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[Jamie]
Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. We're Jamie and Louise and today we're joined by Stacey Emmons who's joining us in the studio to chat about what coaches need to consider when it comes to growth and maturation. Well hi Stacey, welcome to the show. How are you?
[Stacey]
I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me.
[Louise]
It's really nice to have you with us and as it's your first time on Coachcast, would you be able to tell us a little bit about your role at the FA?
[Stacey]
Yeah, absolutely. So my role is Senior Lead for Performance Education. What that means is really looking at like our coach education across fitness, across bespoke qualifications for fitness, but then more broadly looking at fitness, physical development across our broader coach education, and then also talent ID and development, again, considerations for coach education and consideration for both the boys and the girls game. And then alongside that, I work as a fitness coach, so working with the youth national teams on the women's side.
[Louise]
Very varied and important work that you do.
[Jamie]
Absolutely plenty going on. Now Stacey, you mentioned they like physical development, tying into that, today's theme is about growth and maturation and helping coaches support their players with that. So to start, when we talk about growth and maturation, what do we really mean and why is it important for coaches to learn about them?
[Stacey]
They're both different concepts but they both link together. So when we think about growth that's really sort of changes in size of a young person's body, so changes in height, changes in body mass for example. And then we think about maturation and maturation is more about their progress towards adult state. So biological changes. So where are they at in their development relative to reaching sort of full adult maturity.
[Louise]
And are there any ages where coaches should expect?
[Stacey]
Yeah, so obviously it's an ongoing process from birth all the way up to adulthood, but particularly around certain ages and they actually differ for girls and boys. So if we think about boys, we sort of see this accelerated period of growth, which we often sort of call the adolescent growth spurt, which occurs sort of around 13 to 14 years. We will start to see things happening earlier, but that's when we see the real sudden increase in height and changes in body mass and shape. For girls, that's slightly earlier. So again, there's always individual variability, but sort of more around 11 to 12 years old we see those differences. We also see that growth and maturation impacts boys and girls differently in terms of that process, so with boys we often see some accelerated physical development, With girls that's often temporarily a little bit of a disadvantage to them so it's really important that we consider when working with young players that it isn't really a one-size-fits-all, they're going to vary in terms of individual development and really important that we consider that there's differences between boys and girls during that period.
[Jamie]
Thinking about it from maybe a coach's perspective who might only see the players once, maybe twice a week, how can maybe coaches tell if players are being impacted by a growth spurt for instance?
[Stacey]
I think going back to that point around a sudden increase in height like that through that growth spurt. So seeing a player who suddenly just seems to, we often hear coaches say, oh he or she suddenly shot up over the summer when they came back or suddenly players are changing boots all the time and new sizes. We often see that sort of players will grow and develop first in terms of arms and legs, so they might appear sort of less coordinated during that period. Arms and legs a lot longer than torso length, so there's some of the common signs and symptoms that we can see during that growth spurt.
[Louise]
And do you have any top tips for anyone listening or watching, kind of helping them support female players specifically with the changes that they're experiencing?
[Stacey]
Yeah, I think, as I said, it's quite different for boys and girls. So I'm sure we hear a lot about early maturing boys often being selected and maybe having a physical advantage and often for boys if they're an early maturer that can bring at times a level of confidence for them because they're more physically mature and that again is a different thing that we need to manage when coaching players because we need to make sure we're not just allowing them to rely on their physical capabilities. And we're also not misconceiving what talent is by assuming talent is actually the advanced physical maturity. For girls, it's often quite different. Again, there isn't a one size fits all, but with girls, Some of the changes that occur in terms of body shape, body mass, natural increase in fat mass, which isn't anything to be concerned about, it's a normal process that happens. It can affect their physical capabilities for a period of time, so we actually sometimes see a bit of a plateau in physical development. Some of the changes that occur in terms of body shape and size for girls can affect their confidence and we actually sometimes get quite a high drop out during puberty for girls, which is the opposite of boys. So I think it's really important when we're working with girls, We don't take the principles from working with boys and assume they'll be the right ones to apply when working with girls, that we're more considerate of the changes that are occurring. And then we think about how can we support girls during that period.
[Jamie]
And how important is it then for coaches to be patient? Like you say, people might be dropping out, people might be developing at different rates. How important is it for people to be patient during this process while people grow and mature?
[Stacey]
It's fundamental. As I said, we see particularly in girls, huge dropout during this period. So I think it's really important coaches are educated on this process and what to see, what to expect, that they create environments which are very open with girls that they can come and talk about the challenges that they're facing or if they've got a lack of confidence, again linking that to how we design practices and sessions. Can we ensure during this period we're sort of promoting opportunities for success and we're rewarding effort and we're focusing on development rather than necessarily outcome and success in that moment. And I think more that we can understand the timing of this process and recognise what to see, we can start to ensure we're sort of building that more inclusive, sort of positive coaching environment.
[Jamie]
So we talked about like having the right environment and then coaches being aware that players develop at different rates. Are there any top tips or anything that coaches maybe can look out for like certain ages or anything that they could do maybe at training to help?
[Stacey]
Yeah, I think when we're talking about pre-maturation and pre-puberty, it's very similar for boys and girls. So we want to really promote fundamentals, good movement skills, variety of movements, developing neuromuscular development. As we then sort of go through that period of puberty, as I said, it's similar kind of training we need to do, but it's thinking about the timing of that. So for girls, as I said, they go through puberty earlier. So starting more around 11, 12, we actually need to introduce strength training into the work they're doing earlier than we do with boys. And when we define strength training, strength training doesn't necessarily mean we need to start getting them in the gym and we have to have weights. There's lots of things that coaches could integrate into their sessions, particularly when we're thinking about warmup design. So thinking about how can we get some of those more, what we call athletic motor skill competencies into warmup practices. So things like squat patterns, lunge patterns, learning how to decelerate and stop, how to jump and land more effectively. And we can start to think about fun ways that we can even overload those by working with a partner and appropriate level, but pushing them slightly to, can they control that movement and still decelerate? We can overload it creatively on the pitch. Thinking about partner work. So holding like an isometric squat, which is where holding hands with the partner, get down into a low position. Can we hold that position for sort of 10 seconds? It's a way of overloading the movement that's just directly on the pitch. So can we start to integrate some of that earlier for girls and boys because one, they need it earlier due to going through maturation earlier. But secondly, going back to the process that happens through maturation, boys have this natural accelerated development of strength due to the hormonal changes that occur, predominantly driven by testosterone. For girls, they don't have that similar increase. Therefore, we need to provide more of a stimulus to drive strength development. What we currently see a lot with girls is they actually lack appropriate levels of strength, and we know that's important. One for actions on the pitch. So as you said, accelerating, jumping, landing, getting into a duel on the pitch, but equally just as important from an injury risk perspective. So low strength is associated with a higher risk of injury. So I think there's a big piece around thinking about how can we integrate some of this basic strength work into training with girls from a young age. What we see currently a lot is when we look at exposure to that type of work or dedicated athletic development work, boys on average are getting five to six times more exposure to that kind of work through their footballing journey when they're younger. So by the time we saw it hit 15, 16 years old, that's a huge gap in development that girls have in comparison to boys. So I think often We presume the differences we see between girls and boys is just natural and there's not really much we can influence and do about it. Girls are maybe just not quite as strong as boys or not quite as athletic. And I think what's really important for coaches is they recognize that that's a myth, It's a misconception. What we see currently a lot is that girls have got this gap in development and exposure. So I've challenged coaches to think about how can they ensure girls have more of this type of work, athletic development work, embedded into their session designs.
[Louise]
Going back to all the ways that coaches can support players, I guess in communication and things like that. Do you have any top tips for kind of help coaches talk to players who perhaps feel a little bit uncomfortable about the changes that are happening?
[Stacey]
Yeah, I think it's really important just to normalise those things. These are normal processes that all children go through as they progress through adolescence and then into adulthood. So I think being comfortable about having those discussions with them. I think if you're thinking about girls and it's also thinking about their environments that they're in, I think ensuring that sort of changing rooms, all those kind of contexts, can we have information up that kind of will help them about, you know, the process they're going through, information about periods, those kind of things, sanitary products are in the changing rooms, I think as club environments, the more we can make it more normal. That will also help coaches because it's just normalized in the environments. But just down to those general good principles of building good relationships with players, ensuring that they feel comfortable to be able to speak about those things. And if they do, the coach is comfortable to have that conversation and they're not sort of signposting them to directly, you know, go speak to someone else, in particular if it's a male coach, that they're not suggesting that they have to go speak to a female coach or another female member of staff at the club. So I think more we can just normalise it and also allow that freedom to step away from a session that could be due to period symptoms, menstrual cramps, those other types of symptoms and without sort of questioning why that's happening, then I think that will sort of create a more inclusive environment.
[Louise]
I guess the more you talk about it, not like obviously every day all the time, but like the more open you are, it will just kind of help everybody else to feel that they're comfortable talking about it.
[Stacey]
Yeah, absolutely. I think from the Lionesses' perspective, they're normalising it, they're talking about it in a lot of their work and I think they're obviously role models to young girls as well. So I think hopefully that kind of exposure to those things, coaches being more comfortable with it as well, and then really important to include parents in that process as well with young girls and encouraging parents, if they feel appropriate, to share that information, to help them understand, you know, them not just as a player but as a young girl in front of them and everybody being on the same page with this being normalized I think that's how we're going to sort of move the conversations forward.
[Jamie]
And you say that's kind of how to make coaches and I suppose parents more comfortable around having these conversations basically and like having confidence to be able to support players as well.
[Stacey]
Yeah, absolutely. I think the parents are key to it. We, as coaches, we see them for a very small part of the week or the day and obviously parents see them for a lot more of that and they know them a lot better than we do. So I think including parents within that is really important. I think also recognising the need to probably support parents a little bit as well, particularly around growth and maturation. They'll obviously be able to see what's going on and see the changes in their daughter or their son. But at times we need to help them in understanding, like what does that mean in terms of their football practice or what they're doing in training if we are slightly modifying things in training. So the player's going through a big growth spurt, We can often see some growth related injuries that they can get. How can we keep the players still in the session? So we're not just pulling them out of training, but modify it. So we might do things like we might lock them in a zone or have them as a floater or something like that. So they're still involved in the practice, but reducing the physical load. So including parents in understanding at times like why that's happening, I think it's important so they don't often wonder well why is that happening to my son or daughter. So I think parents are a real key part of it.
[Jamie]
Yeah and I think that's probably important as well like because there might also be some other elements in terms of like thinking performance wise that maybe parents and maybe coaches might not necessarily realise like say if somebody's gone through a gross where might not have coordination that quite right and might be struggling and they might not necessarily be aware that that might be the case and sometimes as a coach might be nice just to go look you know it's okay like it's just going to take a little bit of time and maybe people might not actually realize that.
[Stacey]
Yeah no absolutely and I think also integral to that is the player now obviously it's the appropriate language we use relative to their learning and stage of development but I think player needs to be central to that and involved in that as well so if we are sort of modifying a bit that their training helping them to understand that and understanding their own body and their own journey and development and everything's normal the more we can give them as I said examples from maybe role models whether it's you know men's or women's game There's lots of examples out there now of players who've maybe been a late maturer and have gone on and obviously been really successful. Then we can help players also start to understand their own development. So not just the parents, I think the players are also important within that as well.
[Louise]
So how can we as coaches ensure that women and girls feel empowered to play and to talk about their health and well-being and how can coaches create a safe environment for those conversations?
[Stacey]
I think being educated as a coach is important and that doesn't mean you need to know it to the level of you know being an expert but just understanding the basic principles So understanding sort of around when do we expect some of these changes to occur. So we generally see periods starting in and around that growth spurt as well. So on average around 12, again, variability for individual players. That could be slightly earlier. It could be a couple of years later but understanding sort of roughly when we expect players to go through this period of development and then I think secondly understanding some of the challenges that might come with that so around confidence, perceived athleticism, recognizing that it is a key period of dropout. Are you seeing changes in players' attendance at training or their confidence when they come to training and how they're talking about football and want to be involved in that? And then lastly, as I said, being open to those conversations. So if you recognize a player is maybe withdrawing or you're hearing things about them indirectly from either other players or parents, being open to go and go and have that conversation with the player and being comfortable with it and normalizing that. And as I said earlier, sort of making the player feel comfortable but recognising what's going on for them really at that moment in time because it can be quite a confusing and challenging time for that player. There's lots going on and then you know more broadly where they're at in the stage of development in terms of everything that's going on probably through education at school and there'll be lots around assessments and broader psychosocial considerations that we don't necessarily consider when they're in a football environment. So I think it's not saying they need to be an expert around this. They don't need to be able to go to a player and say, let me educate you on the phase of a menstrual cycle and what this means for you. But just recognising sort of what are some of those signs they might see? What are some of the symptoms that players may have? And how can they recognise when that might occur? And making that conversation open.
[Louise]
Basically, you just want people to feel like it's a normal environment and them not feel like they have to run away from it and prefer to stay because it's a comfortable place to talk about stuff.
[Stacey]
Yeah, absolutely. It's a normal process and it's a really healthy process. You know, female body has this like amazing mechanism of being able to tell whether a female is healthy or not. It's actually a really positive thing. So we definitely don't want to sort of make it a taboo or again going back to the point earlier if it's only a thing that one female can speak to another female about. So it's only female coaches that can speak about this. We've got to be comfortable as all coaches in those environments working with young players, being able to have a conversation at an appropriate level and if the conversation needs to go a bit deeper into that area then it might be signposting to the relevant people, whether it's a physio, doctor, etc. But just being able to, being comfortable with initiating that conversation.
[Jamie]
What sort of things would you know, what would that initial conversation look like if a coach was to go to a player, whether a player's a little bit overwhelmed, what would that information, initial information be for a coach to give to a player?
[Stacey]
I think it's things like I said, recognising at times if a player's sort of coming in and saying, oh, I don't feel very well today, like I don't think like not always probing further and further to what that could be. Obviously, it might not be menstrual symptoms per se, but if I'm sort of saying I've got stomach cramps today, I don't feel very well, not really pushing them, no, just get into training, carry on, you'll be fine, or those kind of things, like just give them that autonomy, really, to say, well, that's fine if you want to join in, great. If you feel like you need to step away, then also great. As I said, being open to recognising changes in behaviour. So if you see players sort of withdrawing or maybe they're not having as much success and that's affecting their confidence, being really supportive of them, encouraging the effort and the progression that they're making rather than it being very much sort of like performance focused.
[Louise]
We've spoken quite a lot about what coaches can do to kind of help. Is there anything else that coaches can do to support players through growth spurts or adapting to any other changes that we've perhaps not discussed yet?
[Stacey]
Yeah, as I sort of said, I think that growth spurt can be quite critical and sort of, we've got two components. We've got what we call timing and tempo. So timing's probably when they start to really go through that accelerated growth spurt. Tempo's how long it takes to kind of go through that. And if it takes a shorter period of time, it's quite significantly accelerated. That's where we really see those growth related injuries that we see in players, which are often just, again, the body's inability to keep up with that growth spurt. So I think it's really important that during that period of development, we really think about how we might adapt that load for that player. What we don't want to do is just remove the player from training and, you know, say, oh, I go and work over there and do different exercises or don't train, like you want to keep the player involved. So I think as a coach, when you recognize players are going through those growth spurts, or they might have had to have short periods of missing training, it might be sort of particularly common ones are obviously knee related pain, sometimes around ankles as well. It's thinking about how can you be creative and adapting your sessions. So as briefly mentioned earlier, it's thinking about how can you maybe have them in there in a different role? Might be a server on certain practice designs. It could be as a floater, could be locked in in different zones, so it reduces the physical load associated with it. So that's kind of one key mechanism. And then more broadly recognizing during that period, their movement patterns may be affected because the body again is just trying to adjust. So their center of mass is suddenly in a very different position compared to their arms and legs which can affect coordination. Can we ensure through our practices, particularly warm-ups and cool-downs at the end, can be really good opportunities to integrate some basic movement patterns into that. And that doesn't always have to be isolated. That can be creative ways with a ball as well. So particularly when we get a loss of neuromuscular control and stability and a decrease in that, balancing, you know, stood on one leg, but they might be volleying back to, volleying the ball back to another player and things like that. It's ways just to increase those different physical movement patterns into the practice but not necessarily always detracting away from, you know, football as well. So I think just, it really involves a lot more about thinking about planning in advance and just preparing for that. And how can we just have probably four or five different things that we know we can adapt the session with in advance if we need to.
[Louise]
Yeah, because I guess the last thing you want to do is sit people out or kind of make them feel like they're not involved, especially if they're going through a period of feeling out of body almost, that their body is different and changing in any way, I suppose.
[Stacey]
Yeah, they're probably already feeling a bit, you know, isolated at that period of time, or their confidence is a little bit knocked. So the last thing we want to do is differentiate them even more from everyone else. So I think that's really important to have. And if we can, as I said, have three or four things that you know as a coach right there, ways that I can adapt things or equally with the element of their confidence being affected, little ways that I can adapt the session to make sure that player's getting a bit more success in the session to help with our confidence because it's obviously not just about physical. So biopsychosocials are all connected. Just, you know, important strategies to have. And again, promoting that development rather than performance in the moment I think is really important as well.
[Jamie]
Yeah, I like that in terms of like actually being able to tailor things for them and I suppose it takes either really having a good relationship with players and parents to know or really good observation skills to notice that they might be struggling or going through change but being able to adapt it and make sure that they're still included is such a vital top tip.
[Stacey]
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's also really important that we don't forget the early maturers as well. So on the other side of things, like they might be really relying on their physical development. So they're often stronger and faster. So we might have to be creative in terms of how we challenge them so you know particularly for boys that we're not just allowing them to rely on their physical capabilities and that's impacting their technical development so just thinking about how you can challenge this different players at different stages of maturation within the same session. So an early mature, you know, you might put them on a touch restriction. So again, you're forcing them to probably think about their technical capabilities, their movement a little bit more. The player that's going through that growth spurt, you might allow them to, you know, have a higher touch restriction. Or again, you might have them where they're not man marked. So there's thinking just being creative using lots of the different kind of practice manipulations to think about how can you challenge players going through different growth spurts within the same session.
[Jamie]
Yeah that's really good And this might be a bit of an unfair question, because obviously we're saying that people are mature at different rates. Is there a way to maybe plan or judge how far somebody might actually be through maybe a growth spurt or the development at all?
[Stacey]
If you're in a bit more of a professional environment, there's certain sort of measurements and things you can take to get what we'd probably call age at peak height velocity. And we'll give us an indication. We categorise those often at different stages. So pre, circus going through the gross bit and then post. But when you haven't got that, going back to those things we discussed earlier about visually what you can see. So that sudden accelerated physical development. For boys, they'll often look a bit more athletic. You see visible signs of sort of increase in muscle size for girls probably recognizing there still will be a growth spurt but it's probably not as large but you see other physical changes maybe change in body size and shape as you sort of maybe start to see that slowing down a little bit then that's probably you can probably anticipate sort of coming a bit more towards the end
[Louise]
of that growth spurt. So we're going to ask you a few quick five questions right now. So if a coach could only remember three things about growth, maturation and female health, what should they be?
[Stacey]
I'd say one is to remember that girls go through the growth spurt earlier than boys. Two, girls don't necessarily have such a natural development in strength, so it's really important that we're building strength development into our practice designs, potentially through warm-ups, cool-downs, for example. And three, periods are normal. They're a sign that a girl's healthy and we need to normalise those conversations around them.
[Jamie]
The next one, what's one thing coaches can get wrong about maturation?
[Stacey]
Presuming that early physical maturation aligns with early psychosocial development and that's not always the case. You can have a player that's advanced physically in terms of maturation, but they may still be younger from a psychosocial perspective.
[Louise]
And the final quick fire question is what's one simple thing every grassroots coach can do tomorrow to support their players?
[Stacey]
Just normalise conversations around puberty, normalise conversations around for a girl, how that changes their body size and shape and make them more comfortable speaking about it.
[Jamie]
Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for that, Stacey. It's been really interesting and an insightful discussion. It's been great having you on Coachcast for the first time. Just before we do wrap up, looking back at everything we have discussed, can you summarise maybe the key top tips you want coaches to take away from this episode?
[Stacey]
Try and treat every player as an individual, recognise that while we talk about the stages of the growth spurt being sort of 11-12 for girls and 13-14 for boys. There's huge individual player variability so don't assume that every player is going to go through this stage of development at those key ages. Think about when players are going through these key stages of development, how we can help them understand this process as well, and then how we can ensure that we keep our practices as inclusive as possible and adapt it to keep the players involved rather than sort of isolating them during that period.
[Jamie]
Thank you very much Stacey, some really great top tips for coaches to take away there. For anyone who wants to learn more about growth and maturation and female health, we do have a webinar coming up in March for you on those topics. And also if you are tuning into this after March, do go and check our YouTube channel out because we will upload the webinar highlights there. Well Stacey, thank you very much again for joining us. Hope you've enjoyed the first time being on Coachcast.
[Stacey]
Absolutely. It's been a pleasure.
[Jamie]
Right. Well, that is all we do have time for today. But don't forget to check out the description for the transcription of this episode and for all the links to our platforms. As always, you can head to the England Football Community to post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or you can drop them in the comments section below.
[Louise]
Yeah, we'd love to help you out. So please do send your questions in. We'll be back soon with another episode. To make sure you don't miss it. From all of us at England Football Learning, thanks for listening.