Key Findings
- Personalized Training for Young Athletes: The Next Level Program at Jyzen was crafted to help young athletes improve their performance by tailoring their training to fit each individual’s unique needs and strengths.
- Tracking and Analyzing Fitness: Advanced tools and testing, like body composition and movement analysis, provide athletes with clear insights to target and improve specific areas.
- Balancing Effort with Rest: It’s not just about working hard; the program teaches athletes to balance intense training with recovery to avoid burnout and injury.
- Long-Term Performance and Health: The approach includes injury prevention and mental resilience, helping athletes maintain high performance and health for the future.
Optimizing Performance for Young Athletes
In today's competitive sports environment, young athletes face immense pressure to perform at higher levels than ever before and the landscape continues to change. The science of athletic performance is advancing faster than ever, college athletes are now being paid, and our olympians are only getting younger. With opportunity rising and demand increasing, athletes need to train smarter under the care of an experienced team to realize their true potential.
At Jyzen, we’ve seen how adolescence and early adulthood are the ideal times for athletes to make significant strides in their performance. Young athletes have the unique advantage of developing at a rate unlike any other time in life. This creates a window of opportunity for them to achieve gains that will be hard to realize down the road — provided they have the right guidance, tools, and support.
This is where our Next Level Athlete Program comes in. We combine cutting-edge sports medicine and advanced health technology to give young athletes personalized insights and plans tailored to their specific needs. We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach; every athlete is different, and their training programs should reflect that.
The Pressure to Perform
As a sports medicine physician with over 20 years of experience with Division I college and professional athletes, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the expectations placed on young athletes can both fuel their passion and feel overwhelming. As a high school coach as well, I’ve seen firsthand how stressful it is when players strive to succeed with and against the same players that they need acceptance from. It is essential to begin forming one’s identity during adolescence and young adulthood, and an athlete’s sports medicine team must recognize and support this process. From a young age, athletes are conditioned to push harder, train longer, and perform better than those who came before them. This relentless pursuit of excellence can sometimes come at the cost of long-term health, especially when the focus is solely on immediate performance without considering what the body needs to sustain that level of output.
Many young athletes push through pain or discomfort, assuming that’s just part of the process. However, understanding the body’s signals—whether it’s fatigue, imbalance, or early signs of injury—can be the difference between short-term success and long-term athletic excellence. That’s where a program like ours becomes invaluable. We not only help athletes reach peak performance, but we also ensure that they do so in a way that promotes longevity and health.
The Foundations of the Next Level Athlete Program
Our Next Level Athlete Program is built on the belief that data-driven insights lead to smarter, more effective training. The tools and assessments we use are the same ones typically reserved for Olympic athletes and professional sports teams, but we make them accessible to athletes at all levels. Here’s how we do it:
1. Body Composition AnalysisInstead of just measuring height and weight, we focus on what really matters most, body composition—the balance of muscle, fat, and bone within the body. These are the metrics that you can improve with the right training, so we can track your performance. By using cutting-edge technology to assess body composition, we can offer athletes a deeper understanding of their physical makeup, pinpointing areas of strength and identifying weaknesses that may be holding them back.
For instance, an athlete may carry more fat around their organs (visceral fat), which may not be visible but can have a significant impact on performance, recovery and injury risk. Conversely, understanding total muscle mass and specific areas of muscle distribution allows us to create training programs that target imbalances, ultimately enhancing overall performance.
Maybe the most important aspect of any athlete’s performance is mobility. The way that an athlete can spring into action, with power, speed and grace, affects not only their performance but their risk of injury. And an athlete who moves efficiently requires less cardiovascular fitness to do the same task as other athletes. Said another way, poor movement is a leak in your system that you cannot solve without proper attention.
Our KinoTek Mobility Analysis system combined with the expert eyes of our Jyzen Body team, take the guesswork out of understanding your movement patterns. By analyzing how athletes move in real time, we can identify inefficiencies, muscle imbalances, and areas where flexibility is lacking.
The result? Athletes learn how to move gracefully, quickly with maximum force. Improving mobility is particularly important for young athletes who are still developing their coordination and flexibility. Whether it's a pitcher fine-tuning their throwing mechanics or a soccer player refining their sprinting technique, mobility plays a crucial role in optimizing performance now and for years to come.
3. VO2 Max and Metabolic Testing
Cardiovascular fitness is essential in sports (and also happens to be the key measure of a person’s longevity). Your ability to push yourself hard and maintain that effort often determines your success against the competition. VO2 Max testing is the gold-standard for measurement of cardiovascular fitness. Testing determines the size of your internal motor, where you have above-average abilities and where you're going to need training and support.
For all athletes, improving oxygen utilization can mean the difference between peak performance and coming up short when you need it most. This testing is critical for athletes in high-impact sports like football, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, swimming, running and ultimate frisbee, but it also provides valuable insights for any athlete looking to improve their stamina and recovery.
4. Strength and Flexibility Assessments
Strength and flexibility are foundational to every athlete’s success, but these areas are often measured in vague or inconsistent ways. In the Next Level Athlete Program, we take a data-driven approach to assess an athlete's baseline strength and flexibility. These assessments provide us with a clear picture of where the athlete is now and what they need to work on. Pairing strength and flexibility with movement analysis we create personalized programs to help athletes not only avoid injury but perform at their peak potential.
Injury Prevention
One of the primary goals of the Next Level Athlete Program is to reduce the risk of injury for young athletes. Athletes that stay on the field get more ‘reps’ than those who are dealing with injuries. The more reps you get, the more you develop. Developing effective movement patterns and training regimens will improve performance and prevent injuries. And doing this in our younger years will lead to years of improved health and injury prevention, especially compared to peers who are less athletic.
The Importance of Resilience and Recovery
Young athletes often have a "more is better" mentality when it comes to training. However, rest and recovery are essential components of any successful training program. Optimal performance requires the time and tools necessary to realize the gains made during training sessions. Many athletes fall into the trap of going full-speed, all of the time. I’ve been there too, suffering a stress fracture when my training needed to be more holistic, smart and data-driven. The mental side of the game is just as important. Athletes need to learn how to cope with pressure, manage stress, and stay mentally sharp, especially during high-stakes competitions.
At Jyzen, we emphasize the importance of rest and active recovery, helping athletes understand how to strike the right balance between training and recovery. We specialize in creating recovery programs, developing active and passive recovery strategies and helping athletes detox to get back into action promptly. We will focus on nutrition, mental health, sleep, and data to guide training and ensure that athletes are physically and mentally prepared for the challenges they face on the field.
Action Steps to Optimize Your Performance
If you’re a young athlete—or a parent of one—looking to take your performance to the next level, here are the steps to get started:
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Schedule an Initial Consultation
Book an initial consultation to discuss your goals and determine the right assessments for you. -
Complete a Full Assessment
Go through our comprehensive testing, which includes body composition analysis, VO2 Max testing, mobility assessments, spirometry and strength evaluations. These data-driven insights will help create a roadmap tailored to your needs. -
Create a Personalized Training Plan
Work with our team who will design a training and recovery plan that will help you optimize your performance, reduce injury risk, and achieve your long-term goals. -
Monitor Progress
Regular follow-ups and retesting will ensure that you’re making progress and staying on track. We’ll adjust your program as needed based on your results and changing goals. -
Holistic athletic goals
Remember, performance isn’t just about physical strength. Developing a thoughtful, broad and actionable plan with a team you can trust and is crucial to reaching your full potential as an athlete.
If you are interested in working with our doctors to evaluate and optimize your sports performance, please contact our Patient Care Concierge. You may call 415-729-0449 X 123 or email Concierge@jyzen.com to begin your journey to better health today.