Too Much Time?

Are you spending too much time practicing your skills?

By Mike Caza,
CSCS Director of Performance

A key problem in sports today is that kids are spending too much time practicing their sports skills and not enough time conditioning their bodies properly. We often hear of parents spending thousands of dollars on private skill coaches to make their son or daughter a better athlete.

Think about this: would a homebuilder start framing a house without first laying a concrete foundation? Of course not, there would be no strength and stability for the home to stand upon. Now think about this from an athlete development perspective. If there is no foundation of strength, speed, efficient movement, balance and core strength being developed, do you think an athlete can consistently execute their skills effectively, over an entire sport season, with reduced injury risks? Maybe, but in most cases, the answer is no. An athlete that has great genetics can usually execute sport skills very proficiently at a young age but as they get older and the competition becomes tougher, their genetics will only take them so far. The athlete with strength and speed combined with skill will outperform the athlete "riding out" their genetics and skill. In addition, building the mental strength, confidence and stamina to compete at a higher level while becoming more resilient to injury comes from a sound training program.

In the 12 years I have spent as a performance coach in this field combined with the 5 years I have spent competing at a world class level, I have formulated my own personal opinion on skill development versus physical development based on my observations. Athletic skills may improve 10-20% over a 3 year period whereas physical development can improve 70-80% in a 3 year period. So why athletes attend 4 skill camps in the summer and play on 2-3 different club teams blows my mind. The amount of time spent on skill training versus physical training is out of balance. I believe there is a very large correlation between too much time spent on practicing skills and too little time spent on developing the body with drop out rates in sports, the ever rising rate of injuries in today's young athlete, and a loss of love for playing sports Again, this is just my personal opinion based on my observations.

In the sport of hockey, each player on average will touch the puck for 30 seconds the entire game. That means 0.027% of the time their stick will be on the puck assuming the athlete will only play 18 minutes of the 36 minute game. However, if they are playing 50% of the game, the physical demand is tremendous. It requires the athlete to be fast, strong, agile and powerful in order to play the sport at a high level and execute their skills effectively. In soccer, the average high school player will touch the soccer ball for 2 minutes and 13 seconds in an 80 minute soccer game. In addition, most players do not play the entire game so if you figure the athlete plays for half of the game; they will touch the ball 0.05% of the time. If they are playing 50% of the time on average, once again the demand for the athlete to be fast, strong, agile and resilient to injury is what enables them to execute the skill of kicking, ball handling, passing and maneuvering on the field.

If I took a step outside the box and really thought about what is best for an athlete's overall development, it's a no brainer. An athlete's ability to execute their sports skills at a higher level with reduced injury risks is based on their physical development. You may think this is a bias statement because we train athletes for a living but in reality, think about the statistics; 0.05% of the time in soccer, you are executing a skill with the ball, but 99.95% of the time you are running, cutting, stopping and starting. In hockey 0.027% of the time, the puck is on the players stick which means 99.973% of the time they are skating, accelerating, crossing over, stopping, starting and maneuvering. Now really think about those statistics.

Are you spending too much time practicing skills or are you dedicating enough time to training your body to improve its ability to execute those sport skills at a higher level with reduced injury risks? If you are not training 3-6 days/week on a proper training program (I say proper because approximately 90% of the programs we see athletes doing are improper) you are not truly developing as an athlete.

I can tell you every single good athlete that has walked through the door at PSC and trained with us for an extended period of time will tell you the foundation for their success came from their training program. I can also tell you from my own personal experiences that I spent about 30% of my time working on the skill of high jumping. The other 70% of the time was spent improving strength, speed, mechanics, core strength, power and flexibility to execute high jumping better. The most important question to ask your self is am I doing what is best to maximize my athletic development?

Mike Caza spent 3 years as a member of the Canadian National track team where his experiences allowed him to compete worldwide on 4 different continents and be mentored by some of the top coaches internationally. Mike's athletic experiences combined with the in depth knowledge gained over the years has enabled him and the PSC Staff to devise the most comprehensive athlete conditioning program in the area. For more information on PSC training, contact the training office at (330) 487-0810 or online at www.pscfit.com.

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