Problems with a Year-Round Competitive Schedule
The following is from a series of posts on another site that started with a mom asking if her daughter’s fatigue from playing too much might have led to her recent ACL tear.
From a paper that I wrote in college:
“The individual development is lacking at the AAU level because the emphasis is on winning and team development…I think burnout is a problem because the kids play too many summer games. Also, injuries occur because a lot of teams do not take breaks during the summer recruiting period,” said the WCC Assistant Coach interviewed.
AB: U seem to blame everything wrong with HS Girls basketball on AAU Coaches. You are in fertile territory here on socal hoops, should lead to major book sales for you.
First, the above is not my opinion; it is a paper written for a grad school class and quotes a college coach. NOT MY OPINION.
Second, have you ever read anything that I have written? I’ve spent the majority of the last month defending AAU coaches and AAU basketball. My issue is not with AAU or High School, but the combination of AAU and high school that creates a year-round competitive system.
I am not blaming anyone. My goal is to encourage a better system based on science and the athletes’ best interests as opposed to the best interests of those making money running events or scouting services.
AB: Do the girls get worn down in AAU? Maybe. But I suppose you need to put it in perspective.
Many, if not most older girls, are in AAU to try to get seen for a college ride. Most of their parents are concerned about too much basketball over the summer with all of the burn-out and wear & tear issues. I certainly was one of them. Perhaps there is another way to look at it for girls in high school. If your daughter is lucky enough and good enough to play in college, the amount of time throughout the year that she will be required to devote to basketball is going to be overwhelming. This is from both the physical perspective and from the never really having your own personal time standpoint. Her AAU years will not seem that difficult by comparison. Perhaps the way to approach all of the summer b-ball in high school is as a test to also help your daughter to decide if playing in college is what she really wants. If it is already too much b-ball and too much of a physical wear-down, maybe college b-ball is not such a good idea.
Actually, the NCAA ensures an off-season for players. Practice starts on October 15 and ends around April 1. During the school year, outside of the season, players can work out 8 hours per week with no more than 3 players at a time, though they have relaxed the rules recently and allow some team practice time. During the summer, coaches cannot work with their players; however, they work with the team strength coach.
Where do injuries occur? Lifting weights or playing games? Most injuries occur during games. So, if as a high school player, you play 35 games for your high school team during the season and another 40+ games for your club program during the spring, summer and fall, plus a spring, summer and fall schedule of 20-30 games with your high school team, you have played over 100 games. Most college programs play about 30 games.
Moreover, if you play 100 games during the year, when do you have time for strength training and skill development?
Also, if girls play AAU to be seen, the injury that started the thread occurred outside of a viewing period. So, no Division I coaches were allowed to be at the game. If the players play for exposure, why even play that game? Also, if it is only for exposure, why play in tournaments throughout April, May and June when there is only one weekend where Division I coaches can recruit?
If players played their high school season and then took a break before playing for the 20 days of viewing period during July, there would be a far better schedule and more time to focus on skill development and athletic development.
After all, getting exposure only matters if you’re good. Otherwise, you’re exposed and dropped from the colleges’ lists.
AB: I am all for less basketball and most of the really good female b-ball players that I know who made it to college probably share the same opinion. Most girls look at the NCAA practice rules and are quite comfortable when they are getting ready to leave for college. It doesn’t seem like a lot. The ones going D-1 get a real big shock after they get there, and I am told that this also happens in the other divisions as well. There are all kinds of b-ball related things that you are going to be doing that for some reason are not covered by the rules.(e.g. physical therapy, captain’s practices, timed wind sprints, practicing your shot,watching tapes, working on moves, etc, etc. And these are not little goof-around work-outs that you may have done at home. They are dead serious.) You are also going to be training year around, one way or another, for a tremendous amount of the time. You are going to be worn-out a lot of the time. During the season they can only have you at practice 20 hours a week. But when you add up all the time per week that you are doing something that is basketball related, not counting travel, it is closer to 40 hours per week. My point is that if you think it is a grind in high school and perhaps not worth it, wait until you get to college. It will be a shock.
You’re missing my point. My argument is not that high school players invest too much time. It is that they invest time inefficiently.
Assuming the college coach and strength coach know what they are doing – which is a big assumption and inaccurate in many cases – the off-season training should help prevent injuries while maximizing performance. Furthermore, a good college staff assists its players with recovery, which often goes overlooked at the high school level. How many high school players take ice baths after a tough workout? How many have a nutrition plan to optimize recovery? How many see an athletic trainer daily? I watched a girl sprain her ankle and be carried off the court in a game in Vegas during the first half and a trainer never attended to her. A parent went to the snack bar and got ice and that was that…
I was at an exposure event last week and saw a team eating pizza and cokes between games. This is not the best way to prepare for a game and without optimal nutrition and hydration, your body will be more worn out.
At the high school level, we expect a professionalized schedule with 100+ games and a year-round competitive season, but we do not emphasize the same things that we emphasize with college and pro athletes. We do not emphasize nutrition, hydration, stretching, regeneration, massages, foam rolls, trigger point therapy, functional strength training, etc. which improves performance and reduces fatigue. In the NBA, players play a crazy schedule, but they still have four months with no games and they receive an hour or more of treatment every day during the season. High school players play 11 months per year, play multiple games in a day and receive no treatment.
If we want to make the same competitive demands on high school players that we make of college and pro players – and I would argue that we do right now – then we need to emphasize the same type of professional training, nutrition and recovery.
Asking high school players to compete like professionals without offering the same type of professional training seems to undermine the girls’ efforts and potentially puts their bodies at risk for injuries due to fatigue and lack of adequate strength.
