What age should kids be solo training by?

[jetsmooseice]

My kid is 10. He's reasonably good and loves to be out on the ice. He gets a bit of "extra" skills sessions that I pay for where they do a bit of dryland stuff. We go to the ODR a fair bit too.

Despite some gentle nudges to do a bit of solo training on his own - nothing serious like time in the weight room or whatever, just fun stuff, like stickhandling or shooting pucks in the driveway during the summer - he won't do it. I'm wondering if this will start to hold him back a bit as the kids get older and more serious about things? I don't want to press him on it but I am curious as to what age people feel that this type of training stops being "extra" and becomes more of a "must"?

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[puckpilot]

IMHO, it's never a "must" it's only a must if the kid deems it a must. If not doing something holds him back from reaching a higher level, then that's his choice,, because he obviously doesn't love the game enough to dedicate himself to it. You cant force a kid to love practise. That kind of passion they either have or they don't.

My nephew is like that. He's been a AAA player all his life. But, at 10 I knew he didn't have the kind of passion for the game that would push him ahead of the pack. At practice, he's great. He's a dream to coach. But he does/did very little else on his own. Hockey to him is more of social time to be with teammates and practise is an extension of that. So now, at 15, even though he's a AAA player, he's at the bottom, and he's OK with it. He's picking up other passions.

 

[ZJuice]

I tore up my Tier 3 divisions starting age 12 because I suddenly loved practicing. I would get home from school or practice and throw on the roller blades and deke around the supports in the unfinished basement. Doing 360s, pretending Pronger was coming to destroy me and I needed to get away kind of thing. I was pretty mediocre from 6-11, other than street hockey I was usually playing video games or biking.

Then in 2004 I spotted St louis's legs on a TV segment and being a shorter guy I started doing squats and deadlifts that year. That helped my game tremendously. I used the "skate lace tied to a cut hockey stick on one side and a 10lbs weight on the other" and I rolled that up and down as much as possible. Using the weighted puck in practice helped a lot as well. So much more power on my wrist shots than anyone I faced in Tier 3.

I will never know if I was actually good at hockey, but the time I spent off the ice made my Tier 3 life feel too easy. King of the shit lol. Started being a try hard when I was 12. a lot of teammates I grew up with started getting better and more serious about the gym around that age too.

 

[tarheelhockey]

IMHO, it's never a "must" it's only a must if the kid deems it a must. If not doing something holds him back from reaching a higher level, then that's his choice,, because he obviously doesn't love the game enough to dedicate himself to it. You cant force a kid to love practise. That kind of passion they either have or they don't.

My nephew is like that. He's been a AAA player all his life. But, at 10 I knew he didn't have the kind of passion for the game that would push him ahead of the pack. At practice, he's great. He's a dream to coach. But he does/did very little else on his own. Hockey to him is more of social time to be with teammates and practise is an extension of that. So now, at 15, even though he's a AAA player, he's at the bottom, and he's OK with it. He's picking up other passions.

Great post. I would just replace “he doesn’t love the game” with “he isn’t obsessed with perfecting his game”. Lots of kids/people have a genuine love for hockey but aren’t interested in making it a job of sorts... especially not before the age where we would otherwise expect them to be thinking seriously about hard work in other aspects of life.

I don’t mean this to sound like a negative, but it’s not entirely normative for a 10 year old to voluntarily do repetitive/monotonous tasks every day in order to perfect some small detail of a game. It’s not a bad thing, but it does suggest some sort of obsessive tendency toward the activity. As adults we tend to want to cultivate that behavior because we feel it can lead to future success, but it’s a post-adolescent trait to think of “working” in a serious way. I’d wait till at least puberty before introducing that dynamic to a kid who isn’t doing it on his own.

 

[jetsmooseice]

Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of actually pushing my kid into doing that sort of training... if I was headed down that path I would have done it already, haha. It's up to him. Sometimes he laments the fact that he can't keep up with the top-flight kids and I've told him that if he wants to get better, he has to work at it and that even the guys at the top of the game practice and train relentlessly.

I am just curious as to when that shift from no one trains at all (e.g. Timbits players) to pretty well everyone is doing at least something (e.g. Bantam players) typically happens. Sounds like it's kind of an after puberty thing as tarheelhockey pointed out.

I also thought it was a bit odd that my kid was never interested in shooting pucks around the driveway... I had zero talent when I was his age but one thing I did love doing was taking a bucket of pucks into the backyard, my old wooden Canadien, and firing clappers. Mind you, the entertainment options were more limited back then!

 

[jetsmooseice]

My nephew is like that. He's been a AAA player all his life. But, at 10 I knew he didn't have the kind of passion for the game that would push him ahead of the pack. At practice, he's great. He's a dream to coach. But he does/did very little else on his own. Hockey to him is more of social time to be with teammates and practise is an extension of that. So now, at 15, even though he's a AAA player, he's at the bottom, and he's OK with it. He's picking up other passions.

Yeah, your nephew at 10 sounds like my kid! He has other interests including some outside of sports altogether so it's not like hockey is everything to him.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Like others - "that sounds like my kid!"

Loves hockey, never complains about going to practice, or even dryland - but never does anything on his own. Sometimes we suggest going outside to shoot some pucks or whatever - he's like "Meh - maybe later".

If he really, really wanted to be better - at age 13 he'd know he should be doing strength training and extra practice on his own. But yeah he's going to self-limit himself, but that's not something I think is worth fighting about. I'll fight over homework, but not hockey.

 

[jetsmooseice]

Like others - "that sounds like my kid!"

Loves hockey, never complains about going to practice, or even dryland - but never does anything on his own. Sometimes we suggest going outside to shoot some pucks or whatever - he's like "Meh - maybe later".

If he really, really wanted to be better - at age 13 he'd know he should be doing strength training and extra practice on his own. But yeah he's going to self-limit himself, but that's not something I think is worth fighting about. I'll fight over homework, but not hockey.

Yeah, I'm with you. You have to pick your spots with this stuff.

The purpose of my asking is not with a view to forcing him to do any of these things, just more to let him make an informed decision, along the lines of "if you want to do your absolute best at hockey, you have to put in time doing X, Y, Z." But it obviously has to come from within him.

 

[macbowes]

I was elite in my sport up until I was 14, and I trained 21 hours / week with only one day off, being Saturday. I absolutely loved my sport, but I didn't like practicing, but I did it anyways, because the thought of getting worse, or falling behind, scared me. Inevitably, I got to the level where everyone practiced as much, or more than I did, but they loved it. They absolutely craved it, in ways that I didn't. I quit. I don't regret it, but I'm glad I tried as hard as I could, and practiced when I didn't want to.

I don't really have any advice, so much as an anecdote. On the one hand, there were tons of days that I was overwhelmed, and felt I was always working, when other kids weren't, and I just wanted to go home after school, rather than go to the gym. On the other hand, I absolutely loved being a high-end athlete, and being faster and stronger than most of the other kids, and leaving school to travel for my sport.

Eventually, I was burnt out. I met my match, and then some. I don't regret all the extra training, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. Unless you get to the absolute pinnacle of your sport, no matter how much work you put in, you will meet your match.

So when do other kids start putting in the extra work? My guess is, they already are, and have been for years. The best U12 hockey players in the world are likely working 25+ hours / week, in addition to their schooling. If he's slipping compared to top competition now, it will keep happening. This is okay. I say push them if they let you, but if they don't have a passion for the hard stuff, let them have fun.

There is lots of awesome stuff about the journey to the highest levels in sport, but there's an endless amount of work and maintenance required to stay there, and keep going. This work has to be something you not only want to do, but need to do, because that will be the case for your competition.

 

[Neutrinos]

Why does it have to be solo training? Why don't you offer to train with him?

If your son has dreams of playing professionally, you should design a training program for him, and be pushing him to achieve his goal, not passively waiting for him to come around

If I had a child who was exceptionally talented at a sport, and equally as passionate, I wouldn't have them waste their key development years sitting at a desk in a classroom for 6 hours a day, I would instead make better use of that time by having them work towards their dream of becoming a pro athlete

 

[Yukon Joe]

If I had a child who was exceptionally talented at a sport, and equally as passionate, I wouldn't have them waste their key development years sitting at a desk in a classroom for 6 hours a day, I would instead make better use of that time by having them work towards their dream of becoming a pro athlete

https://media.tenor.com/yeJw5Y-wSpgAAAAC/not-sure-hmm.gif

So "sitting at a desk in a classroom for 6 hours a day" is absolutely non-negotiable for me. Throw in another 8 hours for sleep. The question then is what do you do with the other 10 hours.

The question is at what point does it switch from being "their dream of becoming a pro athlete" to being YOUR dream of them being a pro athlete.

Maybe 3-4 years ago one of my kid's coaches sent a worksheet of some pretty basic workout routines to do at home. So yes, I tried to get him to do them with me. But it was a struggle - working out is hard, he'd rather do other stuff, even if dad wanted to do them with him. Even still if my kid was like "hey dad you want to shoot pucks in the driveway" I'd say "absolutely!". But it rarely happens.

 

[jetsmooseice]

My kid likes to play street hockey in the driveway, with me in net if none of his friends are available. He'll test out some dekes, dangles and what not but it's about having fun as opposed to a disciplined skill development process. And I'm OK with that.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If I had a child who was exceptionally talented at a sport, and equally as passionate, I wouldn't have them waste their key development years sitting at a desk in a classroom for 6 hours a day, I would instead make better use of that time by having them work towards their dream of becoming a pro athlete

That seems like a hell of a risk to take on the whims of a child. What’s the plan if they hit 15 and get more interested in girls/boys than hockey? What if they blow out an Achilles and can’t play for a year? What if they just aren’t that exceptionally talented at a higher level?

Basically, how can you be so confident that “waste their key development years” doesn’t describe what they ought to have been doing behind that desk? As a child, they don’t have the discernment to consider that possibility.

 

[Yukon Joe]

That seems like a hell of a risk to take on the whims of a child. What’s the plan if they hit 15 and get more interested in girls/boys than hockey? What if they blow out an Achilles and can’t play for a year? What if they just aren’t that exceptionally talented at a higher level?

I know at least a couple of guys who played at high levels of hockey (junior) who said "yeah, then I got interested in girls and partying". They're awesome beer league players, but that's all they are now - beer league players.

I rather suspect @Neutrinos was trolling however.

 

[Neutrinos]

That seems like a hell of a risk to take on the whims of a child. What’s the plan if they hit 15 and get more interested in girls/boys than hockey? What if they blow out an Achilles and can’t play for a year? What if they just aren’t that exceptionally talented at a higher level?

Basically, how can you be so confident that “waste their key development years” doesn’t describe what they ought to have been doing behind that desk? As a child, they don’t have the discernment to consider that possibility.

People can always get an education later in life, but there is a window for athletics, and once it closes, that's it

I was an exceptional baseball player in my youth, and it had always been my dream to play professionally, however, I was raised in a small town by a single mother, and with no father figure or big brother to provide guidance, those key development years I spoke of were squandered, and before I knew it my childhood dream was over

That dead dream has been rotting inside of me like a cancer ever since, and each day I wake up to the reality that in the only life I'm ever going to have, I'm never going to live the only life I had ever wanted

Ethan Hawke's character in The Phenom is an asshole, but not a day goes by that I don't regret not having someone like that in my life when I needed it... minus the beer cans to the head, of course


Or maybe I'm just trolling...

 

[Yukon Joe]

Or maybe I'm just trolling...

I guess we'll never know...

 

[tarheelhockey]

People can always get an education later in life

That’s like saying people can always become athletes later in life.

 

[Neutrinos]

That’s like saying people can always become athletes later in life.

No, it's not at all...

Do you really need it explained to you?

 

[tarheelhockey]

No, it's not at all...

Do you really need it explained to you?

Sure, go for it.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

If he doesn't want to do extra practice, and there's no particular reason why he should, stop paying for the dryland stuff and let him play for fun.

There's already large benefits from playing organized sports, but it's a diminishing return.

 

[Neutrinos]

Sure, go for it.

Approx. 10% of all college and university students in Canada are over the age of 40 - many of whom hadn't been in a classroom since high school

How many professional athletes made their pro debut in their 40's after not having trained in their sport for 20+ years?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Approx. 10% of all college and university students in Canada are over the age of 40 - many of whom hadn't been in a classroom since high school

How many professional athletes made their pro debut in their 40's after not having trained in their sport for 20+ years?

There’s a lot packed into this and it’s going to go way off topic, so I’m going to make this as concise as I can:

1) It is far, far more difficult to become a student in your 40s than as a teenager, on a number of different levels. The statistic above tells us enrollment, but says nothing about completion of degrees, time it takes to finish, or sacrifices that need to be made.

2) Waiting till you’re 40 to get your education is like waiting till you’re 40 to start a retirement fund. It’s better than nothing at all. But it’s a hard reality that you’ve already missed the window where the most important gains occur. The data here shows that a 20-year delay in receiving a bachelor’s degree sets a person back by a median $600,000.

3) Being a pro athlete (top <1% of the competition) is comparable to being a successful surgeon, high-powered attorney, or CEO of a large company. People who start their education in their 40s don’t get jobs like that.

Returning to point #2: if delaying one’s degree until 40 costs $600K, then the amount of money they earn as an athlete needs to outpace that loss in order for it to make any sense. Given that AHL players not on an NHL contract make around $60K, AAA baseball players not on a 40-man roster make around $35K, and CFL players make something like $80K, it’s fair to say that the financial math only works if the player is signed to an NHL/MLB/NFL/NBA team. Otherwise they’re in a financial hole, with no real work experience, and no education. That’s a horrible place to be as a 40 year old.

 

[Neutrinos]

There’s a lot packed into this and it’s going to go way off topic, so I’m going to make this as concise as I can:

1) It is far, far more difficult to become a student in your 40s than as a teenager, on a number of different levels. The statistic above tells us enrollment, but says nothing about completion of degrees, time it takes to finish, or sacrifices that need to be made.

2) Waiting till you’re 40 to get your education is like waiting till you’re 40 to start a retirement fund. It’s better than nothing at all. But it’s a hard reality that you’ve already missed the window where the most important gains occur. The data here shows that a 20-year delay in receiving a bachelor’s degree sets a person back by a median $600,000.

3) Being a pro athlete (top <1% of the competition) is comparable to being a successful surgeon, high-powered attorney, or CEO of a large company. People who start their education in their 40s don’t get jobs like that.

Returning to point #2: if delaying one’s degree until 40 costs $600K, then the amount of money they earn as an athlete needs to outpace that loss in order for it to make any sense. Given that AHL players not on an NHL contract make around $60K, AAA baseball players not on a 40-man roster make around $35K, and CFL players make something like $80K, it’s fair to say that the financial math only works if the player is signed to an NHL/MLB/NFL/NBA team. Otherwise they’re in a financial hole, with no real work experience, and no education. That’s a horrible place to be as a 40 year old.

It doesn't even have to be 40...

A teenager who dedicates their life to pursuing athletics can still go to college in their 20's and successfully pursue a medical degree

A teenager who dedicates their life to pursuing a medical degree isn't likely going to fall back on a successful career in pro sports if they don't make it into medical school


Class dismissed

 

[tarheelhockey]

A teenager who dedicates their life to pursuing athletics can still go to college in their 20's and successfully pursue a medical degree

You think a teenager who blew off school to focus on athletics is just going to flip a switch in college and suddenly become a doctor?

I’m sorry, that’s just as far-fetched as walking on to the football team and becoming an NFL player. You’re seriously underestimating the amount of long-term intensive preparation required to compete for med school.

 

[Neutrinos]

You think a teenager who blew off school to focus on athletics is just going to flip a switch in college and suddenly become a doctor?

I’m sorry, that’s just as far-fetched as walking on to the football team and becoming an NFL player. You’re seriously underestimating the amount of long-term intensive preparation required to compete for med school.

I can't have this conversation with you anymore,..

You're just wrong, and I'm out of patience