A guide to Strength & Conditioning for Youth Athletes

However, when the UK is compared to other parts of the world, we’re behind and a lot more that can be done for our young athletes. Not only to develop fundamental physical qualities and movement literacy, but also education on the importance of strength and conditioning training across athletes, coaches, teachers and parents. This will lead to improved performance on the pitch and healthier junior athletes with decreased injury risk.

An example of failings in the UK is that one of the main issues faced by youth athletes currently is the staggeringly high rate of major injuries, mainly ACL ruptures compared to 20-25 years ago in the 1900s (Sky Sports News, 2023). This has been seen across both male and female youth athletes in addition to being present across numerous sports (football, rugby, basketball). These types of injuries can have major physical and psychological effects on young athletes with them often needing operations and long rehabilitation periods before returning to play the sport they love, up to 12 months later.

So even with this increased demand in youth S&C, why is the injury rate in our youth athletes the highest it's ever been? There are numerous reasons but from a strength & conditioning standpoint the main reasons would include:

1. A lack of knowledge education for lower-level coaches, PE teachers, parents and athletes themselves
2. A lack of resources and time given for adequate S&C training
3. No long-term athletic development plan in place for youth athletes.

In this article, we aim to help you with reason 1, giving you education around myths on youth S&C training, growth & maturation, injury rate in youth athletes and more.

Youth Athlete Strength & Conditioning Myths

There’s an age-old myth that S&C and strength training in particular is ‘high risk’ and isn’t safe for youth athletes and causes negative effects such as stunting growth and increased risk of injury (Duhig, 2013; Granacher et al., 2016). However, there is an abundance of research that refutes these claims with it being established for years by several national associations that strength training is a safe and positive mode of training for youth populations (Behm et al., 2008; Lloyd et al., 2014).

A review of literature on this subject shows numerous positive effects strength training can have on youth athletes which include (Duhig, 2013):

• Improving cardiovascular risk profile
• Facilitate weight control
• Strengthen bones
• Promote and develop positive training habits
• Improve muscular strength and power
• Improve motor skills
• Increase resistance to sports-related injuries

However, it should be noted that strength training for youth athletes should be supervised under an experienced coach with a structured plan which takes into consideration athletes age, sex, training history, sport, training schedule and injury history. If not planned and coached properly this could lead to injury as it would with adults.

Growth & Maturation

Growth and maturation refers to the process a child goes through as they mature through adolescents through to adulthood. It is crucial for coaches and parents who lead youth athletes training to understand this process, how to measure it, the effects it may have on their athletes and how their training should be managed to prevent injury and get the most out of their training.

Peak height velocity (PHV) is known as the period in maturation where an individual experiences an accelerated level of growth. Females typically experience this earlier than males around 11-13 years old, whereas males typically experience this around 13-15 years old, as seen in the diagram below (Rogol et al., 2000):

Aside from females experiencing PHV earlier than males there are some key hormonal differences between males and females. When males go through puberty, they have increased levels of testosterone which facilitates growth and  increased muscle mass. This leads to greater strength gains which is a key factor in performance, speed, power and change of direction and injury prevention leading to better performance on the field (Rogol et al., 2000).

In contrast, females experience an increase in female specific hormones such as oestrogen. This leads to increased body fat which is disadvantageous for athletic performance. This is also associated with widening of the hips and onset of menstrual cycle, associated with increased ACL injury risk. Click here to read more about female specific S&C and how the menstrual cycle affects female athletes.

Research shows males’ increase in relative strength, speed and power during and post maturation evidenced by higher jump heights and landing forces (Balyi & Hamilton, 2004). In contrast women experience a decrease in relative strength, and ability to produce force quickly which is important for sprinting, jumping and change of direction. This is down to the factors of maturation such as increased body fat, and changes of movement patterns with a rapidly changing body (Balyi & Hamilton, 2004).

A rapidly changing body leads to increased instability and compromised mechanics when running, twisting and turning as they get used to their changing bodies which may lead to injuries if not managed properly. Measuring PHV can be done with some simple information and 3 measurements which include standing height, sitting height and weight. It is recommended that you do this 2-3 times per year.

Injury Rates in Youth Athletes

It has been reported that children now are experiencing more and more major knee injuries, mainly ACL ruptures than ever before. This has been labelled as a ‘teenage crisis’ with multiple surgeons and sports medicine professionals reporting that the amount of ACL injuries in youth populations has gone up 29-fold compared to the late 90’s (Sky Sports News, 2023).

With major injuries like these comes negative physical and psychological effects with operation and lengthy rehabilitation periods. For example, a standard ACL injury can take 9 months before being able  to return to play the sport they love if everything goes well.

The first question you have to ask is why in the modern day are youth athletes experiencing major injuries more than ever before? There are multiple reasons that have been given for this such as children not being as active nowadays. With new technology and gaming systems, children are inside more looking at screens and are more sedentary than previous generations. When they are then thrown into organised sports in school and clubs, they then get injured as they haven’t developed the physical skills that would be naturally developed if they were being more active.

From a S&C view there is also a massive knowledge gap and lack of education, especially at the grassroots level with coaches, parents and players around S&C and injury prevention. This even includes basics such as structured warm-ups which can help significantly reduce major injury. This could also be due to a lack of resources, limited time with players and funding to put this together.

Whereas other nations have implemented and provide injury prevention and warm-up programs for youth athletes, the UK seems to be a bit behind (Sky Sports News, 2023). A well structured warm-up for the first 15-20 mins prior to training or matches can decrease the risk of major injury by 50-70% (Sky Sports News, 2023). This can be something simple through following the RAMP warm-up protocol and can even be made fun and engaging for youth athletes through different types of warm-up games.

Youth S&C Recommendations

When working with youth athletes, the most important thing every coach and parent should do is accept that it’s a long-term process. Long-term athletic development (LTAD) refers to this process of consistent training of youth athletes from when they start right through adulthood. When a youth athlete first comes to the gym it is the start of what will hopefully be years of consistent training as they mature to adults and hopefully have a successful career in sport. So when looking at it like this it’s not about what you can achieve in the first couple months or even the first year but what you can build over multiple years, building a meaningful relationship and implementing habits and skills that will serve them their whole career to be the best they can physically.

Strength

It’s important to take a holistic approach when working with youth athletes, exposing them to a range of different movement patterns, in different planes of motion and at different speeds. Keep the focus on your main compound movements such as squat, hinge, lunge, step-up, push and pull; prioritising movement quality and technique overload. The best way to do this is being strict on tempo while maintaining good body positions (e.g., 3 sec eccentric, 1 sec pause, 1 sec concentric). With the focus on movement quality over load you want youth athletes to get plenty of reps meaning you will typically work at higher rep ranges of 8-12 reps with light loads which can gradually increase over time as they mature with perfect technique.

Power

The basics always work best with power training as it does with strength training. You want to expose athletes to producing power in different directions (vertical, horizontal, lateral & rotational), at different speeds (slow stretch & fast stretch), and both unilaterally and bilaterally (one side or both sides). With power you can also be a bit more creative and make it a bit more fun again engaging for youth athletes which maybe isn't possible with strength work. You can make fun plyometric circuits which include different jump height and directions with hurdles and boxes. You can also make it competitive by tracking distances and giving them targets to beat or in a group and team environment putting them against each other for who can jump higher, further and run fastest.

All these things drive intent which as we know for power is important that every rep is max effort with plenty of rest in between. This means it is also important to educate the athletes themselves, parents and coaches about this to ensure they can do it at home or in their team training effectively.

Movement skills

Speed and agility movement skills are probably the most neglected part of training missing from youth athletes and probably one of the most important. Generally, for any athlete regardless of age, being able to move around the field more effectively when sprinting and changing direction will naturally improve performance and reduce the risk of injury. When youth athletes go through PHV, it may cause issues in movement mechanics and co-ordination which leads to reduced stability and increased risk of injury. This makes it even more important that during this period maturing athletes work on their movement abilities to ensure they can decelerate, redirect and sprint efficiently and not pick up injuries.

Join the KPI Academy

We hope you found that helpful! At KPI, we are passionate about developing youth athletes and work with many in our KPI Academy. You can click here to learn more about the KPI academy and sign up.

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