Early sport specialization involves physically immature children participating in intensive year-round training and/or competition for a single sport. The lack of sport exposure and diversification during the developmental years may underlie the increased risk of overuse injuries, blunting of motor skill development, psychosocial issues, overtraining syndrome, burnout, and potential dropout from sport. With increasing number of youth choosing, or being encouraged, to specialize at an early age, we aim to provide evidence based recommendations for the integration of strength and conditioning into the development programs of young athletes who participate in sports with a culture of early specialization. In addition to the principles of programming, strategies are provided relative to monitoring of growth, maturation, and training load to illustrate the potential complexities of attempting to optimize long-term athletic development in early specializing athletes.

Given the growing interest surrounding youth strength and conditioning, the NSCA recently engaged a group of leading experts to author a position statement on long-term athletic development. The document proposes ten key pillars of successful long-term athletic development that practitioners should adhere to in order to enhance performance, promote health and well-being, and minimize the risk of sport- or physical activity-related injury.

Synergistic development of muscular strength and motor skill competency is central to long-term athletic development. However, these qualities need to be developed in a logical and progressive manner, and training methods need to be developmentally appropriate, engaging, and enjoyable for young athletes to help them build a positive association with strength and conditioning-based activities. This article aims to provide a resource for coaches to use when developing the athletic motor skill competencies in youth, including game-based activities, and a more structured resistance training curriculum.

Colorado Springs, CO - The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recently released a position statement in reference to the growing interest in long-term athletic development for youth.

Interlimb asymmetries have been recently investigated in athletic populations. However, the effects of training interventions on interlimb asymmetries have been scarcely examined. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effects of training interventions on changes in interlimb asymmetries from pre- to post-training. Furthermore, to examine the effects of training programs on intervention groups compared with control groups. A database search was completed (MEDLINE, CINAHL, and SPORTDiscus). Eight studies were then included in the meta-analysis. Results showed small reductions in interlimb asymmetries in single-leg broad jump (SLBJ) and change of direction (COD) speed from pre- to post-training interventions, whereas moderate effects were found in single-leg countermovement jump (SLCMJ) and SL lateral jump. When comparing the training interventions with the control groups, results showed small effects in favor of the training groups for reducing interlimb asymmetries in SLBJ and large effects in SLCMJ and COD speed. Thus, training interventions can evoke small to moderate reductions in interlimb asymmetries from pre- to post-training programs. Strength training performed unilaterally or bilaterally may elicit these reductions. Furthermore, training interventions showed larger effects compared with the control groups in reducing interlimb asymmetries. However, further research is needed.

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