Advice page for athletes and parents

The current evidence on long term athletic development suggests that children under 15 years should not be specialising in one particular event, but should take part in a range of athletics activities, such as throwing, jumping and running. PAC plan their training sessions with this in mind.

When planning how often a young athlete needs to train, one must take into account all their physical activities, including school PE and games lessons. It is very important that young people do not overtrain as this can damage growing bones and muscle etc. 

We want you all to develop into competent, happy, healthy athletes and stay in the sport for many years to come. Unfortunately, statistics show that there is a huge drop-out rate in the sport among young athletes who start training too fast and too long at an early age.

Your coaching team is here to give you advice about your training, so if you are not sure how much and what kind of training you should be doing PLEASE discuss with them.