Angemessene steuerung der beanspruchung bei nachwuchsleistungssportlern

The demands put on young high performance athletes are becoming increasingly extensive. Presently, the trend is for these demands to become even more all-round and consequently also more stressful. As a result of this, the drop-out rate increases as well because of either somatic or psychic overload. To prevent this, it appears to be essential to change the existing philosophy in the development of sports talents. Previous findings support the idea of achieving best possible development not only through an intensification of training and tournaments, but to claim new resources through diversity, in order to sustain existing resources and to conserve the athlete's potential. The question here is how must the training and competitive situations be altered in order to avoid any loss in performance. In both childhood and juvenile athletes, respect should be paid to the age-appropriate conditions (accelerated rates of growth or puberty, for example) as well as the individual affective, motivational, personality- related and social aspects which may affect each young athlete differently. Amixture in training involving different types of sport also serves to promote social interactions with individuals in the participant's own age group as well as with adults (coaches). Consequently, this aids in the development of self-regulatory strategieswhich play a relevant role, especially in competitive sports.