We all know people who say they stopped growing in eighth-grade (like me) or grew several inches in college (like my brother). For high school athletes who try to take it to the next level after graduation, this variation can mean the difference between mediocrity or athletic success.
An Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington study discusses how elite athletes who peak under 20 usually do not see similar success as “senior athletes” – athletes older than 20 – because the athletes tearing it up at the Olympics, for example, typically mature physically later than their younger peers.
Only 23.6 percent of the junior athletes in the study by Robert Chapman, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology, and graduate student Joshua Foss went on to medal in the Olympics. Only 29.9 percent of the Olympians studied won significant medals earlier in their careers.
“You see it in a lot of sports,” said Chapman, associate director of sport science and medicine for USA Track and Field and a former cross country coach at IU. “Elite performers in senior sports tend to be the ones who mature later. But it’s hard to measure, particularly in men, the rate at which they mature. I had a very successful runner grow 4 inches in college while he ran for me.”
This can be a challenge for college coaches recruiting for their team. How can they tell if an athlete has peaked? I have a lot of sympathy for the athletes I read about who were described as high school phenoms but then peaked, despite their hard work, and went on to have only mediocre athletic careers.
Here is an Education Week piece about the study, which was one of dozens of IU studies discussed recently at the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual meeting.
