Youth Physical Development (Part 3)

What Youth Development Looks Like In Real Life

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we outlined the problems and the solutions in youth training and development. We advocate for multi-sport participation to combat the trend of overuse injuries and burnout associated with year round single sport participation, restoring free play, prioritizing foundational movements and physical literacy to restore the basic movement skills that are largely to be lacking, and engaging in age-appropriate strength and conditioning to build resilient, robust human beings. Now the question becomes what does this actually look like?

Because unstructured play needs its own space and time, we will skip and look at the other three areas. Below are real-world examples of the three structured solutions in action. You’ll see clear differences between younger athletes (roughly 5–10) and older ones (11+), both in the formality of training and the training emphasis.

Multi-Sport Participation in Action

Playing the same sport year round at competition level intensity massively increases the chance of overuse injuries and burnout. Interestingly, those who specialize later or play many sports growing up have less injuries and have better performance outcomes (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23259671221129594, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0363546517738736, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0363546519899380)! So how does playing multiple sports work?  Seasonal sport rotation and concurrent multi-sport participation both counter the risks associated with early specialization and year round play.

Seasonal rotation example - soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring.

Concurrent - baseball and track and field in the spring OR soccer and baseball while training jiu jitsu year round.

Below are examples of training games, drills, and exercises that will transfer to many sports. And let's be honest, they look like a BLAST!

Foundational Movement and Physical Literacy in Action

Physical literacy is the ability to move across a wide range of activities. So, before trying to learn sport-specific skills, kids need competence in the basics: running, jumping, landing, throwing, catching, balancing, crawling, and changing direction.

With younger athletes this looks playful and exploratory, with animal walks, obstacle courses, tag variations, medicine-ball games, and balance challenges. With older athletes it becomes more deliberate.

Below are examples of games, drills, warmups, etc. that will enhance the physical abilities of a youth athlete. Activities like sprinting, jumping, changing direction, and adjusting to outside stimuli like balls and cones.

For the older athletes, you'll notice similar elements but with additional challenges.

Age-Appropriate Strength and Conditioning in Action

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Young kids can and should train, even with weights! A properly designed and supervised resistance training program is safe and beneficial for youth. The NSCA Youth Resistance Training Position Statement confirms this when programs emphasize technique, qualified supervision, and age-appropriate loads.

Younger athletes (5–10) primarily use bodyweight, light medicine balls, and movement-based strength challenges. Older athletes progress to more formal free-weight patterns, still prioritizing control, quality, and gradual loading over maximal effort.

Notice the appropriate exercise selection and appropriate loading in the below examples.

What a Training Session Looks Like

A well-designed youth session usually blends elements: a movement-rich warm-up, skill or game-based foundational work, some strength or power development, and time for play or competition. Younger groups stay lighter and more game-oriented. Older groups add structure and progressive overload while protecting recovery and variety across the week and season.

The common thread is intentional variety, quality of movement, and long-term development over short-term specialization.

The goal is to build durable, capable, and motivated movers. The goal is not to be the best 10 year old athlete. We can excel on the field while setting up the young athlete for long term development. It is not an either/or. This shift is not easy. But in the best interest of the kid, it is necessary. We can do this!

If you’d like to talk about how these principles apply to the young athletes in your life we’re always happy to have that conversation.

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