, I think it's
important to be able to.
If you're noticing those things,they're growing a lot and
they're going through thosethings, giving the kid grace too
, because it's not like nottrying to hit their skills or
like they're split down becausethey're not trying to hit their
(09:02):
skills or like get their splitsdown Cause they're not trying.
Like they're going through allthese other changes too.
So and then in addition, likeyou were talking about, with
like the hormone changes, fromlike an emotional standpoint and
like mental point too, it'slike okay, these kids are going
through all these hormonechanges, they don't know how to
move their body anymore.
They're trying really hard, butlike they're probably getting
yelled at because they're nothitting their sales or they
don't have their splits down orlike whatever it is like that
(09:24):
just adds fuel to the fire.
So I'm a education part.
Portion of this is reallyhelpful for everyone involved in
.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I'm laughing in my head because we joke around in
the clinic and coaching.
It's like the juice world andtaylor swift era.
It's when, like that's like allthe sad breakup songs and all
the heavy emotions coming thatyou like blast a juice world
album because you got broken upwith, or a Taylor Swift sad song
at midnight, that's like thepeak time.
Yeah, and I think two pieces ofit that are really important.
Like this is me as a coach, butalso just me as like an
(09:51):
educator, and kind of overall isyou have to reframe the period
of growth to one just say likethis is normal, everyone goes
through it and unfortunately,different times like from 12 to
14, you'll have someone who hitsit at 10, someone at 11,
someone at 12.
And then someone who just has alate you know 15 year old onset
.
That's just a normal process.
(10:11):
That happens.
Everyone goes through it.
Everyone has a six to eightmonth season where they're just
super frustrated and it sucks.
So like it's going to happen,and the faster you can just say
like this sucks, but I'm goingto get through it, the better.
But also, too, as reframing itas a good thing, right Like to
the point in the beginning, islike, how do you think that
Ellie black and Simone and Sunnihave these ridiculous skills
right?
Ridiculous routines, it's justpower, right that.
All gymnastics is a lot of likepower to body weight ratio and
(10:34):
strength and technique.
All of that comes from theability to train super duper
hard and give yourself theability to get stronger and more
powerful.
And all of that is dependent ongoing post puberty right.
Like all of the good chemicalsand the good hormones that make
you get stronger and make youget faster and make you learn
skills, all of the you know, uh,longer bones can have more
(10:55):
muscle on them, which means theycan produce more force to go
faster.
Everything is dependent ongetting through puberty properly
.
So, like, yes, in the shortterm it sucks and nobody wants
to go through it, but in thelongterm it's the only way you
get to really high levelgymnastics.
There's no other way to get tolevel 10 and level college.
If that's your goal, um, then,going through this process of,
like post puberty type growthright.
Like, yes, there are somephenoms who, by 12 and 14 years
(11:17):
old, are doing crazy skills, butthey can't compete them, they
can't handle them, because ifthey try to do them on hard
surfaces.
Eventually they break down withoveruse type injuries.
So you have to go through it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And then are you seeing any ofthese like like any, I don't
know higher level teams or clubteams that are tracking PHV?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, exactly so.
Most people, I would say, at theclub level and below, it's just
like an important thing.
They monitor and they know thatwhen you know the boat starts
to rock in terms of you know uh,growing a lot, you know skills
are kind of fumbly and, uh,flexibility goes away, they kind
of know like the storm iscoming and they just kind of
like accept it.
Um, or, as I would say, higherlevel club teams that are more
(11:58):
like um level 10, elite, collegebound.
They often, almost times we'llhave parents touch base with
pediatricians and try to get auh, a marker of when you know
they're growing the fastest.
The way you track this is thatwhat we're trying to look for is
is this article talks about.
It's called peak heightvelocity.
It's the period in which yougrow the fastest in that four
year window and this study was agood study that kind of looked
(12:21):
at like a sample across a bunchof European football players and
other kids and 13 seems to bethe spot for most, um, sometimes
a little bit older and guys,but um, generally speaking
around like this, like 12, 13,14 age.
You're going to have thisperiod of six months where you
grow like an absolute weed rightwhere, like everything, grows
the fastest.
And you can almost always seeit when people sit in the table,
because they have these long,lanky legs and their torsos are
(12:43):
still really simple, right.
So, like their legs hang offthe treatment table, but they're
just like this little tinycanister of a torso.
Like you're growing into yourlegs is the expression they use
and the way they gyms will trackthis is that every month they
have someone measure theirstanding height, their sitting
height and their wingspan.
And that's what Esteban Balieris like a big person in the
Canadian world for.
Like long-term athleticdevelopment is you can track
(13:03):
someone's growth metrics by, youknow, month over month.
What is the change?
It's like a one centimeter, onecentimeter, one centimeter,
nine centimeters, Like Whoa,wait a minute, you know, like,
like something, something, some,somebody ate, miracle grow, you
know, in their, in theirWheaties this morning.
And so if you see someone whoselegs are growing rapidly and
their arms are growing rapidly,you know that they're probably
entering some of that peakheight velocity.
(13:24):
And then also a pediatriciancheckup when they do all like
the medical testing for thatkind of stuff, they can tell you
um, uh, the percentile chart oflike, their, um, you know their
growth and then sometimesthey'll do like an x-ray of
their um normal growth plates.
I'll just check, like theirwrist radial growth plate, to
see how close that growth plateis and that will give them an
indication of where they're atalong that timeline.
So I would say it's probably 10%of clubs that I've worked with
(13:48):
or coached or kind of done stuffwith that are measuring those
things consistently and it'susually those that are on the
very competitive track foreither like 10 to college
scholarship and or elite.
But I would say 90% of people.
Just keep an eye on it and thenyou know.
If you work with kids everysingle day and you work with the
same kid every single day for acouple of years, you clearly
realize when you know they'regoing through some, some rapid
(14:09):
changes.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Sure, yeah, that's a good point.
Um, some of the I know there'sa lot more research on this and,
like the soccer community,there's like I think that having
like soccer clubs are a littlebit more controlled, so you can,
you like, have those kids aredoing pretty much soccer and
only soccer, and so you have alittle bit more control over the
conditioning that they're doingand the practices and all that
(14:30):
fun stuff.
And so there've been a lot ofteams, I think, in research on
tracking that and then whenthey're in that phase, they'll
pull them out of certain typesof training or just like back
off volume on certain things.
Have you seen that at all?
Or have you recommended thatever?
Or?
Or in the gymnastics world,that's similar to that.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I think the new approach that many people take I
think great coaches who arehave gone they've seen, you know
, like a lot of cycles of kidsbe six, then 10, then 14.
And once you see it enoughtimes, you know, I think, that
it comes to be a natural thingyou are ready for and you're
just like expecting that it'sgonna to, it's going to happen
and you have to like modifythings around it.
So and this kind of leads tolike the, the podcast, like
(15:13):
suggestions of what we can do islike you just have to accept
that you're going to have a year.
One of those years from 10 to14 is going to be a building
year, it's going to be a gapyear, it's going to be not the
most competitive.
Like you can still do meets,you can still compete, but like
the expectations of like movingup in level, getting a new skill
, getting all these things tofall into place where you just
like have a really great year,it's probably not going to
(15:33):
happen.
You know it's just like youmight have an absolutely great.
You know you're 10 years old,you cook it, you're 11 years,
you move up a level, you crush.
It takes another three years ateight, three years at nine,
because you're like you're goingthrough the waves of like
getting a skill, your wrist kindof flares up.
You have to back off, you getback into it, then your back
(15:53):
kind of sore, like you just gothrough this thing of growing
and you just know that one ofthose years is probably going to
be just business as usual.
Nothing electric happens.
And then the opposite is true,which is that you're probably
going to have, after that's alldone, one year where you just
like, literally are shot out ofa cannon.
You get three new skills, youhave a great competition season.
(16:14):
You make it to Easterns orWesterns like out of the blue,
like Holy hell.
I can't believe like she hadsuch a great year.
It's because we, we got themthrough the storm of growth
without accumulating a growthplate thing, without
accumulating a back problem,without accumulating a back
problem, without accumulating awrist thing that's now nagging
them all the time.
So they're going to kind oflike it's like I always
analogize it with patients likeyou're pulling the, the, the
slingshot, back right.
You're just like for a yearyou're slowly winding back up
the slingshot and when theyfinally are post-puberty, you
(16:36):
can let go and get rocketed upto whatever you want to do.
So it's just that you you haveto accept that it's happening.
And if you have a lot ofexperience with people going
through this, you have to kindof have in your in your head a
set of things you're going to door modify or change to make
sure they get through it safely.
And if you're a brand new coachor someone who's younger and
you haven't had a bunch of yearsof generation, you lean on
(16:56):
people who are 10, 23, 30 yeargangsters who have had 40 girls
go through cycles of collegesand ask their advice about like,
what do you do?
Do you change drills, how doyou change their meet schedule,
and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
What general advice, knowing that they're at higher
risk of injury during this phase?
If you're noticing that withyour athlete or in your coaching
.
What recommendations generallywould you change as far as like
a training principle?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah for sure I think .
Um, the best things I think youcan do is, generally, when you
approach training, I would saymy rule of thumb is like 30% of
your, 33% of your time is onbasics, 30% is on skills and 30%
on strength conditioning.
I think you shift that to like70, 30.
So 70% of your time should be,uh, basics, drills, flexibility,
um, softer surfaces, crosstraining, like it should be.
(17:43):
The majority of your timeshould not be based on hard new
skills, on hard or hard landingsor hard impacts.
You know that should happen fewand far between.
So trying to shift your focusinto more development mode of
like you know the meets arethere and we want to get ready
for meets.
But if we get two weeks beforea meet and we're really
struggling with skills, aren'tconnecting because you know I
(18:04):
got arms or legs are longer orsomething sore, like we're just
going to, we're going to scratch.
You know like maybe youintentionally don't book as many
meets that year.
So say you do eight meets ayear, but you know, in the
summer this girl starts to growlike a weed right, or this guy
in preseason is like reallygoing through it.
Maybe you talk to their parentsand you say like, yeah, we're
going to do four meets this year.
We'll do four meets.
We make the regionals cool, ifyou know.
(18:24):
We make the nationals cool, butwe're not expecting you to do
eight full meets and stageregionals, nationals and have
this like electric gear.
So maybe you pull off a fewmeets, you don't do the travel
meet, or you just do the travelmeet.
You don't do those two homemeets as well.
So you're still involved in thecompetition season.
You have stuff going on, butyou're not really like in a
dense competition season.
Softer surfaces, I think, arevery important.
Most of your time is on tumbletrack, tramp um math, that are
(18:47):
there sting mats, um going toresi pits, stuff like that.
Um, definitely per.
Our last episode is trying tohave a skill cap on like seven
per day.
So seven dismounts per day,seven tumbling passes per day,
so that we don't have this likeopen ended um you know
infinitely number higher ofrepetitions in a couple hour
practice.
Um, and I think honestly thishas been something that
(19:08):
thankfully, has become more andmore popular.
But this is the best time tostart somebody in a cross
training kind of GPP program.
So our, our approach is that at12 years old, most people.
At 10 years old you can startdabbling with like teaching
people how to cross train alittle bit, but you're not
loading people at 12.
The research is pretty clearthat 12 years old, you're not
going to stunt someone's growth,you're not going to hurt their
growth plates, like all thefears of injuries.
(19:29):
It's completely, you know, uh,written away.
Um, esteban Balier has likeextensive research on why weight
training is good for athleteswhen they're younger helps
strengthen their bones,strengthens their coordination.
Um, so doing some sort ofcross-training program is really
good.
So sometimes what will happenis people will get hurt, they'll
have growth plate flare up,they back off a little bit and
(19:50):
they have this like two monthwindow where they're not really
ready to compete but they're notreally in PT and we start them
on a two day or one day or twoday cross training program where
they'll come in on their offday and do a GPP program.
So it allows you to keepdeveloping athletic qualities,
keeping them strong, keepingthem kind of flexible, but not
putting a lot of hard sportbased impact on them.
So, um, yeah, a lot, of, a lotof that too, as well as trying
to get somebody started so thatby 14, um, it's fully part of
(20:13):
their program.
We have, like I said, 20, 20something, college and club
girls and guys that are trainingwith us to champion the summer,
two days a week throughout thewhole summer.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, I think there's a big misconception around,
like with growth plates,especially if you're loading
them like you're doing strengthtraining, you're loading them up
that it's going to cause likeincreased risk of injury to that
growth plate.
And I think, if you think aboutit in the reverse way, where
they're going through thisawkward phase, they're trying to
learn how to do things fromlike a neuromuscular control
standpoint, doing things whereyou're like basic functional
(20:42):
strength exercises, like a squatand a step up and a split squat
, like those things are greatways to help your brain learn
how to move your body.
Again, do you like a splitstance movement, how to like in
in safe ways which are muchsafer than them going through
the space where they don't knowhow to move their body and then
doing these skills that theydon't know how to do yet, like
they're doing upgrades and likelearning new skills.
And I I think when you thinkabout it from that standpoint,
(21:04):
like the skill difficulty, it'sgoing to be much safer and less
difficult for them to do afunctional strength program with
a progression versus doingreally difficult skills they
don't know how to do yet whenthey, even if they know how to
do the skills, like they'reagain like if you've got a leg
that's longer than it used to beand you're trying to learn how
to move that leg again.
Is it really safe for them tobe doing like aerials or big
(21:26):
flips in the air like on hardsurfaces from like other things
that you've?
I know you've talked a lotabout with the ground?
Reaction forces are so muchhigher when you're doing skills
and when you're doing like asquat with a 20 pound kettlebell
.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's.
There's always two approaches.
Here I think most people fallinto the category of like a
little bit of education goes along way.
So always two approaches.
Here I think most people fallinto the category of like a
little bit of education goes along way.
So this paper is phenomenal.
Um Esteban Balier and then LloydOliver, I want to say, are two
of the more like pronouncedresearchers.
They've written multiplearticles and textbooks around
dispelling the myths of youthweightlifting and why it's
important.
And it kind of like goesthrough all the research and the
(22:00):
fact of saying like it's notgoing to hurt your growth plates
, it's not going to stunt yourgrowth, it's not going to cause
injuries.
So like there's the rational,logical, scientific approach
which is like, yeah, I totallyunderstand mainstream media,
maybe social media throws it offas like if you, if you squatted
up with a 12 year old, you'regoing to hurt their growth
plates or whatever.
But it's been more or lesscompletely debunked over the
last like five to 10 years,pretty substantially.
(22:20):
But then there's the other sideof it.
It's just this is like a littlebit of example that she said.
But she's like okay, let's likelogically think through this
thought process.
So the forces of gymnastics are15 times body weight relative to
the athlete.
So if you're a 10 year old girldoing layouts, it's still 10 to
15 times your body weight,versus an elite doing a double
double on floor, right?
So that is known.
That's like pretty hard sciencethat we have.
So you can't say that, okay,it's okay for someone to do 15
(22:45):
layouts and double backs onfloor at 15 times their body
weight, but it's unsafe to do agoblet squat with 20 pounds,
right?
Because a 20 pound goblet squatis one 50th of the force of a
double back.
So the point is that we usegoblet squats, we use cross
training to build more strength,to absorb landings better and
spare forces off the growthplate, right?
So it's very hypocritical tosay that squatting is bad for
(23:09):
your knees but doing the doubleback is okay, right, like.
And if that was the case too,if it was like I always joke
around people like okay, if theforce of a goblet squat was
enough to damage your growthplates, your legs would explode.
When you did a layout, right,like, you would turn to dust,
because there's no way thatmakes sense rationally that it's
okay.
So you, you use squatting andcross training as a way to to
(23:29):
maintain workload and strengthensomebody, to prepare them
against the high forces ofskills, but also if somebody is
making the claim that this isdangerous, well, that is not.
It's so hypocritical betweenthose two things.
And almost always it's aboutexercise selection and technique
.
It's about like yes, some girlshave ankle mobility that
doesn't support a good squat tofull depth.
Like, do you have to squat allthe way down and touch your butt
(23:51):
to a low beam, just box squatright To a a a resi mat, with
your ankles and your heelsslightly elevated, because maybe
their calves are stiff, becausethey're growing a lot?
Like, or just do a step up or asplit squat exercise.
There's a, I think, becausethere's a little bit of a gap in
knowledge around.
Like, strength conditioning isa full-time profession of a
doctorate level, so if coachesfeel as though they don't have
enough information to properlystrength train people and
(24:13):
program people, they worry.
Like, oh, that's something thatI should be good at.
I'm a coach, I've beenprogramming for years.
Why is this person going totell me how to do things
differently?
And I think that that's whereyou kind of fall off the wagon.
So, yeah, it's, it's.
There's the research approach,there's the rationale approach
and then there's like the thelack of knowledge approach that
all three of those things can beeasily amended.
But the two years it'softentimes a year and a half of
(24:33):
this like starting to grow,going through puberty, getting
on the other side of it and kindof like normalizing that like
18 month period, can be used asa massive benefit If you treat
it with the approach of we cancross train here, we can clean
these basics up, we can work onall your technique.
There's so much stuff that wecan improve upon so that when
you do get to be 14, 15 yearsold, you're not only stronger,
(24:53):
more powerful and more flexible,you also have a just absolute,
you know monster closet full ofbetter technique that you're
going to use for all theseskills.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, and I really liked that from the it went.
Once you get like further downin the article, it starts
talking about a lot of the likeperformance benefits that you
get with the strength training,especially once you start like
if you started at a younger ageand you worked your way up it
(25:22):
starts to.
I think I put that quote inthere.
Um like eight to 12 years oftraining is necessary for a
gifted athlete to reach elitelevels.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yep.
I really was going to um.
I forgot that.
Sorry if I had the audio in thebackground, but we actually did
a really popular episode withum Ellen Casey, and can I full
screen this?
Yeah, so me and Nick and Ellen.
This uh is called how tonavigate puberty and gymnastics
with Ellen Casey and NickRuddock.
(25:51):
So this was like me.
So Ellen is the women's teamphysician for team USA, along
with Marcia, and then Nick isobviously Nick.
He's like a prolific uhinternationally gymnastics coach
who's coached hundreds ofpeople through the elite level
and whatever.
So Ellen works with you knownational team people and very
elite high-level people and kindof helps them there, and then
Nick obviously is coaching.
So the three of us essentiallyfor an hour and a half just chop
(26:13):
it up on like what do you dowith people who are 10 to 15
years old, who are going throughthese growth periods?
Like what's the best approach?
Nick talks about it from like anin the trenches skill level of,
like drills and skills and likehow we change training, how we
change the things and a lot ofthings that I talk about in this
podcast are things I've learnedfrom Nick.
And then Ellen talks more aboutlike what is growth, what is
happening, the medical stuff,and then what are we doing on
(26:33):
the, on the um overall healthperiod, but then in her subset
of specialty, like femaleathlete health and that kind of
stuff.
So this is probably like, ifyou have any questions at all,
you want more information.
This is like probably your,your next thing, you want to
listen to.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, I really liked this, the portions where they
kind of started talking abouthow starting strength training
when you're younger so you canstart to learn like those
foundational strength trainingmethods and then working your
way up to being able to get tothe point where you're, you know
, 8 to 12 years down the lineand you're like elite career
level life that you can start todo those higher level strength
training things that will helpyou improve your performance
(27:07):
down the line, rather thanwaiting until you're I don't
know 16, 18 or even in collegeto start working on actually
knowing how to like lift andstrength train and then using
that not that it wouldn't stillsupplement and help you perform
better.
But if you started younger andlearned how to like strength
train from a foundational leveland got to the point where
you're in that elite level likethe, there's just only an upward
(27:30):
progression from there.
It's only going to help youimprove your performance at that
elite level.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
A hundred percent and my number one go-to like
cheerleader style thing let mesee if I can feel it I think
it's Ellie.
Ellie Black and Scott Wilgrisare like the best example of I
can't find it right now, sorry,but they're like the best
example of like why right?
So Ellie, if you look atellie's instagram, she's working
out in cross training everysingle day and her coach, dave,
(27:55):
and I have talked on a podcastand like on a symposium about
like, why they do that, how theystarted that.
But ellie started her crosstraining type stuff when she was
16 with scott wilgris, who'sher strength coach at um csc I
think it is in canada, thenational team institute but they
started working together at 16.
She's done five o five Olympiccycles and she's lifted from 26
or, sorry, from 16 to I don'tknow how old she is now, but
(28:16):
five full Olympic cycles worthof cross training and she's like
the textbook example of like.
Wow, it's beneficial, she's sopowerful, she's so strong, she's
got longevity, she's gonethrough so many injury cycles,
but like she is like the pivotalexample and I know that like um
the Downies, becky and Ellieboth strength trained quite a
bit, like so many people do,cross training, strength
training at the elite level.
Every college program I consultwith um cross trains in the
(28:38):
summer, lifts in the summer,does everything and then in
season does a power program.
That's cross training with astrength coach.
And the vast majority of clubsNow that I work with either have
some sort of supplementary workor come to a place like
champion and do it.
So it's the best possible thingyou can do um at the age of
like 10 to 14 to start them onthat.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I think.
And then if you've got it setup, then when they get to that
point we're in there, they're intheir awkward phase, like going
through puberty then that wouldbe an easy thing to just be
like okay, we're going to likeshift back to some of these
programs.
You already know how to do it.
(29:18):
It see how, if you weretracking it with your whole team
and then it already had been aneducation point with coaches
and the parents and the and thekids that, like this will happen
and when your time comes, thenthis is how we're going to shift
things.
I think that's a lot easier tocreate buy-in versus like if you
were just you got to this pointand you're not hitting anything
, and then all of a suddenyou're like, oh well, you're
just growing, so let's just like, take you out of needs and like
yeah, you got to some of thispractice stuff and we'll just do
(29:39):
this, but like that ambiguitycan get really tough to get
buy-in.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah, yeah, and just make it a normal thing, right.
Hopefully your coaching staffis on board to make it a normal
thing.
That by you know, 10 years old,you're probably doing some sort
of like squatting and you'reconditioning and you're learning
the basics by 12.
You're starting to do a bit ofit in your gym anyways, and then
whenever the time comes thatyou're going to have that year,
that's kind of tougher it's verynormal to go to a facility.
So like locally, to like beyondgymnastics, which Justin now
owns, my friend.
(30:05):
He has a bunch of girls thatcome on Wednesdays and reason
you can be late to practice isif you're at, you know, champion
lifting or doing PT, likethat's acceptable.
You're not on the beachsomewhere.
But he knows that a lot of thegirls in that window and that
age group are probably not goingto tolerate tons and tons of
reps because they're goingthrough it metaphorically and
physically and that the bestthing they can do is have one
day during the week where maybeit's a little less gymnastics
(30:26):
and a little more cross trainingthan they come on Saturday, you
know, when they're on their offday.
So, um, yeah, I think when younormalize it and not make it a
reactionary negative, but it's aproactive positive.
Um, it's really.
It's really a good thing forthe entire culture.
Yeah, and it's fun.
It's fun to get out of the gymand go do other stuff and hang
(30:46):
out like a bunch of peoplecompete and train together and
it's, it's a vibe, you know it's.
It's a gym, you know, that hasit inside of it.
They just work with it nonstop.
So like that's cool too, go anddo it.
But most people don't havethose resources.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I think it's really rewarding to do hard
things with, like, lifting heavyweights.
It feels cool, like sometimes,than just doing some gymnastic
skills, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, dude, and coaches, get off your b pretty
good.
Any other last minute thoughts?
No, dig it.
Okay.
So we'll be back in anothermonth with some new ones, but
these will go out, and thenwe're trying our best to get a
couple guests lined up on thepodcast too for some of the
future ones.
So I think Duash was dope tohave on, but maybe we'll get Len
down here and talk about newstuff for some of the people.
So if people have suggestionsof things, that topics they're
(31:32):
they're interested in or thingsthey want us to cover, I'm
totally open to absorbing someof the fan feedback.
Um, leave comments on Spotify,which now has video, by the way
and then also, um, you can uh,email myself or Leo or DM on
Instagram office and we'll chopthem down the list.
But so far, so good.
Cool, Alrighty, enjoy yourweekend, everybody.
Bye.
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