Coaches and parents are often dismissive of the human factor of young athletes.

Too much practicing is often doing more harm than good.

Ignoring athletes' freedom of choice in what they're doing is depriving them of a human need.

Threat and fear are dominant experiences for many athletes in today's toxic youth sports culture.

That’s something that many mentors and leaders in all realms, including sports, ignore in their dealings with people.

The focus herein is on the coaches, trainers, and parents—within a sports context—who often overlook that athletes are human beings, too. It’s a miscue that can lead to a crash-and-burn for everyone involved.

While their efforts may be well-intentioned, coaches, parents, and others in the sports and performance world often fail to recognize the destructive nature of what they are doing.

Let’s explore the elements of those damaging efforts and a few simple solutions.

Many coaches and parents believe that more, more, more practice is better, better, better. Wrong! When dealing with humans, less is often more.

Research conducted by Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer (1993), The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, demonstrates that humans can only endure one hour of intense and sustained individualized practice. Due to physical and mental exhaustion, any more than that will likely result in deteriorating performance and disdain for the coaches and parents who are coercing it. A collegiate golfer once shared that his coach instructed him to practice on a golf course during the team’s off-season for a minimum of seven to eight hours a day!

Team and group practices can run longer because they are less intensive and individualized; therefore, two-and-a-half- to three-hour sessions are fine.

Another thing modern-day youth coaches........

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