{"id":5366,"date":"2017-07-25T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/2017\/07\/25\/ottawa-senators-strength-coach-alarmed-over-declining-youth-athletic-skills\/"},"modified":"2017-07-25T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T14:26:00","slug":"ottawa-senators-strength-coach-alarmed-over-declining-youth-athletic-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/ottawa-senators-strength-coach-alarmed-over-declining-youth-athletic-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Senators Strength Coach Alarmed Over Declining Youth Athletic Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Original story posted\u00a0ici<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Chris Schwarz has a dream job.<\/p>\n

As the strength and conditioning coach of the Ottawa Senators, Schwarz helps keep world-class athletes such as Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris and Mark Stone finely tuned.<\/p>\n

Schwarz isn\u2019t referring to those star players, nor is he citing recent flu virus issues in the NHL when he says:\u00a0\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how we\u2019re in trouble. It\u2019s an epidemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwarz is talking about the lack of athleticism among our youth, even including some elite hockey players who didn\u2019t play other sports or freelance in the playgrounds as children. He offers this simple test for parents:\u00a0\u201cAsk your kid if he or she can somersault. See if they can play catch with both hands. Can they run backwards? Do those three things. I think most parents would be astonished that their kids can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those same parents approach Schwarz at his Fitquest private strength training centre and ask him to \u201cmake my son skate fast.\u201d Unfortunately, it\u2019s a losing proposition if the child hasn\u2019t first learned to run and play; to kick and throw a ball.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, in this era of the professional who trains year round, some very good hockey players have come through the system, only to hit a wall at a certain point because their hockey aspirations lacked a foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do assessments on players in the summertime,\u201d says Schwarz, a former professional volleyball player in Europe. \u201cI can tell if they have the ability to be a really good player by the way they see other games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get kids here, and they missed this stage, because they\u2019re not catching, running, throwing. They don\u2019t process it. They can\u2019t be creative. \u2026 you flick a puck over their heads, they can\u2019t react, because they never caught a football that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to professional trainers such as Schwarz, an ideal developmental model for an athlete has him or her learning fundamental movement skills \u2014 crawling and rudimentary gymnastic exercises \u2014 up to the age of six. Sporting fundamentals, including running and jumping, are introduced from ages 9-12. From 10-14, children \u201ctrain to train\u201d and learn the basics of a specific sport. Training to compete is ideal for boys 14-18 and for girls 13-17. The performance focus is the final stage, in the late teens.<\/p>\n

World renowned sport scientist Dr. Istvan Balyi developed this Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model (for late specialization sports) now used by most sport federations in Canada and it\u2019s the foundation for British Columbia\u2019s sport system.<\/p>\n

If basic athletic movements aren\u2019t experienced at a young age, the most well-intentioned athlete, even if she or he is physically mature, presents a potentially compelling shell but with no foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMovement skills, 60 to 70 per cent of that should be accomplished when they\u2019re young,\u201d Schwarz says. \u201cInto mid-school, it\u2019s less about that and more about power and strength. What we\u2019re doing now, kids are coming to me at the NHL level, and they don\u2019t have the movement skills. There\u2019s no basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Schwarz says he has become equal parts strength coach and phys-ed teacher, introducing games and movements to players who missed out on that development. In some cases, it\u2019s too late. Athletes need the cognitive ability to interpret and process information, as well as motor control. Thought, interpretation and movement work as a unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you lack one of those, you\u2019re done,\u201d Schwarz says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to Frankenstein things,\u201d says Schwarz. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to take one aspect of sport and put it all together. But it has to happen in those early years, when play happens. And how can play happen with no physical education and no balls in the schoolyards anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n

Long before concerns about athlete burnout, before LTAD and \u201cphysical literacy,\u201d there was play. Simple, unadulterated play. We ran in parks, played road hockey endlessly and invented games such as \u201cburby\u201d baseball, outlining a batter\u2019s box on a brick wall. We wrestled at recess, sometimes attracting a crowd if it was a real good tilt.<\/p>\n

Who knew we were inadvertently building our physical literacy (a term borrowed from the academic realm) and creating a foundation for athleticism and recreation for life?<\/p>\n

Children don\u2019t play much anymore. Parents are either too concerned about the safety and security of their kids running free, or they can\u2019t tear them\u00a0away from screens (phones, television\u00a0and video games all vying for attention). Play at recess has all but been outlawed for fear of injury.<\/p>\n

Recreation is something that gets scheduled, like a dentist appointment. And if a child is good at a game such as hockey or soccer, parents are often drawn into year-round programs that exclude other sports.<\/p>\n

In recent years,\u00a0specialization in sport<\/a>, especially for preteens, has come under fire by educators and most sporting bodies.<\/p>\n

These issues have led to a slow but steady crawl into something of a sport and health-care crisis.<\/p>\n

You know some of this story: That children are chronically inactive, leading to soaring obesity rates (according to the Canadian Medical Association, 27 per cent of youth between the ages of two and 17 are overweight or obese). Playground play is just one endangered species in this tale. At school, phys-ed class is something to be skipped \u2014 not just because it\u2019s the Friday afternoon of a long weekend, but skipped by most students altogether after Grade 9, the last year it is mandatory in the province of Ontario.<\/p>\n

It infuriates Schwarz that children are kept from doing what comes naturally, being physically active.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son can\u2019t bring a ball to school,\u201d he says. \u201cSome kid in Toronto got hit in head with a rubber ball and they\u2019ve banned all balls in the schoolyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balls aren\u2019t the only schoolyard targets. A few years ago, a school on Long Island banned cartwheels and games of tag. One can\u2019t be too careful.<\/p>\n

Schwarz, the father of a boy and girl, ages 9 and 12, keeps a trampoline in his backyard so his kids can develop co-ordination through jumping. On weekends, he rounds up neighbourhood kids and takes them to a playground with a bag of balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay is free,\u201d Schwarz says. \u201cThrowing a ball at the garage door is free (though not always popular with mom and dad). So is bouncing a ball off the roof, or playing catch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Numerous studies have shown that playing just one sport dramatically raises the risk of injury. Schwarz knows this first-hand.<\/p>\n

Hockey players who didn\u2019t learn to evade danger on the playground or football field, lack sporting instincts when a player is skating at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t know enough to step to one side \u2014 kids run right into each other,\u201d Schwarz says. \u201cThen when they fall, they haven\u2019t fallen before in wrestling or gymnastics \u2026\u00a0they bang their heads on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey players lift fewer weights than they did, part of the game\u2019s evolution toward speed and skill and away from brawn. For 10 years, Schwarz has been saying that hockey players would soon look less like football players and more like tennis players. That day is here. We present Senators forward Derick Brassard as Roger Federer. In the Senators strength room, Schwarz oversees unusual competitions beyond the weightlifting apparatus, often involving darts and simulated bowling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend time playing games that look nothing like regular games,\u201d Schwarz says. \u201cA deadpool challenge. They\u2019re bowling on the turf to numbers, and if they hit the numbers they get extra points. It can be fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to be fun. Not so structured. Make up your own rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking at a conference in Denver a few years ago, Schwarz delivered a zinger that still gets talked about in NCAA circles when the discussion of spontaneous reaction surfaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cSport is not dance rehearsal,\u201d Schwarz told the conference. \u201cSomebody doesn\u2019t come at me and say \u2014 please go this way. It\u2019s ever-changing.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Original story posted\u00a0here. Chris Schwarz has a dream job. As the strength and conditioning coach of the Ottawa Senators, Schwarz helps keep world-class athletes such as Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris and Mark Stone finely tuned. Schwarz isn\u2019t referring to those star players, nor is he citing recent flu virus issues in the NHL when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"segment":[],"class_list":["post-5366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5366"},{"taxonomy":"segment","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplayhockey.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/segment?post=5366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}