I’m not very smart, but this math ain’t mathin’.
“Kids are playing more volume of sport than college & professional athletes.
And they’re (attempting) to do this without nearly the capacity of the advanced athlete.
Trying to shove 20 pounds of sh*t into a 5 pound bag is a bold strategy, Cotton.
Learn from who you want to be.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I am going to play the game for a second and (very) tentatively get on the “abundance of specificity for adolescents” train. (Just typing those words made my skin crawl, but I’m on the train.)
What is the overall objective?
It’s not about balance.
It’s not about development.
(People naively think) it’s about exposure and creating opportunities.
To sum it up, it’s about recruiting.
You can say it’s not and it’s about “love of the game” but if that were the case, they could play the childhood games they love within 20 miles of their homes and have a hell of a time doing it.
We’re going to all these games, showcases, and tournaments, because we think the Head Coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs baseball team is leaning on the fence at the 13U Mega Hyper Elite Select WORLD SERIES Regional.
But guess what?
He’s not there.
Nor are any members of his staff even in the same state that the “promised recruiters” are at.
They don’t care.
If they did care about your 13-year-old phenom, they’d already be (illegally) in talks with you at this point.
If they’re not, they don’t care about Timmy (yet or probably ever).
As I try to steer back to the point of the message, let’s focus on this “get to the next level” ideology.
If our goal is to get to the next level, would it not behoove us to behave like those who are already there?
To model our behaviors after the people we would one day like to emulate?
Do you know what the yearly calendar of the college athlete looks like?
It looks like 4 months/year of competition and 12 month/year of Performance Training.
So it’s a 3:1 ratio, Training to Sport.
And I mean actual training.
They are training THREE TIMES the amount they are playing.
This is important to note because you must account for the total volume of specific work when choosing your behavior.
We’re doing far too much sport and far too little general athletic preparation for sport.
If what we were doing were “best”, would those at the higher levels not be doing it?
There is research CONFIRMED reasons they aren’t.
We’re as bass ackwards as a pig tail on a horses nose.
