Why I believe in the youth

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

Why I believe in the youth

By Martha Theirl, PT, DPT

 These days, as with any generation that ages out of the “youth” label, we hear a lot of grief thrown their way. They are spoiled, entitled, have no loyalty or dedication, etc. As an elder millennial, I will fess up to my own level of shade thrown at times. In my practice, I teach a lot of lifting and movement technique. During this, I hear a lot of high school and adult athletes lament to me they wish they knew back then what they know now.

 I agree.

 I do wish that everyone were taught basic movement and lifting patterns from a young age.

 I do believe that this makes a difference in musculoskeletal injuries we see later in life.

 I do know that we can change this.

Photo by Meghan Holmes on Unsplash

 We as humans are resilient and are capable of adapting and changing at any age. Training age is different than chronological age. This is an important distinction when I approach my patients at their entry point. Someone may be 53 and never done a bicep curl, box jump, or deadlift. Your training age for those things is zero. Or maybe you learned something on the fly and then plateaued in your progress and discovered you should be doing things differently. These all create the need for different strategies for adaptation and learning.

 I’ll use myself for example. In high school, I threw the shotput. This was mainly to get more weight room time on my track team and prepare for lacrosse season. We were lifting three days per week. While my track coaches were phenomenal, they were not lifting coaches. They were movement experts in track and field. I was squatting heavy well but was very quad dominant. I didn’t understand how to fire my butt muscles and ended up overusing my low back muscles for lifting and throwing. As you may suspect, this resulted in low back pain on and off for years. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Through teaching solid movement fundamentals we have a foundation to build upon. The youth gives us this amazing opportunity. If we instill correct movement patterns at a young age I believe we will stave off or mitigate injury down the line.

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Call to action:

Try it out! Test your walking lunges, squats (full depth!), rolling, handstands, twisting, and throwing. Do you have good control? Good form? Strength to perform slowly and quickly for a few or many?

Have questions? Ask! Martha@q4pt.com or Contact Us!