I spent this past weekend at another volleyball tournament coaching AJ (my 11 year old) and her club team.

During the breaks between games, I had several parents (some from other teams, in fact) ask me over the weekend what their child should do over the summer to help make them a better volleyball player.

Regardless of what sport or activity your child does, I think it’s a mistake to have them do that one single thing on a year round basis.

Sometimes I feel that parents end up subconsciously living vicariously through their kids because of their own athletic shortcomings.

I wrote the following email to those parents…

Dear Parents,

For those that aren’t aware, in addition to being a volleyball coach, I spend my days running a personal training and strength & conditioning company where I consult with both young and professional athletes and “regular people” like you and me.

In my humble opinion, if you want your daughter to develop into a better player, then the best thing that you can do for her is to NOT HAVE HER TOUCH A VOLLEYBALL FOR THE ENTIRE SUMMER.

Obviously this would come as a surprise to most, but we need to keep an open mind and keep our kids ATHLETIC and NOT specializing in a single sport year round.

Research has shown that kids that play one sport year round under develop their overall athleticism and develop a high incidence of overuse injuries - if your daughter spikes and serves with only one side, which all of them do, think about how many times she’ll do that over the course of a year playing the same sport.

Creating a muscular imbalance is inevitable and muscular imbalances at such a young age is a recipe for pain and discomfort in the years to come.

In addition to that, kids who play a single sport year round experience higher incidences of athlete burnout and have a tendency to peak in their sport significantly earlier than their multi-sport counterparts.

The bottom line… Keep our girls athletic and away from specializing in one sport for as long as we can.

If they were meant to be volleyball players then they can make that decision to be the best volleyball player they can be in high school (in Grade 9 or 10… although I didn’t know that I wanted to play volleyball all the time until I was in Grade 11!)

So what to do in summer then?

Well, like I explained to the girls at practice on Tuesday, volleyball is all about footwork. That said, they should be participating in activities that allow them to use their feet better - soccer is great, dancing, lacrosse, basketball. AND they should love what they’re doing.

For example, it’s my hope that AJ will be playing soccer this summer which will allow her to work on her footwork, reaction time, agility, peripheral vision, speed and power (all athletic characteristics that can be carried over to volleyball). In addition to that, she’ll be “resting” her upper body muscles as soccer doesn’t require the same type of upper body movements that volleyball does.

Will AJ touch a volleyball over the summer? Probably. I can’t pry the kid away from the volleyball that she sleeps with at night! She may play in a beach tournament or 2, but her main focus this summer will be to have fun and enjoy her experience hopefully playing with a new soccer team.

She’ll be back into full volleyball mode when she goes to Volleyball Camp at the end of the summer with some of her teammates (which will be a great transition to get back into the club season).

I’m advising this because I am looking at the “big picture” for our Club and for our girls. I am a big proponent of delayed gratification and would much rather see our girls as amazing athletes who can choose which sport they want to play when they’re 16/17/18 years old, rather than having the best volleyball players at 11 and 12 years old.

Winning at this age, if you haven’t noticed already, isn’t my priority. Developing your kids as athletes and having them LOVE sport and activity is.

Last I checked, the NCAA didn’t offer any athletic scholarships to Grade 6 or Grade 7 girls anyway.

Just some food for thought.

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Thanks,
Coach Chris

If your kid participates in sports, then I think it’s our job as parents to raise them as young ATHLETES and not as aspiring hockey players or volleyball players or ballet dancers pigeon-holing them into one sport or activity.

Keep them loving sport and being active and participating in as many physical activities as they can.

Let them have fun and teach them to do their best (which is different from pressuring them to “be the best”).

Let them play outside doing things unstructured allowing them to use their imagination… ESPECIALLY if they play within the confines of a structured system like a team sport for most months of the year.

I’m not a doctor or a child sport specialist.

I’m just a parent who reaped the benefits of sport and activity at a young age and who wants his kids to have the same positive athletic experiences.

Chris Lopez (a.k.a. The FitAndBusyDad)

P.S. I’d love to know your thoughts, so please leave a comment - be it for or against my stance on this.  Anonymous comments will not be posted.