Three Questions with Meghann Koppele Duffy

Episode 33 - Training the Whole Athlete: What Are We Missing in Youth Sports?

• Meghann • Episode 33

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We say we want to “train the whole athlete,” but are we really doing that?

In this episode of Three Questions with Meghann Koppele Duffy, I challenge the assumptions baked into modern youth sports.  From over-cueing growing bodies to misunderstanding how the visual and vestibular systems shape performance, I explore how well-intentioned coaching can sometimes limit long-term development.

In This Episode You’ll Hear:

• Why more cues and corrections can confuse a developing nervous system

• How screens, hormones, and sensory overload affect developing bodies

• What parents and coaches can do to build stronger, smarter movers without burnout

Whether you coach, parent, or move alongside young athletes, this conversation invites you to rethink what “training hard” really means and how to help kids become capable humans, not just better performers.

Links & Resources For This Episode:
Episode 2: Sensory Preferences and How They Dictate Who We Are!
Find a Neuro Studio Teacher Near You
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I'm so honored you clicked on Three Questions today so we can dig into athletics and specifically youth athletics. Now I know doing this episode, I know I'm gonna piss a lot of parents off.

And as a parenting expert, you know, I have zero children. Take this with a grain of salt. Remember, this podcast is not about offering solutions. It's about critical thinking to maybe ask yourself some questions about how you're dealing with your student or youth athletes, or maybe you're a teenager, high school sports.

Maybe this is something you can think about as well. Just keep in mind that if something I say pisses you off, that's the question you should think about more. Figure out why is pissing you off. And even better come up with a better answer than I've even suggested. And then hit me up and let me know what you come up with.

'cause I'm curious. So let's get into question one. Are we overloading growing bodies with too many proprioceptive cues? So I got a little technical there. Let's break this down. So a proprioceptive cue would be kind of a body-based cue to help the athlete know what they're doing wrong based off where they think they are in space.

So for an example of move your hip more, bring this foot forward, really. Telling the athlete to change what they're doing based off where they are in space. Now here's the problem, something I've realized, myself included, 'cause I'm a human as well. Is proprioception or where we think we are is not always the most reliable narrator.

And sometimes we think we're doing something specific with our body, but we could be doing something else. Like, haven't you ever gotten a cue, like in a workout class or from a coach and you're like, oh shit, I had no idea I was doing that. And what's even bigger than that on a brain level, oftentimes the critiques we're getting.

The brain thinks we're already doing it. Isn't that interesting? So like if I'm saying to an athlete, bring your weight forward, they think they're bringing their weight forward. You know, we see this, I see this with clients all the time. I'll, um, if I'm trying to help someone walk better or create more speed, what I'll ask them is I'll ask them to move towards a visual target.

I'll just assess what they're doing. And a lot of times. They'll bring their hips forward, but their head goes back or their chest will come forward and their butt goes back and they're kind of counterbalancing their body. And what's super interesting, I remember the first time it happened, it was with a client that really couldn't walk at all, and I got her to move forward and she was so excited.

She was like, I can't believe you got me to do that over Zoom. And I'm thinking, oh shit. She wasn't moving forward. Her hips moved forward, but her head moved back. So rather than breaking this woman's heart and telling her, well, you actually didn't do the exercise correctly. I said, okay, let's do it differently.

And I actually cued her to bring her pelvis forward and her head back and she's like, I don't think I can do that, Meghann. To which I'm thinking, you just did it four times. I didn't tell her that. So then I had her do the same exercise again, thinking about bringing her hips forward and her head back. Okay.

What I was doing was tapping into her vestibular system and visual. She sees the target, she's pushing her pelvis forward and her head back. She does it a few times and she's like, oh, okay. And then when I asked her to do the exercise again, moving everything forward, I kid you not everything moved forward stacked.

Not because I'm a magician, but because I gave her vestibular information, her vestibular system, different information. So before her vestibular system thought the head was going forward, but when I asked the head to do back her vestibular system was like, oh shit, this is back. It couldn't be possibly forward.

'cause that's what I just did. So I gave actual awareness via the vestibular system. So if this is back. Going forward needs to feel different. Now, this is talking about some with a neurological condition, but I see the same with athletes. I've worked with athletes that have a tilt to their head or a lean, and they have no idea.

I've actually had an athlete tell me that my head mounted laser was broken, and I was like, no, bro, your head is doing that. To which I had to then take a picture of him and prove it to him because he felt straight. But funny enough. I asked him which side of the field, he was slower at making tackles and it was the side that he was kinda tilting his head away from.

So what was happening is in order to go in that other direction, his brain was kind of really confused about his head position. So rather than just yelling at your student athlete's proprioceptive cues, they're not deaf, their body either thinks that's what they're doing because there's a brain mapping issue.

Or proprioceptively, they don't feel shit. Now dancers, a lot of you are a bit hypermobile. I'm not saying everybody has EDS don't get that twisted, but usually like, you know, there's a saying, tin men don't do yoga and hypermobile people don't like to lift. That was kind of a stigma in the past, but if you are super flexible, dance is gonna be a great outlet for you.

You can really move and create those beautiful shapes. But parents of dancers, when your kids are making those big shapes, there could be some underlying issues. I'm not trying to freak you out, but stuff you should worry about in the future, their brain is not giving, their proprioception, is not giving their brain a stop signal.

They're not feeling a stop signal until they move a bunch of joints or take their joint to full end range of motion that when they're young, it doesn't matter. But recognizing that your son, daughter, whoever, is not responding to proprioceptive information, that doesn't mean give them more. That means think about targeting another system.

Now, parents and coaches, let me, let me shoot you straight. Even I've done this with my nephew, Anthony, if you're listening, listen. I've given him a head mounted laser. I've tried to get him excited about eye exercises, but it's not as sexy. He wants to do the lifting and the other stuff that he believes will make him better.

Okay, so what do I do is I suggested some exercise that requires both. Okay. You don't have to stop doing what kids wanna do, just make sure they are getting a sensory input that's meaningful to them. Now parents, hear me out please. Think of what you yell at your kid the most for. I'll wait. Do they not put shit away?

Do they not listen? Are they not doing their homework? You're not gonna like what I have to say. Everybody does what they do for a reason. It's easy to say a kid's lazier doesn't pay attention, but something's going on there where either. It doesn't work with their learning style. Like I know a lot of, you know, I see this with myself.

I tend to, I heard my mom told me this today. She's like your dad. I mean, I appreciate that he's putting the dishes away in the dishwasher from the dishwasher, but he never puts 'em in the same place. Like, what's with that? And I'm thinking, I know what's with that. I am my dad. This is why I can never find things.

I never put things back in the same place. I know that sounds stupid to most of you. My sister, oh my God, everything in her house has a space. It's like kind of incredible. She's so organized and it just seems like it comes so easy to her. But how her brain works, maybe it comes easier, maybe it doesn't. I should actually ask her.

But for me, or organizational systems don't work. My life is organized chaos, but I know where things are and yes, I'm gonna lose them. I'm gonna misplace things, but I always figure it out in the end. So just a little piece of advice with our athletes is stop repeating yourself. They're not deaf. Their brain cannot process what you're telling them.

And yes, it could be because they're annoying, bratty teenager. And if you're annoying, bratty teenager listening, you're an annoying, bratty teenager. We've all been the same. You think you know everything. So did we. Eventually, you'll realize you don't know anything, and as an adult you'll realize we even know less shit.

Okay, so. Think about what you're always yelling at them and see if you can figure out another way to get your point across with a different sensory system. So if you're always yelling, maybe don't use auditory, maybe use a visual. Maybe you. Help them organize their body in a different way. I mean, there's so many different ways to do this.

Um, I think what would be kind of better is write, go on Instagram. Go on YouTube, gimme some examples of shit that is making you crazy with your athletes, and I will offer some suggestions. Okay? The cue I always got as a kid was look alive and keep your eye on the ball. No shit. I am pretty sure I knew that you need to be alive to play a sport, and that if you're gonna catch a ball, you probably should look at it.

What I didn't realize was that I thought I was looking at the ball and listen, I, I've talked about this, another podcast. I was not a great athlete. I was like, good enough, right? But like, as an adult, playing tennis and doing ball sports, and Brian and I were playing darts down in our basement the other day.

As I realized, it's really hard for my eyes to focus. If you're watching me on YouTube, I am never looking in the same place. Now, could we blame my multiple concussions? Sure. But was I always like this? Probably. Okay. I actually asked a tennis pro if he sees the ball when he hits it, which he thought was hysterical.

I was like, oh, I don't. And he's like, well, how do you hit it? I'm like, I'm not really sure. Okay, now I see the ball much clearer, but I had to work on that, not just doing visual exercises, visual plus proprioception. So my sense is matched. So to finish up question one. I know I threw a lot at you. I knew I used some technical stuff.

Let's simplify this shit. Stop over cueing and giving touch-based or movement-based cues to your athlete. What the hell does that mean? Stuff that comes to us naturally doesn't come to everybody naturally. Like hearing Brian, that's my husband, talk about football sometimes. I'm like, I thought I was smart.

I have no freaking clue what he's talking about. And one time I had to say to him, he was annoyed 'cause a kid wasn't getting it. And I was like, yo, Bri, I don't get it. And he's like, really? I'm like, yeah, for some reason that's like super complicated. Is there a way to simplify that? And he was like, no. And I'm like, dude, you're a special ed teacher.

He's like, I've never really thought about it. And then he figured out a way to simplify it. I gotta ask him if the kids are better at it. I don't remember. Right? So stop repeating yourself. Stop overdoing proprioceptive cues. Don't cue them to use certain muscles. Don't cue them for sensations because.

They have growing bodies. And the last thing I'm gonna go over in this question, number one is puberty. Do we all remember puberty? God, if anybody got a hold of my middle school picture, ugh. It was not cute. It was like a short haircut, kind of like a bowl with bangs. I use sun in ish. I look at my niece, she's like gorgeous in middle school.

Why don't kids go through awkward stages anymore? What is up with that? Somebody, please explain to me why these middle school kids are not going through awkward stages. I just, I just don't think it's fair, frankly. But anyway, our, our bodies, their bodies, our bodies did are changing a lot. Some people have big growth spurts.

Some people aren't growing at all. Some people are getting breasts. Some people, they might have a lot of tension in their body. Um, I don't need to give you any more details about puberty. We all know, but their bodies are changing. And hormonals hor hormo hormones affect our proprioception. It affects the sensation through our skin, the tension, the pressure.

Okay? All these things are a factor. And I mean, here's a hypothesis, maybe everybody's always like, oh my God, my daughter is being such a bitch. She must be getting her period soon. I get it. We've all been there. But imagine the changes that are going on in her body and when you don't know where your body is in space or how it should feel, or God forbid it feels like crap, could we all understand why this puts kids in a bad mood?

Giving kids the opportunity to move more in a way that they feel comfortable giving them more breaks, allowing allow them to pick clothes that feel comfortable to them, that are also appropriate. Right. Um, these are things that all coaches and parents need to think about. I have sensory issues. I have had sensory issues my whole life.

I did not know how to explain it until I really got into this neuro work. I did a whole episode on sensory. It was actually episode two. Talk about underwear. I'm the most picky when it comes to underwear and clothes. I hated dance because the tights came too high. It would make me stiff when my clothes were uncomfortable.

I finally settled in and played rugby in college, and I loved it, mostly because the uniform was comfortable. I could be loose, I could be agile, but in softball, those pants came up weirdly too high. I had big hips and skinny legs, and it was just so uncomfortable. Why do we have to tuck the shirt in? I don't wanna tuck my shirt in.

Like these are things that were going on in my brain, but I didn't have the, I didn't understand. The way to explain it. So I want everybody to think right now, does, do clothes affect you? Does the weather affect you? Do hormones affect you? Does being touched affect you? Do you like muscular sensation, a burn?

Do you like the feeling of a stretch? Do you hate it? These are all things that need to be taken into account with young athletes and stop screwing them up using higher order systems like the visual and vestibular system, and let the proprioception follow those chef's kiss. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Okay. I will get off my soapbox. That was a little preachy. Whatever. I had some opinions I wanted to share. It's my podcast. Now, question two. Are you assessing your students' athletes? Your student athletes? Oh my God, can I even speak today? Visual system, huh? What do I mean? Well, can they see? Can they see clearly?

Can their eyes gaze stabilize? Can their eyes follow the ball? Can their eyes converge? I always think it's so interesting why people are like so amazed when people make crazy catches. Um, like Aldo Beckham. Well, he would practice that catch, but what's interesting is sometimes it's easier to make. A tough catch because you are moving your body in a unique pattern.

The brain's more interested, and because the body's moving differently, it could be enough to help your eyes follow or converge better. Also, I find most people drop the ball when it comes right at their face. Why? Because convergence, that's when your eyes come in and kind of down, so when something's coming towards you.

If the ball's coming to your face, it's a little harder to catch because of convergence. So when the ball's away from your body, we can turn the head, we can turn the eyes. We have a lot more options. Okay. So really interesting that what balls get dropped more. I'd like to see some research on that.

Somebody Google that shit. Okay. Also, they'll say like, hit him in the numbers. Well. Hitting 'em in the numbers is not always great because what if the person's eyes tracking down is a problem? Now you wanna catch the ball out in front of you, not against your body. Why? Because everybody bring your hands against your chest, so you catching the ball in the numbers and look your eyes down without moving your head.

Can you even see your hands? No. Now the ball's longer, so you'll see part of the ball. Now drop your head. Okay, now you can see it. Okay, now bring your hands out in front of you. When our hands are out in front of us, we don't have to like stare at the ball. We can use peripheral vision, which is my favorite visual tool, so I can scan the crowd.

Okay? Now, what can be bad about peripheral vision? I'm gonna use football, for example, if you see a safety or a linebacker or whoever in your peripheral vision that's about to. Tackle. You guess what you're probably gonna do, uh, drop the ball. Why? Because your sensory focus is trying not to die. The ball is secondary.

Now, I'm always amazed at those big hits. You ever see a guy catch the ball and get fricking clocked and then like, get right back up? Well, because he didn't see that guy in his peripheral vision. He didn't stiffen up. He focused on the ball and he was kind of. Kind not, I don't wanna say limp, but not, there wasn't a lot of tension.

So when he got tackled, his body responded and he fell to the ground. Okay. So helping athletes improve their visual fields and understand where their visual deficits are are huge. I worked for the soccer player, her, we were joking about the lookalike thing. I told her about that and she's like, man, my coaches are always on me to like pay attention.

But what we realized is for her visually, she only knew a defender was there if she saw them. Okay? So her reaction time, she was really fast to react once she saw the well be the off, uh, offense, she was defense. And so what our strategy we came up with is I had her not stand, flat stand kind of, um, at a 45 degree angle.

In the place where her visual field was the biggest, okay? Not necessarily in the direction the ball was coming, but where her visual field was so that she could react. She would have more time to react and get to the ball faster. It was almost like she was surprised when the defender got there. Okay? So we can't make assumptions about the visual field and to make this more complex guys.

What about screens? Now, think about it. When I was in school, we looked at the chalkboard or we looked at nothing, right? We weren't looking at computers all day long. So I'm not vilifying computers. Things are changing. We've gotta adapt. We can't fight it. We've got to adapt. But knowing that kids are going to rarely not looking up at a board, they're always kind of slouched down looking at a computer.

Now we don't wanna just say, oh, improve their visual fields up, because just pulling people up, they're probably not gonna do it from their eyes. So knowing our kids look at a screen, that is going to be a factor for myself when I'm looking at the screen. I do this before I eat 'cause I have shitty digestion.

Yeah, but before I go play tennis, I go into my studio. I look at something as far away. I do proprioceptive exercises. I open up my visual field. I get my body organized before I go play because if I'm looking at the computer and doing zooms and jump up and go play tennis, my visual system is slow to adapt and it takes me a lot longer to warm up.

Okay. We need visual resets. We need to understand how to assess athlete's visual system and not tell them to get off screens and get off their phones. You think that shit's gonna work? We can suggest to them that, hey, scrolling on your phone is inhibiting your visual field. Your eyes are basically jumping up and down repeatedly and think about what these, these kids scroll so damn fast.

I think I scroll fast. And that picture is always clear. So think about how much work and brain processing their brains are doing to make that picture and focus right in that up and down quick. Right? I've gotta think this is affecting kids' vertical jumps. So if you work with kids with vertical jumps, open up their visual fields with smooth pursuits and codes with proprioceptive cues to make sure they're not moving their head or gripping.

Okay. That's gonna help. If they have a bigger visual field, they're gonna have to turn their head and body less. They're gonna be able to move as one a lot better. And don't get me started on lateral movement, right? All this scrolling up and down and this short lateral movement. Think about like a baseball player, right?

You've gotta have great peripheral vision. If you're a batter, right? You're turned to the side, your head's a little cocked. You've gotta be able to see that ball come in and converge at that angle. Okay, let's just think logically, friends, we need to work on that, right? Imagine if you had this bigger visual field and your convergence was good.

Think about how much more power you can create when you don't have to spin just your head as much. The body can move as a whole, so. Again, if you're interested in resources on how to integrate visual systems with your athletes, I'll put in the chat a course I teach to give you more information or just hit me up.

We can talk about it, right? But please make sure, especially with young athletes, you're not correcting their movement and telling them how to move based off how you want it to look. You don't know what's going on in their nervous system. I see shit on social media that makes me cringe. And like people doing like balance training for like baseball players, putting them on a BOSU for pitchers.

Um, hello. The pitching mound is solid. We need their feet to respond to a solid load. Okay. There's even been research that waiting a bat to swing. People think that I'm gonna put it on the bat. It's gonna increase my, um, my speed, my swing speed. They've done research that says it actually slows down. Your speed because our brain responds to sensory input.

So when the bat's heavier, our swing is going to be based off that weight in our hand. If you love doing that, don't stop doing it because I said so, but change your mindset. I want you to put weight on the bat, no weight on the bat, and feel how your hands feel. Notice the pressure shifts in your hands. Be conscious of being able to swing no matter how the bat's in your hand, right?

We don't wanna over grip. You know something in tennis and any racket, sports or batting, if you over grip the shoulder, the body can't respond. So we want the brain and body to respond to different weights, but don't think that making something harder by increasing weight is going to affect your swing speed.

The research is saying no. And if there's any new research out there that says the opposite, send it my way. I'd love to read it. Okay, my take on it. Use it to change the sensory input. With my athletes. Anytime I'm working with an athlete or someone who wants to be an athlete, I wanna teach their brain and body to respond, no matter the sensory input.

And if you don't believe me, watch someone. I I'm, I'm obsessed with two athletes, Patrick Mahomes and Bo Jackson. The reason I'm obsessed mostly with Bo Jackson is dude, I guarantee if we tested him, he has the best visual acuity. Peripheral vision and ability to address to visual information. If you don't know who Bo Jackson is, Google that shit.

Okay. Watching Bo Jackson on the field, it's his reaction time to what the defense did. Freaking amazing. It's like he saw the whole field. And think about it. If somebody, if you're a defender. And someone's running at you, you kind of have to anticipate which way they're gonna cut. You might read their feet, their eyes, their shoulders, whatever the player that you're reading is doing.

But when I watched Bo, it was almost like he was reading the defender and based off their eyes, their shoulders, their feet, he was able to change direction last minute and totally fool them. And there's a lot of other running backs like that. And what's even crazier about Bo Jackson is he was so effing strong, he dislocated his own hip posteriorly, which is pretty impossible unless you get in a car accident.

And last piece of interesting information about Bo Jackson is, I watched a documentary on him a few years ago. I can't remember if it's on Netflix or what it's on, but now as a retired athlete, he's really big into archery, huh? Maybe Bo don't know. If you know, you know what I meant there, but maybe Bo Jackson didn't realize how good he was visually.

It just came to him naturally. When I saw that he did archery, I'm like, that makes sense. It confirmed my bias about Bo Jackson that while he is powerful and one of the best athletes all around, he was a professional baseball player and football player. Whoa. To me, his secret sauce was not the power. It was actually his ability to respond to visual information.

Now why Patrick Mahomes is interesting to me. I think it was, I saw him throw a pass to the right and dude was looking to the left. So I'd love to get my hands on Patrick Mahomes in his eyes. Right? How cool. So if you're looking, say I'm throwing where I'm looking, the defenders know where you're throwing.

But if I can make you think, I'm looking over there, but I'm using my peripheral vision now. Tight ends have become big in football. Sorry, this is very sports related, but we're talking about athletes. So chill. If you don't like sports, I dunno what to tell you. Tight ends have become such an asset to football teams and tight ends are usually big dudes.

They're an easier target to see in your peripheral vision. Now, uh, I'll have to talk to my football hus, football player and coach husband, but. Tight ends usually kind of do shorter passes. I know they go long, but not like a wide receiver or a wide out. Right. So it's just interesting to me like Travis, Kelce's a big target, right?

Rob Gronkowski, huge target. I'd like to ask Tom Brady if he always was able, if him and Gronk had such good rhythm. 'cause he could always see Gronk in his peripheral vision. Right. Something that's so complex about football, I think it's living with a football coach is how many different reads and options are in sometimes each play, you know?

So I think also athletes are kind of put in a box that intellectually they're not as superior, but you're all wrong. They are intellectually superior in a very different way and in a way that I think we could all learn from. So, finishing up question two. Lemme put a bow around that bitch. Visual system matters.

Looking at screens and phones are limiting our visual potential. Listen, I'm not gonna say stop. I'm not gonna stop. I'm just gonna adjust, figure out where my deficits are and improve. And the last thing I'll say about this is if you're a coach and your kids are slow to one side of the field, bring 'em over.

Let's assess it. There's proprioceptive visual and vestibular mismatch there that's making them slower in that direction. And man, I, I see what coaches do. My husband, the amount of work and effort he puts in, it just amazes me for very low pay for coaches. Um, I'm not saying all coaches do that. All the coaches I've seen him work with are the same.

And it's frustrating when all the parents then blame the coaches. When the coaches are doing the best, but if the kids can't respond and react and don't understand the plays, it's a little complex. Uh, side note, parents in the stands, you're not Bill Belichick. All right? You don't know what the kids have been practicing.

You don't know that your kid that you think is great, they've practiced that play 20 times and your kid still can't do it. So when you're like, why won't they call this play? Well, nine times outta 10 'cause your kid sucks at it or the kids aren't getting it. So yeah, I'm sure these coaches see that, oh, I wish we could do that here.

But that's not an option based off our players and their assets. I even love it when I hear people poo-pooing professional athletes, that guy sucks, that guy's better than you'll ever be. Stop assuming what you, what it feels like to be on that field. And coaches are on the field now. Professional, you know, some of the coaches have the bird's eye view.

But it's really easy, what you would say after the fact, that's why it's called hindsight's always 2020, but be able to make that split decision based off the offense. The defense in all sports is challenging. So as the wife of a coach, parents give the coaches a little more respect. And I'm gonna tell you something, your kids just want your love.

They want you to love them, whether they suck or they're amazing, and that's all the parenting advice I'll give for today. Feel free to ignore it because we've gotta get to question three. In the effort for more sports specific trainings, club teams and college, the competitiveness of college, are we increasing the risk of injury and interfering with development in other areas?

Listen, my background's in sports specific training. I was a CSCS for years. I still technically am, um, I'm kind of moved in different directions, so sport specific training's big. It's BA based off the S.A.I.D. principle specific adaptation to impose demands, but we've kind of lost the plot. I see people doing sports specific training if they don't understand the sport.

Oh my God, I saw Pilates training. They were doing something for tennis, and I'm like, if that person did that, that would totally screw up their serve. Athletes move in unique patterns. They've gotta laterally flex and rotate. It's not this perfect alignment movement. You all think it is. And what's even worse is I'll see people, Pilates teachers specifically critique professional athletes doing exercises.

And I'm like, what arrogance you with perfect alignment could never play that sport, yet you're critiquing someone who's a professional. Alignment isn't always anything. Perfect alignment. Doesn't matter if you don't believe me, Google LeBron James feet. Okay, but back to the point, I'm gonna read some research here.

Youth athletes who specialize in one sport are 2.25 more likely to experience overuse injuries than multi-sport athletes. It is also linked to higher rates of burnout and dropout. Increased risk of comp, repetitive strain injuries like Little League Shoulder and Osgood Slaughter Disease, also reduced motor diversity and adaptability.

Let's talk about those all now. Yes, the research shows this still people ignored and that's fine, but let's talk about it. Overuse injuries. Something people don't realize is once you have an injury, it affects your proprioception. And dare I say, you had that injury because you already had gaps in proprioception there.

That's why the injury happened in that unique way. Yes, there was trauma, yes, there was overuse, but if that area was proprioceptively sound, the injury wouldn't have occurred. Okay. Now number two, high rates of burnout and dropout. Well, when we're getting injured and feel like shit, we might get burnt out.

Now, I know your kid loves sports and wants to do this all the time, and even, I remember Nick Saban, um, who was, uh, the football coach for univer, uh, for Alabama for years. Really well regarded coach. I don't know him as a human, probably maybe not a good human. I don't know. So don't come at me with that.

But he said he looks to recruit three sport athletes. We've gone away from three sport athletes because kids are so afraid that if they don't play a sport all year round, they're gonna fall behind. Now imagine being a kid terrified that if they don't play a sport all year round, they're gonna fall behind and not be able to get the scholarship they want.

I think us as adults need to encourage them and show that them. That's not the case. Um, I think it was Michael Strahan, like didn't start playing football until like high school. Um, I think it was another giant, maybe it was JPP. Um, I think he didn't start playing football. No, it wasn't, it wasn't JPP, it was another football player.

He was a basketball player I think in college and then became a professional football player. Let me tell you, professional athletes are freaks. Ah, it's amazing to watch them move. So that diversity and movement is so important. Maybe in the off season you invest in your son, daughter, or athlete to really do some visual training and sensory matching, making them be better adaptable to any sport and activity, right?

Not throwing a baseball or swinging a bat or tackling is not going to limit your kid's success. I've gotta share with you the research. I see it all the time and injuries can be devastating and I wasn't gonna go there. But when somebody is injured and in pain, we all know what is prescribed for that and these people are are in pain.

But I think we all know how addictive these medications are, so it's easy to say it won't happen to you or your kid. I hope and pray that is the truth. But limiting the injuries and the burnout, I think should be a bit more of a focus. So what I want you to do as parents, I want you to argue both ends of that conversation.

Don't change just 'cause I said it, but if you're really fighting me on this, come, come to my side. Here are my perspective. And then come to the conclusion. 'cause they're your kids, not mine. Let's also talk about reduced motor diversity and adaptability.

That's kind of important. Kids, when they're young, they're the most plastic. We want them to have the most motor diversity, be able to move, be able to adjust. That is critical for their development and to adulthood to feel comfortable in their body to feel safe. Imagine if they lose motor diversity or lack of sensory input.

Imagine you're a 20-year-old who either played in college and didn't make pros or didn't make it in college, your body is stiff, you're injured. It feels like shit. It hurts all the time. You don't wanna exercise anymore. Your proprioception is off. Your visual system's off 'cause you're staring at screens.

You get depressed. Why are you depressed and disengaged? Well, your whole body feels like shit.

We all need to think about that and think about that for ourselves as adults who are pushing our bodies to do crazy workouts. For what? Do you wanna be a old person who can move around and be agile, or you wanna be an old person with pain? I wanna be an old person who's agile. And funny, I can't wait to be old and just like old, like I get away with saying a lot of shit now, but oh, imagine how much stuff I'm gonna get away with saying when I'm older.

Oh my God, I'm gonna be that old lady who's so mean. But everybody thinks it's funny. It's gonna be amazing. I can't wait. It's. All right. So the other thing is multi-sport participation is associated, associated with lower injury rates, better neuromuscular development, and enhanced, um, adaptability and long-term performance.

So athletes who delay specialization tend to have longer careers, fewer chronic injuries, and probably learn new skills. What if you thought you were only good at one thing and then you get injured at that? Then what do you have? Imagine you realized you're good at some other things. Like I was actually pretty good at rugby.

I mean, not great, but I feel like if I would've played rugby, if I knew the rules I like, I always loved football, like, 'cause my dad loved football and I would watch it with him, but football wasn't appropriate. What girls didn't play football? Excuse me. I don't wanna say it's not appropriate at all though.

I don't think it's appropriate for me to play tackle football with men who are much bigger than me. I would've died. Um, but. I love that idea. Rugby was so cool to me. I had so much fun. It, it built my confidence. It, I felt like a part of a team. It was kind of cool. And they do say women who play sports. I just heard a study recently, um, like C-Suite executives.

Uh, most of the female executives were all athletes and played a sport because they know how to work as a team. They know how to adjust, they know how to face diversity. So I think finding a sport or activity you're good in, whether it's dance, tennis, golf, I mean, what a confidence boost for a kid. Right?

And, um,

I can't. I don't have suggestions for how to decrease screen time. My only suggestion is, well, what if we adapt to it? We all sit more, we all do different things, so we've gotta adapt to that. So just think about all these sport specific trainings you're giving your kids. Is, is this gonna benefit them the long term?

Is it improving their actual sport performance? Because it is big business. I'm not going to tell you the dollar amount you, you will shit, your pants. It is so high. Club teams, everybody is making money off these kids. Now these, um, what are they called? Paying athletes. All these athletes now have, um, agents, a lot of people are making money off of kids.

Don't let somebody profit off your child.

Don't let somebody profit off your child. Now, that doesn't mean you can't pay someone to help your kid. Everybody's profiting off something. I'm profiting on helping people walk better and do what I do. Does that make me a bad person? No. But there are a lot of snake oil salesmen and just doing these really cr, overly creative exercises that could be re increasing your child's risk of injury and with these club teams think about is could the kid be playing a different sport that will make them more rounded?

Okay. So, I know today's episode was a little longer because I wanted to get into each deep one, but let's quickly summarize. Think about when you're working with athletes or your children are there coaches, their strength coaches, or you overloading their growing bodies with proprioceptive cues that will change and adapt.

We don't want an athlete to always think they should be doing this as they change and grow. Also, if your athlete is hypermobile, has a connective tissue disorder, proprioceptive cues are like yelling at a deaf person. You need to identify the unique sensory input from them and using higher level like visual and vestibular cues and letting proprioceptive learn from that.

So we're not not doing movement, we're not not doing proprioception, but we're using other sensory intel to improve proprioception and change it. It. Something people don't realize is exercise and movement doesn't change proprioception, it often just reinforces the current patterns. If we wanna change proprioception, we've gotta use a different sensory input.

Okay? Number two, I just talked about higher level systems. The visual vestibular system. We gotta assess those systems. Don't just go and do a ton of visual training, computerized. I love all these computerized training. So these kids are staring at computers more. Come on. I get it. There's some cool shit.

Technology is cool, but technology does not replace hard work and repetition ish, assess the eyes, figure out what their visual field is lacking, and you know, a good way to figure that out. What are they, what are they struggling with? What are they struggling with? Start there. And last but not least, I want you to ask yourself.

In an effort to help your kid be the best that they can be, because parents, my question three is not from judgment. You don't think, if I had a child, I would do everything for them. My nieces and nephew, I would do anything for them. Anything. So it comes from a great place that's important. But ask yourself in an effort to get them better at this sport.

Could it be affecting motor development later on? Their ability to feel good in their bodies and their ability to have diversity in their body so they don't get overuse injuries. Because once you got have an injury, that's something you've gotta keep an eye on for your whole life. When I work with adults, I do a full history.

I wanna know every injury they had as a kid. First question I ask, how many sprained ankles have you had any broken bones, any knee injuries? I wanna know because that's where there were sensory gaps to begin with. Okay? So if we can fill those sensory gaps, we can help kids. And at the end of the day, guys, all this stuff using a neuro sports specific approach.

I think can help kids with their focus and in school and be more adaptable because at the end of the day, I'm gonna quote my husband, he is not coaching football players. He's coaching young men to be their best version. Yes. Does he want them to get better at football? Yes. But the ultimate goal, and that's why I love team sports, it really can teach kids.

How to be a team player, how to deal with wins and losses. God, it sucks being on a losing team, doesn't it? But man teaches you a lot more than winning does, doesn't it? So I know this was a lot in this episode. Please know my questions, my concerns, my complaints come from zero judgment. Number one, I am not a parent.

And number two, the closest I'll ever be to a parent is an aunt and dude. I get it, sort of, I would do anything for them and I'm not even their parents, right? So keep all this in mind. Critically think, take both ends of the argument, fight it, talk it through your head, and figure out what works for you and your kids.

And please share wins and losses. Let everybody know what's working, what didn't work. I think if we talk about it more, maybe it'll help. I'll see you next time. 

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