by Mike King March 16, 2026

Kids Need an Off-Season

We all know the benefits of competitive sports for young developing athletes. The contributions to overall, health and fitness, mental health and socialization have been professionally researched and documented. As a parent however it is hard to know “how much is too much”? Sometimes the perception of our child’s “next level” talent can lead us to believe that a push toward more repetition, more practice, tougher competition is the preferred path to their athletic success. While these are important considerations to discuss as a family, not enough attention is given to how the athletes yearly competitive calendar year should be structured in order to maximize their potential, reach their goals but more importantly bring balance to what can be a very chaotic and pressure driven schedule.

Too Much?

In Canada, our kids cycle through variations of competition throughout the full year. Some households’ yearly hockey schedules include both house league in the fall/winter, and 3 on 3 in the spring/summer. In some leagues, soccer is all year round with both outdoor schedules for the spring/summer and indoor winter schedules, some basketball leagues follow a similar format. Let’s also keep in mind that some kids still choose to participate on their school sports teams. The landscape for competitive football has changed somewhat in Canada. Grassroots tackle football programs were on the decline in the early 2000s but football is recently experiencing a resurgence with the increased popularity of flag football and new safety/risk management policies for tackle football. At ages 12 kids have more choices where they can transition from fall grassroots competition to high school football but still have the option of playing “Rep Football” in the spring/summer months.

Balance is Possible

For myself, as a high school football coach, getting maximum participation from the players for structured off-season training was always a challenge because of all of the other competitive sports that they were playing throughout the balance of the year. Often the majority of players came back to football training camp in August with no improvement to their baseline testing because they did not have time to train. It is highly recommended that young athletes have a consecutive block of 3-4 months away from competition to recover, train and reset prior to the start of the next competitive season for the following reasons:

Injury Prevention:

Repetitive year-round competition increases the risk of stress fractures tendon injuries. growth plate and muscle pulls.

Mental Health & Burnout Prevention:

Year-round competition increases psychological stress, anxiety around performance, increased drop out rates, identity foreclosure (“I am only an athlete”) and higher likelihood of burnout.

In Season – Off Season Performance Plateaus:

Without an off-season, athletes plateau in strength and speed. A 3–4-month off-season is ideal because of neuromuscular fatigue and need for foundational strength development. The off-season is where Block Periodization training can support a young athlete’s development and preparation for in-season competition, particularly for those kids participating in team sports. During periodization, the athlete will cycle though three phases of training. A General Preparation Phase (GPP). The Transmutation Phase is where general abilities are transferred to sport specific modalities while building maximal strength and power. The Realization Phase is about 4 weeks in duration where the athlete transitions to competition. This is high intensity low volume training with sport specific movements. Performance improves with periodization but there are other benefits like cognitive recovery, social development, multi-sport participation and instilling and intrinsic motivation to reset.

I feel that the most important realization for families and their athletes is to strive for a life balance that includes competition, off-season athletic development, mental reset, academic priorities and socialization. Find the right performance coach for your young athlete who can facilitate structured, off-season, periodization training to support their athletic development throughout the year.

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Gustafsson H, et al. (2017). Athlete burnout: review and recommendations. Sports Medicine.

Fraser-Thomas J, et al. (2008). Youth sport programs: an avenue to foster positive youth development. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy.