Youth Sports Research Paper

For this writing assignment I decided to research and learn more about motor development growth and refinement due to participation in youth sports. Since I am interested in the topic, I also looked for insight on if it was better for children to specialize in one sport or if a variety of sports provided more benefits for motor development and if strength conditioning was alright for children. I believe that this topic would be suitable for Chapter Ten under Motor Skill Refinement as that section covers partaking in youth sports, school physical education, and collegiate level sports. It may also be able to be categorized in Chapter Eleven objective 11.8 Physical Activity and Longevity. Since physical activity is an important factor of physiological

Furthermore, due to the intervention with multiple sports, there was a more pronounced improvement in aerobic fitness and kinesthetic discrimination performance due to the repeated sessions of “skill-based training”. It was also concluded that a multi-sports approach may be the best suited program for elementary aged children as it brings together a mix of skill-based activities which creates a wider variety of cognitive and social interaction demands that enhances memory performances in younger children.

MY THOUGHTS I found the fact that aerobic fitness was one of the most improved functions to be interesting. I expected the results of fine motor skill type functions to be greater impacted than it was. Growing up playing a variety of sports I know that there are numerous similarities in the basic moves necessary for most sports. I think that it would be great if they could have made this a longitudinal study and followed up with both groups to see if it had any long lasting effects in motor development and

Since children are going through physiological changes it is important to treat them differently than mature adults while training. Right now there is a training model known as the “Long-term Athlete Development” (LTAD) model and it provides an approach that is considerate of the maturational stages of children. The LTAD suggests that there are critical stages that children are more receptive to “training-induced” adaptations and that if these windows of opportunity are missed the progress of an athlete could be hampered. However, since there is little longitudinal supporting evidence, this article provides a different model that suggests the possibility of being able to train all components of fitness throughout childhood.

METHOD

To create the Youth Physical Development (YPD) model, research was conducted over what stages a child is most receptive to fundamental movement and sport-specific skills. The topics most heavily researched under those two major categories were strength, hypertrophy, agility, power, mobility, speed, endurance and metabolic conditioning, and sexual differences. Within these subcategories Lloyd and Oliver sought to find when things such as neural plasticity, cognitive capacities, and rapid development first appear and at what stages they are most mature.