Today’s quick thought is an excerpt from an HBR interview with Jerry Seinfield:
“Interviewer: ‘You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’ room, and burnout was one reason you stopped. Was there a more sustainable way to do it? Could McKinsey or someone have helped you find a better model?’
Seinfield: ‘Who’s McKinsey?’
Interviewer: ‘It’s a consulting firm.’
Seinfield: ‘Are they funny?’
Interviewer: ‘No.’
Seinfield: ‘Then I don’t need them. If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way.’”
You don’t need the easy way out. You need to focus.
Your athlete isn’t driving an Impreza anymore
My wife and I accumulated a lot of stuff during our 7 years living in Ohio.
When we moved back to Pennsylvania in 2021, we needed a massive U-Haul to lug it all to our new house.
Driving a big truck? That’s a man’s job. And I’m a man’s man (well, not really, but let’s pretend for a moment), so I gladly accepted the task of captaining the 26’ behemoth.
… It was miserable.
We made a detour through a Wal-Mart parking lot, and I annihilated the curb of a garden bed and left tire tracks smack dab in the middle of the mulch. Rachel is adamant that a stop sign got caught in the crossfire, but I dispute that as being apocryphal.
It turns out that my years of driving a nimble Subaru Impreza didn’t prepare me too well for operating the largest available UHaul.
I just didn’t have a good feel for where the vehicle was in relation to the outside environment. As a result, my timing, sequence, and movement was all uncoordinated and inefficient.
That’s what’s happening to your growing, pubescent athlete.
How peak height velocity predicts when kids grow their 2nd left foot.
A study released in 2019 followed 82 kids for a 5 year period, from the ages of 10 through 14 (Gross Motor Competence and Peak Height Velocity in 10- to 14-Year-Old Canadian Youth: A Longitudinal Study. By: Sheehan, et. al.).
They found that during times of peak height velocity (their most rapid growth spurt), kids’ athletic performance decreased.
They were older. They were bigger. But, they were less coordinated. They were weaker. They were slower.
How can that be? Well, they upgraded from an Impreza to a UHaul.
When they grow a few inches, their center of mass rises up as well. They’re not used to that yet.
When they’re limbs get longer, they’re nervous system timing and sequencing gets thrown off and needs time to recalibrate.
When they add some pubescent soft tissue around their hips, their weight distribution changes and alters their center of mass.
These are all normal changes, and they performance decreases aren’t permanent.
But, they still happen. In fact, I’d argue that the cited study doesn’t fully encapsulate how common these temporary performance decreases are.
Growth data was collected once every quarter, but performance testing was only done once per year.
At our facility, we test something every single week. It is not at all uncommon to see a growing athlete hit a big number one week, then fail to hit close to that number for several months, then all of a sudden skyrocket past it again.
What should you do about it?
Let them move and explore!
Here’s the key part that a lot of parents get wrong- exploration means failure. Failure is a necessary component of the iteration and recalibration process.
If I was going to need to drive a 26’ UHaul around on a regular basis, it would be best for me to get some practice in a safe environment. I’d start in a parking lot with a lot of open space, set up some cones, and navigate through them.
At first, I would fail a lot. I’d hit a ton of cones, but then I’d get better and better. I’d understand how far the truck extends. I’d figure out when I need to time the turns. I’d have a better understanding of how my vehicle interacts with the outside world.
Your athlete needs reps to figure out how their body interacts with space. They can’t be micromanaged.
High quality training puts them in different positions where they have to solve movement problems in a variety of ways, which leads to them self-organizing and learning the most efficient ways to move.
High quality training, with a lot of movement exploration, problem solving, and controlled failure shortens the window of decreased performance and amplifies the improvements we see on the backend.
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Best,
Zach
Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS