Happy Tuesday Friends. I’m spending some time over the course of this year breaking down what I think it means to move well during different seasons of life. Last month, I talked about moving well through the aging process. Let’s talk about the opposite phase of life and moving when we are young today.
Young and old are completely relative terms. For example, my ten year old thinks I’m positively ancient, while I still wonder who decided I was responsible enough to have a ten year old in the first place. I digress. For the intents and purposes of this post, let’s define young as under the age of 18.
Even with this as our basis, there are still a lot of distinctions to consider. A one year old learning how to walk has very different movement requirements than an eight year old playing with friends or a sixteen year old working on improving sport performance. Especially as it relates to sports, we tend to think of teenagers as little adults, but they aren’t.
Growth
Moving well while we are young boils down to two simple things, really. First and foremost is growth. Humans are really complex creatures and there is a reason we are born at 9 months gestation with 7 basic reflexes: any larger and our brains wouldn’t physically fit through the birth canal. But our brains also grow insanely fast and acquire new skills quickly through the first two years of our lives.
Think about it, a newborn is basically a lump that needs to have everything done for it and by the time that baby is two they are walking and talking and doing all sorts of amazing things. If you are a parent, think back to the pediatrician’s office. How many of the milestones in the first two years of life have to do with movement? Holding the head up and steady, rolling over, grasping toys or utensils, pulling up, first steps and the like.
Growing doesn’t stop here, though. Kids grow. And grow. And get clumsy when they grow a lot and quickly. As soon as their feet get bigger or their arms get longer, they bump into everything because their brain has to re-map where they are in space and how long it takes to move longer and bigger limbs.
Through the teenage years, growth often switches from straight up height/length changes to width and weight changes. Boys start to expand at the shoulder and put on much more muscle. Girls see their hips widen and center of mass change. But as with children, these changes reflect changes in how movement works. Swinging arms from a wider base means the mechanics change. Running with different angles at the hip and knee can result in new injuries.
Learning
The second factor in moving well for kids is learning. Movement skills are acquired. Again, human babies aren’t born walking (unlike lots of other animals), we learn to do it. And then we keep learning. We learn how to translate walking to running, which involves being completely unsupported for a small portion of the gait cycle. We learn how to stand on one foot. And then hop. We learn how to visualize objects coming towards us which has huge implications for us being able to kick or catch.
All of this to say, what I think it means to move well as younger beings is to move often and in lots of different ways. Open play when kids are very young is such an important way their bodies learn to move. Experimenting through play (can I jump off the big rock?), inventing games (three points if you can climb the jungle gym fastest), and learning rules of sports (i.e. you need to dribble to move your feet in basketball) all allow kids to test the limits of what their bodies can do and allow them to learn new skills.
Encourage and Listen
As kids get older, moving well means encouraging them to continue moving and also listening to them. I see it so much with youth sports in the US. We have forgotten that under twelve, every sport should be about individual skill development and not winning. Sports at this age should reflect learning the rules and how to play as a team and not specialization. This external pressure drives kids away.
Parents need to listen when their kids ask to step away. There are all sorts of mental and emotional things that can come up, like burnout. But there are also huge physical consequences. Again, we are talking about growing bodies. Growth takes a huge amount of energy and recovery time. If a growing body is overwhelmed with trying to recover from sports, too, that’s when injuries happen.
We have a rule for our ten year old: he can sign up for any sport he likes (except football, no concussions please). He has to finish out whatever the commitment time frame is, but if he hates it or needs a break, he can absolutely take one. He has played basketball for years, but had a tough experience last year playing as one of the youngest and smallest kids in his league. He decided this year he didn’t want to sign up and we didn’t fight him. Instead, my hubs suggested ski lessons. The kiddo has loved it. And he’s also spent plenty of time shooting hoops with his neighborhood buddies when the weather allows.
Kids naturally are built to move in lots of different ways and unlike adults, they haven’t learned to dislike things yet. It is our job to encourage them to try lots of different things, regardless of what we may like them to go for. It is also our job to get out of their way and allow their interests and skill levels to change and shift.
Moving well for kids really boils down to providing as many opportunities for movement as we reasonably can while listening to what growing bodies and brains are asking for. Next month I want to talk about what moving well means when dealing with chronic pain.
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