Advising on Youth Athletic Development

Kids participate in soccer skill lessons from Crew Youth coach Hazem Sobhy during the MLS All-Star Community Day. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports

By any measure, sports participation is a young person’s pursuit. Data from Australia indicates that two-thirds of the sport’s participants are under 20⁽¹⁾. Similar data from the UK shows that only a third of adults over 25 participate in a sports session once per week⁽²⁾. Participation numbers in sports are dramatically skewed towards youth participation. Hence, it makes sense that a large proportion of the injuries that we see and treat are among young sportspeople. 

But that is not all that is going on. With popularity comes opportunity, and youth sports are a booming business. In the USA, the youth sports industry was estimated to have a total value of $39.7 billion in 2022, with projections that this will increase to $69.4 billion by 2030⁽³⁾. It should be positive that so much investment in youth sport and physical activity is taking place, but as with all industries, there is the risk that the exponential growth bubble leads to too much too soon. We are far from the world of wholesome pick-up games with flat footballs in local parks. Instead, clubs and academies compete to attract participants with more elaborate training programs and competition structures. It is not uncommon these days for seven-year-olds to participate in travel sports teams and compete in different states each weekend.

Injury is a factor in all levels of sports participation. Still, when sports organizers are injudicious in their planning and exposure of youth athletes, injury rates increase, and sports injury professionals are often left to rehabilitate and advise on what is appropriate. 

“...young participants do not progress to highly structured and specialized sports involvement until at least their mid-teens!”

Youth Athletic Development

Academic researchers dedicate themselves to describing the optimal pathways for youth athletic development. These models explain what activities should take place at what stages of the development pathway. While some top performers deviate from these models, it’s a much safer bet to stick to the guidance. Importantly, the endpoint for any youth athletic development model is life-long participation in sports and physical activity. Still, elite competition is a step on the development pathway that some participants may be able to access.

The pioneer in this space was Canadian researcher Istvan Balyi, and his seminal work remains the most referenced and cited research in this space⁽⁴⁾. Balyi’s Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) model divides the sporting development pathway into six clearly defined stages. He describes each stage in terms of age-appropriate training goals and activities that guide coaches and administrators to what is ideal for development at each stage (see figure 1). To draw an obvious contrast, the current travel sports phenomenon in the USA and the emergence of highly specialized football academies in the UK and other European countries are significant deviations from this proposed model.