The Challenge In Sport For Late and Early Developers
Figure 10 Children Who Enter Puberty Late Have a Longer Time Period to Refine Fundamental Sport Skills
Figure 11 Early and Late Maturing Children Drop Out of Sport at Different Times for Different Reasons
Early vs. Late Developers
Adolescence is the period between childhood andbecoming an adult. While both the start and end of thisperiod are difficult to define, it is usually obvious when ayouth is going through the many physical, psychological,social and sporting changes that accompany it.
Not all children enter adolescence at the same age, and it takes different children different lengths of time to complete the process. In general, children who enter adolescence early pass through it faster than those who start later, and whether you start early or late partially depends on your body shape. Stockier, more muscular children usually enter adolescence earlier than their peers who are thinner and leaner.
The whole process starts at about age 10-11 for girls, and about 2 years later for boys, usually takes 3 to 4 years to complete. This means that for girls aged 12, some willhave almost completed the physical changes of puberty, while others have barely started. For boys the greatest range of development is found in 14 year olds.
Few sports understand the difficulties faced by early andlate developers, and those difficulties are different forboys and girls. Because of this, in many Canadian sports there are disadvantages to being either an early or a latedeveloper.
One advantage late developers should have is that they have a longer period of time between learning fundamental movement skills and the onset of adolescence (see Figure 10). This Learn to Train stage is a time when the human body is perfectly designed for the acquisition andrefinement of sport skills, and the longer a child is in this stage, the better developed their skills can become.
Males: In reality, male late developers are often at a great disadvantage, and this is especially true in sports where age group competitions are held. As their peers go through puberty, late developing males find themselves much smaller, less muscular and physically weaker. Training and competing against bigger, stronger and faster opponents is not always fun, particularly in contact sports, and late developers therefore tend to drop out – despite the fact that in the long run they have greater potential for success. There are also disadvantages of being an early developer. Early in adolescence early developers (who go through a relatively rapid but short adolescence) are bigger, stronger and faster than their peers and this often translates into sporting success. However, as late developing team mates and competitors go through their longer, more sustained, growth spurt those late developers eventually catch up with and surpass the early developers. With their late developing peers now bigger faster, stronger, and more skilled than them, the early developers tend to drop out of their sport towards the end of adolescence.
Females: For females the situation is less clear, but appears to be reversed. The rapid growth of breasts and the widening of hips, along with social pressures to discontinue sport invovlement, can cause early developing to drop out early in their teen years; while late developing females who have had success with their prepubescent bodies as teammates develop before them face the same difficulty when older.