Youthful Energy, Youthful Errors
I was talking with a young javelin thrower 2 days ago. The guy wants to excel. This in itself is commendable but then again, there must be a method to the madness and it was no accident he had not been progressing much lately. Alot of overenthusiatic young athletes fall into the following errors in training and nutrition. Even more so in our "asian-city" lifestyle where acedemic persuits also take a toll on stress level and sleeping habits of our young atheltes.
1. Training Too Long - 2 hour workouts? nooooo!! we are trying to get strong, not show that we can do alot of training.
2. Too many sets - he told me he did something like 4 sets of squats, 4 sets bench presses, 4 sets shoulder presses, 4 sets snatches, 4 sets biceps/tricep isolation work, 4 sets core work and sometimes medicine ball stuff also... all in the 6-8 rep range. Unless you are on steroids, this is too much! 24-30 sets of training!!
3. Too light - This young man needs to gain some weight to be at the right weight to throw the javelin (add 10kg from where he is now) and thats not going to happen with these marathon training sessions that put the body in a hormonally disadvantageous state for growth.
Not to fear, after our talk he has agreed to manage his fatigue better by sleeping during class. KIDDING. no hes going to manage his training volume and do homework early so that he gets to sleep more. In addition, hes going to add in more meals per day so that he can meet his calorie needs for muscle growth (4-5000 cals a day as a ballpark figure). He will be great one day.
posted by Coach Jonathan Wong @ 1/02/2007 11:03:00 PM
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