SPORTSPERFORMANCE BULLETIN

Welcome to this week's Sports Performance Bulletin. In this packed issue, Brian Mackenzie and his team of experts look at working with young athletes. We tell you how to nurture their talents and turn them into medal winners - maybe even the stars of tomorrow. Successful Coaching is not only for coaches. For example, this special issue is full of excellent advice for anyone with a talented young athlete in the family.
Coaching Young Athletes

In this issue, we look at:
# Profile of a young athlete
# Encouragement and support is the key
# Aerobic and anaerobic development
# Resistance Training
# Endurance Training
# Gaining the winning edge

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Profile of a Young Athlete

Young athletes are physically developing, from early childhood to late adolescence. This means they have different capabilities for, and adaptations to, exercise and for this reason, young athlete training programs should not be just scaled down versions of adult training programs.

The fastest rate of growth occurs in the first two years, the growth rate then slows until the adolescent spurt when the growth rate increases again. The adolescent spurt last approximately two years and takes place, on average, at 10 to 12 years for girls and 12 to 14 for boys. Growth rate then decreases until full height is reached.

Muscle mass increases steadily until puberty, at which point boys show faster muscle growth.

The hormonal changes at puberty also affect body composition in terms of fat.

# At birth, both boys and girls have around 10 to 12% body fat
# Pre-puberty, both girls and boys still have a similar 16 to 18% body fat
# Post-puberty, girls have around 25% body fat due to high serum oestrogen, which causes the hips to widen and extra fat to be stored in the same area.
# Post-puberty, boys have 12 to 14% body fat

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Encouragement and support without pressure is the key

The key to successful Coaching of young athletes, whether by parents or professionals is to tackle each phase of development differently, according to its context. We would all like our children to be Olympic champions and the worst thing you can do is pressurise your children with your own dream of glory and then blame them for not realising it.

At each stage in life the developing boy and girl have their own reasons for getting involved in sport. It may be a desire for approval, or a wish to make a mark in his or her peer group. More likely, it comes from discovering an aptitude for the sport, which brings a modicum of success. We all need to find things we can do well. Self-esteem feeds on achievement, and sport at club level is an excellent way of doling out spoonfuls of achievement on a regular basis.

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Aerobic and anaerobic development

Cardio-respiratory function develops throughout childhood. Lung volume and peak- flow rates steadily increase until full growth. For example, maximum ventilation increases from 40 L/min at five years to more than 110 L/min as an adult (Wilmore & Costill, 1994). This means that children have higher respiratory rates than adults, 60 breaths/min compared to 40 breaths/min for the equivalent level of exercise (Sharp, 1995). The ventilatory equivalent for oxygen is also higher in children, VE/V02 = 40 for an eight-year-old compared to 28 for an 18 year-old. This means that children have inferior pulmonary functions to adults.

Cardiovascular function is also different for children. They have a smaller heart chamber and lower volume than adults. This results in a lower stroke volume than adults, both at rest and during exercise. Chamber size and blood volume gradually increase to adult values with growth. Children compensate for the smaller stroke volume by having higher maximal heart rates than adults have. For a mid-teenager, max heart rate could be more than 215 beats/min compared to a 20 year-old whose max heart rate will be around 195-200 bpm (Sharp, 1995).

However, the higher heart rates cannot fully compensate for the lower stroke volume and so children's cardiac output, measured in L/min, is lower than adults (Wilmore & Costill 1994). Children can compensate a little again, as their arterial venous oxygen difference is greater. This suggests that a greater percentage of the cardiac output goes to the working muscles than in adults (Wilmore & Costill, 1994).
Resistance training

Mention the words "resistance training" and, "children" in the same sentence and most people will start giving you funny looks. To say the subject is controversial is an understatement [5,16]. This is hardly surprising when you consider that until recently the benefits of resistance training to athletic performance have largely been dismissed in the UK. Only now are coaches, athletes and the general public beginning to realise that 'pumping iron' can not only transform your physical appearance but can also improve your health and sporting performance [1,7, 9,14].

Is it too little too late? At what age can we start to introduce our young stars to resistance training? For the purposes of this article I am talking about children from the age of 11 and up and it is precisely this age group which many of the world's most successful sporting nations are introducing to resistance training during school training programmes.

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Endurance Training

The science of developmental physiology can supply answers to certain important questions regarding the training of children. One such question is: should children perform adult-type endurance training in reduced quantities, or should they be performing a different type of training that is tailored to their physiology?

Science suggests the latter is true and that the type and intensity of training that is most effective for developing endurance in the young will be different from that used by adults. The average adult model for endurance training involves an intensity of 75% of max heart rate maintained for 20 to 30 minutes. If this is performed 3 to 5 times a week, then the average adult can expect a 25% improvement in VO2max. Both an increase in stroke volume and an improvement in O2 respiration and metabolism in the working muscles due to increased capillaries, mitochondria and enzyme activity cause this improvement in fitness.

Several training studies have been carried out on children to find out what effect a cardiovascular (CV) training programme will have on fitness levels. In general, the research shows that if children follow a 3 to 5 times a week routine of at least 20 minutes continuous activity for 12 weeks, then improvements in VO2max of 7 to 26% is possible. On average, though, and the results of some of the better-controlled experiments support this, a child can expect a 10% improvement in VO2max after following an 'adult-like' CV training programme. The consensus from the research is that children can improve their aerobic fitness but not to the same degree as adults, when following a similar training programme.

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