CrossFit Athletic Group

Three weeks ago Josh Bennis did a 150-lb. deadlift on command with no warmup. He is 12 years old.

Overall I'd give Josh a B grade on the lift. His back stayed flat, but his hips hitched up a bit to start it, which brought him back off the balls of his feet and too much onto his heels.

However, I'd like to repeat, Josh Bennis did a 150-lb. deadlift on command with no warmup.

He is 12 years old.

............

I had a great phone conversation with another basketball coach earlier this week about, well, basketball, of course. It started out about our 8th grade group but we ended up going into some stuff about the state of basketball in general and how it affects our coaching. There are some noticeable differences in the game over the last 10 years:

• the overall amount of talent is down
• the demand for high end talent is even more exaggerated
• kids are expected to know more at an early age
• the development rate is accelerated by about 2 years
• more opportunities to make money

All of those factors contribute to the basketball world getting itself into a big damn hurry. Things that were expected out of a 10th grader are now expected out of an 8th grader; a process that once took two years to develop now can be done in 6 months; an opportunity that would arise your senior year in high school can now be available to you as a freshman.

The game, in general, is not as patient as it was 10 years ago. However, that doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. And it doesn't even mean every coach has to participate in that kind of way. Allow me to quote Mos Def:

"People talk about Hip Hop like it's some giant living in the hillside... we are hip hop! Me, you, everybody... so Hip Hop is going where we going."

Even though I'm talking about basketball, the same thing can be applied to soccer, baseball, school (literally, the Busch Babies are doing algebra(!)), college decisions, or whatever else you think fits. For reasons unclear to me, getting "there" early seems to be a major point of emphasis in most circles I'm involved in; there is always temptation to speed up the learning curve of our young kids. But I think this temptation comes from not having a fair comparison.

An 8th grader with C+ jump shot in 2022 is a better shooter than an 8th grader with a C+ jump shot from 2012. This is good! Where parents and coaches can get lost is when they expect a C- 8th grade shooter to turn into a B+ shooter by the end of this summer.

The basketball analogy can be clearly seen in the Champions Club, both in terms of how connected we are to the youth sports scene in Metro Detroit, and also how much of a presence the high school and middle school kids have in the gym. Just remember that we are youth sports; youth sports is going where we're going. Let everyone else rush the process. One day this financially-motivated coaching bubble is going to bust and we will be right back to the point when athletes are encouraged to go through their natural learning progression.

...........

10 years ago Frankie Lama did a 80-lb. clean and jerk while he was a 6th grader. 10 years ago Ricky Carey did a 155-lb. deadlift while he was in 8th grade. 9 years ago Aaron Sexton did a 95-lb. back squat going into 7th grade.

These were all B lifts at the time. I used to brag about our kids' lifting form to anyone who would listen, and even to those who didn't listen. Fast forward to 2022 and any of the middle school kids now - Lulu, Lily, Conamora, Sam Curtis, Ashlyn, Loretta, JB, Michael - could watch those videos and point out dozens of faults.

This is a good thing; I would expect the standard to get gradually raised over the course of 10 years. What I wouldn't expect, however, is for Sam Curtis and to suddenly move as well as Madison Bettys or Chase. If we can get 8th graders going into high school as C+ movers, I would be completely fine with that. Then hopefully in 10 years Cameron Bewick and El Nevarez look back at the Monkeys and scoff at what we called C+ form at the time.