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Learn Why the Athlete Profile is so important for a competitive athlete

The Young Athlete Profile

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In The Athlete Profile Podcast, you will understand how to improve and optimize athletic performance. Boost your sport-specific skills!

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This is an extremely important topic and one that I’m asked about every day.

Every young athlete wants to know:

How to optimize his or her own Peak athletic performance

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If we look at each aspect of an athlete’s profile, your young athlete can optimize his or her performance and enjoy the season, while reducing the risk of injury!

The areas to optimize Peak athletic performance are:

Flexibility and Strength Assessment

Let’s get right into the first topic, which is assessing or measuring one’s flexibility and strength. It’s important to look at each specific sport and then look at the position that the athlete plays. Each sport will dictate where the athlete needs to be most flexible. Let’s take for example a baseball or a softball catcher. They need to have the most flexibility in the hamstrings and the quadriceps. A pitcher needs to have an excellent internal and external rotation range of motion, while a tennis player needs to have excellent upper and lower body range of motion. In sports such as soccer or basketball, generally, the quadriceps should be about one and a half times stronger than the hamstrings. Some injuries are caused by muscle imbalances.

Injury Assessment

Let’s look at one’s injuries that occurred in the past year. How many injuries were there, and if so, what was the nature of the acute injury. Was it an ankle sprain? Many acute injuries can be prevented, and many are overuse injuries such as; tendonitis, patellar tendonitis, or stress fractures. These typically are from overtraining with inadequate rest. After looking at the injuries that occurred in the prior-year, we can then make recommendations on how to prevent these injuries from reoccurring.

Strength and Conditioning

I look at strengthening and conditioning in three areas:

Aerobic fitness- the ability to run 20 to 30 minutes continuously
Flexibility- which measures an athlete’s overall strength
Peak strength and muscular endurance

In sports such as soccer, tennis, or volleyball, muscular endurance typically is more important than peak strength, while Olympic weightlifting requires other strength and conditioning parameters.

We will need to know such things as; how many times per week is an athlete is running, are they doing high-intensity interval running, or are they doing a continuous running program. We also need to look at the strength training program that an athlete is currently doing, and will look for ways to improve upon this. We can then tailor a specific program tailored to each athlete’s specific sport, and their personal physical exam.

Nutrition

Sports Nutrition is often overlooked. Know what an athlete eats before, during, and after a competition. For example, an athlete may play in three soccer games for 6 or 8 hours at a showcase, and there is no plan for nutrition and hydration. Typically a pregame meal should be consumed 1 to 2 hours prior to playing and this should be a relatively low-calorie meal at about 800 calories. It may include protein, carbohydrates, and should also be low in fat. Fat is hard to digest. The postgame meal should be consumed 1 hour after exercise, or after training. This is to replenish the glycogen stores or the energy in the muscles. Many athletes have experienced muscles that feel like jelly after a post-workout. This is because they had inadequate calories stored in their muscles.

Have your young athlete be prepared with adequate food during, and after a competition. Some suggestions for pregame and pre-training on 800 calories, would be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or yogurt with fruit. This is assuming the athlete is not allergic to peanuts and nuts. Find what will work for your child.

Hydration

Many young athletes do not have an advanced thirst mechanism like an adult. So if your young athlete tells you that he or she is thirsty that usually means they are dehydrated early on. One recommendation is to have the young athlete drink 8 to 12 oz of fluids, preferably water or a sports drink, 10 to 15 minutes prior to exercise. They should be drinking 8 to 12 oz of fluids of water or sports drink per hour of exercise.

Mental Strength or Sports Psychology

How to optimize the young Athlete Performance is through mental strength. Have you ever lost in a third-set tiebreaker in tennis, have you ever struck out with the bases loaded, have you ever missed the winning goal in soccer? These are all aspects of sports psychology. Ask your young athlete: how confident are they in their skills and how confident are they going into their practice. Learn how to deal with adversity. What if there’s a called third strike, what if you’re pitching and the umpire is calling balls and you thought they were strikes, what if you’re playing basketball and you are not getting the ball. These are all scenarios that have to be optimized. Have a plan before one goes out to play.

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