8 Things All Teenage Athletes Need To Know

We see so many teenage athletes in our offices suffering from different injuries, or being unhappy with their sporting results, and the biggest contributor to both is because most young athletes don't treat their body like an elite athlete does.

This is probably true for most adult athletes too, and the same tips apply.

So what can our young athletes do to improve sporting performance, deal with less injuries, and recover faster when they do get injured? A lot of things, actually! Here's some of the most important foundations but this list is certainly not all inclusive.

1. Give your body the right fuel - If you own a ferrari you don't put cheap gasoline in it, you give it the premium fuel you can find. The same goes for our body, if we feed it garbage then we will get garbage results. Athletes need a diet high in healthy fats, good quality protein, not too much in the way of carbs (yes this even applies for long distance athletes), and virtually no sugar or junk food.
2. Eat less often - Employ intermittent fasting. When you get your body fat burning instead of sugar burning and can go more than 15 hours without eating on a consistent basis, your body cleans up damaged cells and replaces them with new stem cells. Not only will this help prevent injuries but your muscles will get stronger and everything in your body will work better, including mental clarity and ability to handle stress.
3. Work on your mental game - There's a reason all of the best athletes on the world consistently work on visualizing their results, and are able to deal to succeed instead of choke during the important moments.
4. Get adjusted by a Chiropractor - Chiropractic adjustments will help keep your nervous system functioning at it's best and allow your brain to have clean, fast communication with the rest of your body. Studies are starting to show that chiropractic adjustments can increase reaction time and improve balance, both key things for athletes. It's also being shown to reduce injury occurrence.
5. Use Cold Thermogenesis - Cold showers and cryotherapy can work wonders not just for injury recovery but are even showing they will help you lose weight! 
6. Use Infrared Sauna - This will help improve your healing capabilities as well as improve your body's ability to detox.
7. Use other injury prevention/recovery methods as needed - This includes massage, acupuncture, and cold laser.
8. Mix up your workouts - We saved exercise until last because there's so much to it. Whether you're a long distance athlete or an offensive lineman, you have to work every part of your fitness for the best results, and overall health. Every athlete (or person) needs to incorporate the following things into their weekly exercise regiment:

• Strength training to create strong, powerful, efficient muscles. We all need to be able to lift heavy things, including long distance athletes, but rather than just building large muscle mass, work on building explosive muscle power. (And always start with bodyweight training, core stability, and flexibility before moving into weight lifting).
• Anaerobic and VO2 Max training to improve lung capacity - This is all the different variations of high intensity interval training. We need to move as fast as possible in short bursts with limited rest in between.
• Endurance and stamina - even power athletes need to do some long distance training. This could just be a 90 minute to 3 hour continuous cardio like hiking or light jogging.

Again, this list is really just the basic foundational pieces. If you're a teenage athlete and you want better sports performance then starting treating your body like an elite athlete. For more information go to www.sarpychiro.com