In the last 15 years there has been a notable increase in the early sports specialization of children and young people. Some factors that explain the desire of parents and coaches to encourage the choice of a single sport have to do with the hope of giving the young athlete an advantage over other players, obtaining a scholarship or financial support, facilitating their arrival at the professional elite and achieving the “elite” label at an early age. Despite these apparent advantages, some research and many individual athlete stories suggest that early specialization does not lead to a competitive advantage over those other athletes who participate in many sports simultaneously.
Recently, at the Women’s Soccer World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand, the forward of the Spanish team Salma Paralluelo stood out for her physical and technical qualities. The journalists found out that she was a player who had practiced another sporting discipline, the 400 meters in athletics, and that aspect had helped her performance in her playing position. But it is not an isolated case. Auri Bokesa followed a reverse path from basketball to athletics, an aspect that would have helped her coordination and agility. Rafa Nadal played other sports, including soccer, while she trained in tennis. At an international level, the figure of Michael Jordan also stands out, who practiced various sports such as baseball and American football, or the tennis player Nick Kyrgios, who played basketball since his childhood. All these examples show that certain beliefs in sports training must be analyzed from a more scientific perspective, having as the axis of the analysis the main protagonist, the boy and the girl, who must enjoy sport.
In sporting contexts, the approach based on the so-called “early specialization theory” (in English, early engagement theory). According to this model, the most advisable thing is to limit the variety of sports practice in order to become competent in the sport that is practiced by training a high number of hours from an early age. However, there are other approaches that propose more diverse training, especially in the age group of 6 to 12 years. As researcher Jean Côté explains, it is very relevant to consider the different approaches to sport that boys and girls can face, where activities that are carried out for fun appear, such as free play (pleasure of playing without a specific purpose) and deliberate play (when a sport or skill is practiced as experimentation in non-standardized spaces) that have a high motivation. On the other hand, there are more planned and structured approaches, with regulated training and competitions that seek to improve performance, such as structured practice and the deliberate practice. In this sense, it is recommended to evolve from a varied practice, where play and motivation predominate, to deliberate practice, as you mature and evolve at the level of your skills. That is, until the age of 14-15, enjoy sports and the different forms and types, until reaching an age where the boy and girl can choose the one in which they feel most competent and can specialize with greater intensity, if that is your wish. This process must continue in parallel with the coach’s role as a guide, helping with their physical literacy in the early stages, until becoming a specialist in their advanced phases who corrects performances to perfect their performance.
We must not forget the role of motivation in deliberate play. Going with friends to the park after school or playing with family in the backyard or on the street are recreational activities that increase the richness of physical sports practice, and complement and help the development of motor competence in all its dimensions. Therefore, we should not limit those sports activities that generate enjoyment in boys and girls. In a recent meta-analysis analyzing more than 6,000 athletes, including 772 who competed at the elite level, it was found that the athletes who reached the high level presented a varied sports practice in their childhood until they gradually specialized in the main sport in the one they compete. However, athletes with high performance at training ages practiced a single sport and practiced many hours, which generated a rapid improvement in performance. However, in the long term this improvement stagnates, being a short-term training process that limits the potential development of the athlete and his motivation (and can even reach burnout [síndrome de desgaste profesional]), as well as increasing the possibility of injuries due to overexertion. This study revealed the importance of differentiating early specialization (exclusive practice of a single sport in a structured manner) with early diversification (free play, deliberate play and physical literacy), with the second being the most suitable for boys and girls from a point of view. view of the enjoyment and development of their motor competence.
In a second meta-analysis, the extent to which standing out at an early age guarantees reaching the sporting elite was studied. To do this, more than 13,000 athletes were analyzed and it was found that reaching the junior category with good sporting results has a very low predictive value (between 0% and 4.6%). That is, many of the athletes who compete at the high level had lower levels than their counterparts in the junior category, showing a long-term process developing their potential from the junior to senior stage. Therefore, it seems reasonable to stop looking for talents in boys and girls of 8 or 10 years old, since long-term sports training depends rather on generating adequate and varied processes.
In the correct motor development of boys and girls, the negative effects that may arise from early specialization must be eliminated. A varied approach will develop intrinsic motivation, adherence to sports practice and satisfaction towards sports activities. Let’s remember the examples of our athletes at the beginning of the article, let’s look for the best for them in their development, so that they choose and enjoy their practice, whether at a recreational or competitive level.