Dr. John also recommended that athletes, families and
coaches should be focus more during the season on
general movement preparedness than on skill training. In
the United States, children ages 10-11 practice skills 90
percent of the time; the suggested amount of skills
training is 10 percent for that age group. Starting early
with skill set-based training is another factor in poor
health in later years.
Riccobono, like John, believes year-round competition in
baseball is unnecessary. He added that USA Baseball has
specific guidelines for specialization.
"We've taken a pretty strong position on this issue. I
think it is fairly well-documented that we support
multisport play," Riccobono said. "We think [it has] a lot
of merit to athletes. First of all, we want our [baseball]
players to be athletes. That is one thing that does have
the ability to get lost in translation in this age of
professionalism [of youth sports]."
When asked how Major League Baseball can help in
keeping kids healthy, Dr. John said it needs to become
involved immediately in the earliest stages of
competition instead of working on the problem as kids