#38: Gill1918 presents Niko Karavolos "Long Term Athlete Development"

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
coaches, for coaches powered by Gill Athletics.
Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
you grow as a coach. We'll bring in the once a year
track clinic straight to your ears daily.
Interested in creating your own episode?
Everyone's welcome to participate.

(00:21):
Check out the show notes below For more information.
Now let's get into today's topic.
Welcome to the Guild 19. 18 Podcast.
My name is Nico Caravolos. I'm a strength conditioning
coach and track and field coach at York High School and I own a
facility called. Ignite Fitness and.
Performance in Elmhurst, IL and I'm here to discuss long term

(00:45):
athlete development, what it is,why it matters, and how we can
collectively do better. If you're a coach, or a parent
or anyone involved in shaping young athletes, this
conversation is when you all need to have.
I want to start with a clear, clear eyed look at the current

(01:06):
state of youth sports. Too often we see young athletes
pushed into early specialization, exposed to
excessive training loads and evaluated by short term outcomes
like wins, stats, trophies rather than the long term
potential. The result of all this ends up

(01:27):
being kids that have overuse injuries, injuries that that are
more mature injuries than a thana kid should have.
And a lot of times it ends up being where they have burnout by
the time they come to the, you know, late adolescence, high
school age. And that, you know, it's, it's

(01:51):
a, it's a problem in the sense that we want to ensure that kids
are enjoying these, the exploration period of sports in
that really early stage of learning sports, the structure
of it can become highly pressured into being 1 certain

(02:14):
way. And we lose that aspect of, of
play and exploration. And when we get to high school,
we have really rigid athletes that don't necessarily or can't
necessarily adapt to new circumstances, new coaches, new
training styles and training methods.

(02:35):
So as we like move beyond this model, youth sports shouldn't
mimic professional systems. They should build foundations
for long term performance, health and you know, the
emotional and and mental side of, of life in general.
This is where if we start to, tofocus on the long term

(02:59):
development of an athlete, we start to build a framework
that's a little bit more progressive, it's a little bit
more age appropriate and starts to stimulate the natural
creativity that kids want to express and they and they want
to find in their sports. So it's not about, to me, this

(03:24):
is not about slowing kids down, but it's giving them an
opportunity to have the right stimulus at the right time.
And there are, you know, a few, a few keys that I like to look
at and that's the windows of, oftrainability during the
developmental periods when the body is especially responsive
training speed, coordination, strength, endurance, long term

(03:48):
development capitalizes on thesewindows to build better, more
resilient to athletes over time.I mean, essentially it's it's
not about when we train, but about what we train and why
versus the when. And how?

(04:08):
There are three core principles that guide, I, I think that
guide a long term, effective long term development program.
The 1st is, is movement before loading, making sure that kids
are able to handle movements properly.
So that isn't just what we thinkof traditional loading barbells

(04:32):
and and you know, medicine ballsand whatnot, but it's also speed
based loading as well. If we don't have the necessary
movement competency in a lot of these patterns, running
mechanics, sprinting mechanics, jumping, landing, then we start

(04:53):
to add on intensity before kids are able to understand the
concepts themselves. And now this is where we could
get into the into the kind of the weeds about, Oh well, what
is Sprint mechanics and, and what are necessary landing
mechanics. And this is where the creativity

(05:14):
piece is, is being lost. We're getting stuck thinking
that we have to look like elite sprinters when a 10 year old kid
is not an elite sprinter and most likely won't be because
they're playing soccer, they're playing basketball, they're
playing volleyball. The idea is that we want to give
them variety, options and choices to be able to explore

(05:37):
those movements and push towardsa model that allows for more
effective movement within their personal experience and and how
their body develops over time. The next would be the the
diversity of athletic experiences.
And this coincides with what what we just talked about the
movement capacities is that early specialization in sports

(06:02):
limits the athletic potential because we lose the exploration
period, we lose the learning of something new and the
understanding of how to learn. And then the exposure to
multiple sports and, and, and movement disciplines always
develop, develops a cross path, you know, the ability to learn

(06:24):
different sports, but using the same tools of, of those skills
like learning how to hand eye coordination, handful
coordination, body awareness, the general coordinate athletic
coordination that playing multiple sports allows.
When we look at, you know, high level high school performers,

(06:45):
college performers and, and at the professional level, all of
these people were allowed to play multiple sports and be
creative. The outliers are the ones that
played that one sport for their entire lives.
And it doesn't mean that you didn't play structured.
A lot of these a lot of these athletes would go and just play

(07:08):
sports. They'd go to the park and they
would enjoy playing sports. Simple.
The last one is the character that you're developing over the
outcome that you're seeking. Our job is not to provide and
just produce athletes. It's to mentor kids using sport

(07:30):
as a tool or as a vehicle for teaching, discipline and
accountability, teamwork, resilience, understanding that
the process is the thing that weshould be focused on.
The outcome always isn't in our control.
I coach track and field and it'svery difficult to to not focus

(07:51):
on, oh, did you win the race or not?
In every race, there's only one winner.
And usually in every race there's 8:00 to 11:50 to 15
people running that race in one heat, one section of a race.
But if we focus on the process and how we get there, and then
we focus on the execution of that process, then we start to

(08:15):
focus on building the understanding of how do I get to
my goal? How do I learn to get to that
goal? What are the steps I need to
take to get there? So this helps to develop
athletes for the future. So to the coaches out.

(08:35):
There our. Job is to prepare athletes for
the next steps, not to always peak them.
You have to prioritize development over domination.
It's the prioritization of the the future, not the here or now.
Your six week camp that's going to get a kid to increase his

(08:57):
vertical by 6 to 8 inches is notin the best interest of a kid.
There are few opportunities or few instances.
Maybe they're training for a combine that would would get
them to another level, but that's very rare.
That's on the higher level of ofthe youth development.

(09:19):
That's usually not in the, you know, grade school, middle
school, high school range. So we should be focused on
teaching parents and kids that it's about what's going to
happen your senior year of high school, not what's going to
happen your freshman year or what's going to happen this
summer between your freshman andsophomore year.
Long term development. It's a it's a commitment.

(09:43):
It's a commitment that you're, you want to help and ensure that
the kids reach their maximum potential.
Teaching them the tools and giving them the tools necessary
that it's a, it's a, it's a essentially a practice in
patience. The process is doing the the

(10:06):
basics really well. Learning that day in and day
out, consistency and having discipline to do those things is
what's going to help develop thechild mentally and emotionally.
And then physically. It's giving them the
opportunities to be creative, not just structured into one
particular type of training. So I want to close in, in saying

(10:30):
that we're we're living in a world where marketing, social
media, all of this stuff is getting kids into programs that
not necessarily are going to be best for them.
To the parents out there, do your research, ask the
appropriate questions, Make surethat you're you understand what

(10:53):
the purpose of the program that you're putting your child into
is. Is it to, is it to drive
outcomes? Is it to develop play?
Is it to allow kids creativity? Is it to allow or is it a highly
competitive thing? Is your is your child ready for
that mentally and emotionally, not only physically?

(11:14):
So ask the questions to the coaches out there.
You should really look at the long term development of the
athlete because when you focus on the athletes long term
development, then you're lookingat the success for yourself in
the long term as well. We can get kids to jump higher
and run faster in a short periodof time, but is that the thing

(11:36):
that's going to keep them motivated to continue to do the
thing that they want to do? I appreciate you guys taking the
time to listen to this. If you guys are interested in
being a part of any of the programs that we run here at
Ignite Fitness in Elmhurst, feelfree to reach out.

(11:57):
Again, my name, my contact info is N Caravolos.
At gmail.com or you can reach out on any of our social media
platforms. Instagram is Ignite double under
score performance and on Twitter, just speak what

(12:19):
Caravolos or coach Caravolos andreach out to Ms. and I
appreciate you guys. Thanks.
Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
amounts of value and I hope thisone hit the mark.

(12:42):
The Guild 1918 Project is reallydependent on you if for you to
build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
there. So please get a hold of me,
e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
and let's help create your episode of the Guild 1918

(13:04):
Project. Hope you enjoy today, they will
see you tomorrow.