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Skateboarding: How It Works (Sports Illustrated Kids: the Science of Sports) (The Science of Sports
Burnout is just one of the reasons that Bigelow, who's spent the last two decades as a youth sports advocate, is a devout proponent of the Long-Term Athletic Development model (LTAD). Developed by Canadian sport science expert Istvan Balyi, LTAD preaches that when it comes to all team sports and even certain individual ones (tennis, track, cycling), generalizing at the younger ages -- playing a variety of different sports in low-pressure environments -- is the healthiest and best way for kids to grow. According to Balyi, early specialization should be strictly reserved for sports like figure skating, gymnastics and diving, anomalous disciplines in which lower center of gravity, shorter levers (legs and trunk), and lower muscle mass -- not to mention a lack of fear -- are advantageous. "In the early specialization sports," says Balyi, "if you don't start young, you don't stand a chance." Not so for the late-specialization sports. Despite not playing basketball until the ninth grade, Bigelow still managed to make it to the NBA. Not surprisingly, he maintains that prepubescent athletic ability is meaningless when it comes to postpubescent athletic success. "Your little soccer star might have played 3,000 soccer games by the time he's 10 years old, but he's still only 4-foot-9 and 85 pounds." In other words, he contends, puberty is the great equalizer, and there's no telling what will happen to kids (or more importantly, to their peers) once the hormones kick in. 2ff7e9595c
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