Following on from the current trends in youth activity blog, the question that needs to be raised is…

“Are children and adolescents strong enough for the physical demands placed upon their bodies to play with vigour or compete in sports training/competition?”

The current strategies being implemented are suboptimal and a change in attitude for paediatric health care is urgently needed. The goal of 60-minutes moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) doesn’t consider the importance of developing prerequisite strength levels in children to play with energy and vigour.

Powerful, explosive movements such as running, jumping, kicking, and throwing will be less efficient in weaker youth due to decreased strength levels. With a decrease in these skills, boys and girls are less likely to engage in recommended MVPA and more likely to run into negative health outcomes (7,10).

Also, youth who solely get their physical activity from sports participation won’t meet the current MVPA guidelines because too much of the time is spent sedentary or only in light activity. Sports participation alone won’t ensure adequate strength levels to optimise athletic performance, reduce risk of injury, and improve overall health (8).

It’s been shown that it may be riskier for youth to perform repetitive jumping and landing activities without a strength training background as the ground reaction forces can be up to 5-7 times body mass. Many of these forces experienced in vigorous free play or sports competitions are much greater in both duration and magnitude than that experienced even in a maximal strength test (11).