<p>Hi parents,
My HS freshman son came home the other night and told me that his coach wants to put him into his varsity team (sprinter-400 meters), but S needs to participate morning weight training starting at 5AM at least 3 days a week I think.</p>
<p>Frankly my family has no idea that my son has talents in this, but it seems that the coach saw something in him. </p>
<p>DS is a perfectionist, attending to every details of his academic and extra-curriculum works. He goes to bed at 11 or 12 most of the time and I always think it's a bit late for a HS freshman. I really don't want him exhausted himself that much. </p>
<p>I'd like to know if any parent could share me some experience or thoughts with this kind of training for varsity team. Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>Many coaches care only about winning. They could care less about your child’s well being or other obligations. Plus, your child will be mainly concerned about pleasing the coach, once he is a team member. After a lot of abuse and family conflict your child will acknowledge the coach’s motivation.</p>
<p>It is insane to expect a kid to be working out at 5am before a full day of school and practice afterwards.</p>
<p>Not to put you off, but many H.S. coaches are like dictators of mini nations. </p>
<p>If the coach wants 2 hours before school and 2 hours after school, that is a ridiculous amount of time. Then, on days that they compete, it would add many more hours (plus Saturdays).</p>
<p>Many kids are able to handle this, but it is brutal. For some kids, athletics, especially running, is very motivational and makes them work even harder in order to balance academics and keep up the good grades.</p>
<p>Daughter a D1 college athlete, in high school had 5:30 am morning practice every day during high school season. After school she had club practice(s), M-Sat, all year. Summers were 2-a-days. In college, she had morning practice, afternoon practices and weight training, daily…all 4 years. Same with my boys, D1 college athletes, practice daily.</p>
<p>And yes all were 3 season varsity athletes, from freshman year, all through high school. Also became captains, of championship teams. But what made it really special was when younger son was accepted EA to MIT while he was capt of his wrestling team. Didn’t happen often to the wrestling team!!</p>
<p>So my point is, it can be done, it has been done and if your son really wants this, he can do it too!! But it has to be all him, not the coach, not you…him!</p>
<p>Enjoy, and encourage your son to also enjoy. If it stops being fun, he’s doing something wrong!!!</p>
<p>How long are afterschool practices? With practicing twice a day, your son could be starting to push toward the maximum hours that NCAA division 1 athletes are allowed to practice (20). I’m not saying that to try to say anything about rules, since obviously your son’s high school does not follow NCAA rules, but just to point out that it really is a lot. It’s a lot of time and energy for college students, and he’s a high school freshman.</p>
<p>I’d also like to point out, as somebody who regularly wakes up before 5 a.m., it can really affect your day. I consider myself a morning person, but when I wake up that early, I need multiple cups of coffee to get through the workday. For me, I think it’s about waking up before the sun is up and the total hours of sleep. Obviously everybody is affected differently by this, but it’s something to consider – some people just really struggle without enough sleep.</p>
<p>I think the really important question is how important is it to him? Does he want to put the time in? Does he think he’d be interested in pursuing it at the college level? If he’s really into it, being on varsity this year could make a difference in getting recruited/getting a scholarship in four years. Or he just wants to be the best and rise to his full potential. But if he’s just kind of along for the ride, I’d think hard about the time commitment, and maybe do a trial of a week or two to see how he adjusts. Most freshman aren’t on varsity, and he could probably just wait a year.</p>
<p>DS already practices at least 2 hrs a day after school for 4 days a week starting Feb.
He had his first meet last week, and that’s the time the coach noticed him. </p>
<p>DS really enjoys running. He also joined cross-country in the fall, and spent 3 hrs a day, 4days a week for that season. He is not good at long-distance, purely doing it for his own enjoyments.</p>
<p>As I mentioned above, my family has no idea how this varsity things work. (My other son, a senior, doesn’t like sport at all, never participate any sports besides PE.) That’s why I really need your advice.</p>
<p>I also think it can be done. I have 2 athletic kids, that achieved As in Honor classes & AP classes, got into top colleges and got up at 5:00 in mornings for practices - but not every day - only occassionaly. The tough part was usually getting home late (10:00 or later) after away games, and then trying to do homework. I do know they worked very hard to be excellent in both athletics and school, and I’m proud of any and all kids that can do both. </p>
<p>But I would be very careful with a freshman kid, and the poster that commented about Coach’s goals being different than kid’s goals is 100% correct. I think there has to be some firm groundrules that are discussed with both Coach & kid before giving permission. Possibly even signed statements outlining responsibilities and benchmarks.</p>
<p>And I would ask the Coach or principal about tutoring - to be provided by the school. </p>
<p>DS got sick again ever since he joined track/field on Feb. Don’t know if there is any correlation but that concerns me. (He is a healthy kid, shouldn’t get sick so often.) Any thought/experience on this?</p>
<p>Plenty of kids both do varsity sports and get stellar grades. These kids learn excellent time management skills and life skills from the discipline, teamwork and focus on health that is required. If your son bumps up his practices, he will need more sleep. I am curious about his need to stay up til 11:00 or 12:00 to do his homework. That seems excessive for a freshman. It might be worth monitoring whether he is being efficient with his time while studying.</p>
<p>I agree that many kids do Varsity sports and have terrific grades. There are lots of statistics out there showing the advantages of sports for kids. But you need to be your child’s advocate. In our case, at the urging of his coach, my son lost a tremendous amount of weight last year for varsity wrestling. At some point, we needed to say enough is enough. I would see how he handled the 5 AM workouts and go from there.</p>
My kids don’t play varisity sports, but are/were very active on travel and AAU teams. I find when they don’t get enough sleep, they get worn down and are more apt to get sick. I get up for work at 4am and find that I need X hours of sleep each night. I can get less one night a week before I hit the wall. And college kids love to stay out late on weekends, don’t they? I would try to make sure your S stays on top his sleep.</p>
<p>Do you happen to know how fast he ran the 400 at the last meet? If I were you, I would want to know if he really does show potential to be fast in an absolute sense, or if he is merely fast relative to his teammates or the other freshmen, who might be slow (or not). Secondly, I would check to see if this coach has training in how to lift weights, or if there will be someone else in the weight room in the morning who is certified in weight training. Your son is still young and growing, so you want to avoid frequent weight lifting unless the coach knows exactly what he’s doing. The potential for injury is great otherwise. Would you say your son is physically mature for his age or not? That might affect my decision, in part because freshman boy sprinters can seldom compete with the older boys because of physical maturity reasons. You wouldn’t want your son to give up his time and sleep without much reward when he could wait a year until he grows more and get a much better return on his investment. Lastly, is this coach the kind of man who will write your son off if he says no to this offer of a varsity spot? Or would he accept the decision and still have a good attitude about developing your son in the future?</p>
<p>Wow! I got so many insightful info and ideas from you. Thanks everyone again.</p>
<p>@GFG: DS got Tendinitis just few weeks ago and he couldn’t raise his arm for 4 or 5 days. DH and I suspected an inappropriate weight training at that time, but doctor said the cause may be just because the virus was travelling to the muscle and got inflammation there. Now you remind me again, my family should really pay attention to this weight training thing. </p>
<p>To everyone who mentioned the sleep problem: A sufficient amount of sleep is always a priority in my family, I should weight its cons and pros carefully before letting my son goes to early morning training.</p>
<p>I do think that my son has a bit procrastinating problem (though DS doesn’t admit it). Along with his perfectionist nature, he finishes hw, projects etc slowly. So maybe this is also a good chance to help him manage time efficiently. :)</p>
<p>Elite level swimmers are used to 2x/day workouts, with a typical 5:30-7:30am morning practice. Your son may be one of those people that thrives on having a full schedule, forcing him to be more organized or he may not. Until he tries it, he won’t know. You should enforce a lights out time so that he gets enough sleep on those early mornings. (At least it’s not 5 days/week!)</p>
<p>Some of these comments are ridiculous. The coach being a dictator? Come on- you don’t even know this person!</p>
<p>My son trained with his high school varsity track/cross country team when he was in the 5th grade! It wasn’t quite as demanding as what you are describing, but I would drop the little guy off about 6:00 am a couple of days a week. </p>
<p>If your son enjoys it and wants to try to excel, go for it. If it gets to be too much, he can drop back a level. Getting sick isn’t unusual- training is hard.</p>
<p>He is young enough that you can call the coach and ask questions without making it seem like your son is immature. You just want to know what the program involves.</p>
<p>Your son can give it a try, and if it is too much he can drop down like others have said. He may find he likes it enough to give up some other extra-curricular if he finds it is too much.</p>
<p>Getting up at 5 may entice him to go to bed earlier, and as you said he will have to manage his time better. It is only 3 days a week and hopefully one of them is Monday, which will give him plenty of time to get his work done on the weekend and get enough sleep. Then he only really has 2 days where there might be too much to do.</p>
<p>Also, is the weight training mandatory for 3 days? Can he do 2 days? I didn’t even know track did the weight room! My son played football and their primary weight training was in the off season. During season they didn’t have mandatory weight room. I guess practice was grueling enough.</p>
<p>Who is doing the driving? That affects more people than your son. Our son’s baseball coach also had very early morning mandatory weights. For a 14 year old who didn’t even drive yet – requiring already busy parents who are scrambling to get out the door on time in the a.m. as it is to now add a round-trip 5 a.m. drive to school in the dark to the itinerary – it was excessive. Four years later, I still feel it is too much pressure. Coach is also the physics teacher. One morning, my son called him and said “I can either go to weights, or I can study for my physics test. Which is it?” Coach said to study. At some point, enough is enough.</p>
<p>I’m in the camp that says he should do it if he really wants to and will enjoy it. D2 does about 10 hrs per week on a travel team (not including travel weekends like this one where she is gone for 4 straight days). She also keeps going out for varsity teams every sports season. At first we discouraged her since she has such a demanding schedule but she seems to thrive on staying active, so for now we are letting her do what she wants since she is maintaining straight As. </p>
<p>I get concerned when she is at practice from right after school until 8 or 9 in the evening and then has to stay up until 10 or 11 doing homework but I do think it has forced her to be a better time manager. </p>
<p>I also like the idea of negotiating with the coach for maybe 2 days per week, plus perhaps an at home workout or two. We occasionally force our daughter to miss a night of conditioning, and simply tell the coach that she has school commitments, and has already conditioned that day with 2-3 hours of varsity practice.</p>
<p>^Yes, driving is an issue too. I’m not a morning person, not even sure if I can handle it! :)</p>
<p>In DS’s afternoon training, two days are already devoted to the weight room.</p>
<p>Since DS hasn’t fully recovered from sickness, he will miss today’s 2nd meet of this season. He still can’t find out more info regarding to the morning training since he missed two days of school and also missed all the track training this week. Now I recalled, when he was in cross-country last fall, he got sick often too. I’m going to discuss the whole thing (morning training, son’s potential, varsity team’s rule, his frequent sickness, etc) with his coach next week (if DS lets me. He is a very independent kid).</p>
<p>P.S. From the bottom of my son’s heart, he wants to at least try it. I know, as his mother.</p>
<p>If he really wants to try it I would let him. Kids can push themselves but do not do well when the push is external. If you see signs that it is to much you can always modify the routine.</p>
<p>My oldest is a very devoted athlete and managed to get good grades(5.2 weighted, 33 ACT) while participating in 4 sports every year (football, wrestling, lacrosse and weightlifting). I do not think a parent can push their child into a crazy schedule and have him be successful but I do think that if a kid wants to be successful he can often handle much more than his parents think he can.</p>