Happy Memorial Day from SwingAway

Young Athletes on Steroids

Steroids: Young Athletes On Steroids
How many young athletes are using steroids?
Yeah, there’s young athletes using it from high school on. Growing up in the fitness industry, I’ve seen kids that were at the Teenage America when I did that, Teenage Nationals. I was sixteen, seventeen, going up against nineteen year olds that looked like thirty year old men. I was like, “wow!” You’re still growing at that time. You’re still going through puberty. You still grow as a male until you’re about twenty-four years old, twenty-five. They start using them young, and that’s, again, maybe just not being brought up well, parents’ fault? Or maybe just society pushing the whole point of being “the very best you can be,” no matter what the cost.

Are steroids easy for young athletes to get?
Are steroids easy to get? I don’t know because I’ve never tried to get them, but it seems like it is. At the gym there’s always somebody saying “Hey do you want some”, so in that sense it is, but it really comes down to your individual person you know wand what you are. There’s great athletes out there that don’t do it you know, and what sucks is that there are athletes that are doing it. That you don’t even find out about the other guys, those other guys aren’t stepping forwards going “Listen I did this and I don’t do that stuff” It’s like Mark McGuire did vitamins. I don’t know much about Mark McGuire but compared to like what I hear about Barry Bonds who admitted he put on GH in lotion on his body, you know that sucks. That sucks that he gets a record for doing something when he did have help

How can we keep kids from doing steroids?
Teach them. Tell them that whatever they are going to do with it, they are going to lose. You can’t keep it. So understand, try to develop everything you possibly can and that you get to keep. So you get to play twelve to fifteen years as a pro football player without getting injured all the time. And then what happens after that. You don’t see a lot of these athletes, the kids don’t, after they quit sports or retire. These guys move around like they are broken. And that is not just from playing sports. That is just doing everything wrong. Doing the drugs, you know. So teach them. Teach them.

How can I tell if my child is taking steroids?
can tell if he is taking steroids in case of gynacomastia which is a swelling of nipples for the male, an a extreme agony and quick size growth – just blown up right up in front of you because you can typically put on weight of 20-30 pounds in a month or two so have them checked.

What should I do if I find that my child is taking steroids?
The first thing to do is sit down with him, talk to him, try to explain, you know, the negative part of it, and explain the positive part of it. You know, if later on in life, you make that decision as a man, then that’s understandable, but you’re a kid still and that’s something I was lucky enough, when I was a kid, that I saw people very close to me do it and the downfall of them. So I made that decision as a kid not to do it and I know kids think they know everything, you know, you’re fourteen years old, you want to make the varsity football team, if you do some steroids then you can do it and you’re popular and you get the girls and it’s not worth it in the long run. Just keep working. Show everybody you can do it without it.

Hitting with the Proper Effort Level

Question:

In working with my son, he seems to struggle with a problem, he has had on and off for 4 years now. He is currently 13. When he is not swing well, he appears to be too aggressive with his hips and shoulder, ie. pulling away from the ball. I shows up to look like he is not having aggressive hands, with the result of hitting a lot of weak balls to the opposite field. He is right handed. We have worked a lot off the tee, short toss, and live pitching on the outer part of the plate. He has a good understanding of the various contact points. We just haven’t had any long term success at fixing this problem. When his front shoulder pulls off, of course his bottom hand pulls away from the ball, ie. causing him to “what I call, slice the ball”. Sometimes during the season he will get in a real groove where the ball just jumps off his bat, but he eventually falls back into the problem of pulling away from the ball. We have also worked the one handed drills extensively over the past few years. I would appreciate your advice on how to approach this problem for long term success.

Answer:

Take a look at three areas:

• Overswinging, this is one of the areas where most young hitters do not understand. Young hitters generally want to see how far they can hit the ball, This causes them to use their body too much and therefore overswing. It’s best to develop a swing that is about 80% of his max. This does not mean that the hands are not aggressive, but he should feel like he has something left in his body. In hitting, swing at 80% will give you better hand speed. This will help him with the next two areas.
• Balance, swinging at 100% will keep him from having great balance and actually slow his hands down, and as in your son’s case, will miss direct the hand path. Swinging at 80% will allow him to work on the correct hand path and will help with the next area.
• Head position, this is on of the most important aspects of the swing. The proper head position not only allows him to see the ball well, but also allows the upper body to stay over the ball. Have him keep his head down past contact.

Perfect each of these three areas and he will be making consistent hard contact. Good luck.