Growth problems in youth elite sports. Social conditions, athletes’ experiences and sustainability consequences

1. This article is partly based on a publication in German: Schubring, A., & Thiel, A. (2011). Wachstum als Krisenpotenzial im Nachwuchsleistungssport. Sport und Gesellschaft, 8(3), 259‒286.

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Abstract

In elite sports, growth and maturation are important preconditions for advancing performance and athletic development. However, intensive training at an early age may contribute to the occurrence of growth problems in adolescent athletes. In the elite sport context, growth problems are most often considered biomedical phenomena or reduced to individual disposition. Consequently, their social origins have gone unexamined. Drawing on interviews with German youth elite athletes, we outline how social conditions (e.g. discipline-specific body ideals and early selection) contribute to the genesis of growth problems. Furthermore, we offer insight into athletes’ problematic growth experiences and analyze them as a risky condition for successful socialization into elite sports. In adopting the language of sustainability, we understand growth problems as an example of ‘unsustainability’. We examine how they affect athletes’ individual sustained development, safety, well-being and capacity building, and also question the organizational sustainability of high performance sports. We conclude by outlining the implications for coaching practices and the adjustments needed in the organization of youth elite sports.

Keywords:

• growth problems
• health
• youth elite sports
• socialization
• unsustainability

Acknowledgements

The authors would particularly like to thank the participants in this study for sharing their experiences with them. They also acknowledge Elizabeth Dickie for her translation work and the GOAL Study Group for their support.

This work was supported by the Federal Institute of Sport Science (BISp) [IIA1-081907/09-13].

Notes

1. This article is partly based on a publication in German: Schubring, A., & Thiel, A. (2011). Wachstum als Krisenpotenzial im Nachwuchsleistungssport. Sport und Gesellschaft, 8(3), 259‒286.

2. In the hierarchically-organized squad structure of the German elite sport promotion system, squad status is allocated on a yearly basis in relation to age and performance. It confers access to coaching, counselling, medical and financial support.

3. All interviews and the analysis were conducted in German. For publication, interview passages were translated into English by a professional translator. Athletes’ metaphors were retained for the purposes of analysis, although they sometimes result in unnatural English translations.

4. Interview excerpts have been anonymized and edited for readability. We only retained selected features of the transcripts used for analyses such as para-lingual information (laughs) and the athletes’ reformulations and self-interruptions (-).

5. The BFLPE describes a reference-group effect. Related research demonstrates that students have higher academic self-concepts in low-ability environments than equally able students in classes where the average ability is high (Marsh, 2005).