920: Tips for Teens In Sports or Athletics (Solo Episode)

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellness mama.com, and this short solo episode is going to be covering a topic that several of you guys have requested, and that is very relevant to my personal life, which is the topic of tips for supporting any teens that we have who are in sports or athletics, and have high demands on their bodies.

This applies to essentially all of my kids, and it’s something I’ve been researching deeply and trying to navigate in my own life, and I wanted to share some of the things that I have found most relevant in this journey with them. And there’s a lot of the same things that I talk about in relation to adult health and wellness apply here, but it in some ways to a bigger degree because teens are also in a phase of still growing and hormone changes and skeletal muscle formation that will last their whole lives.

This is an area I wish I had known more about when I was a teen as well. And I’m grateful to get to walk this journey with my kids. Like I said, this is one that alot of what you guys have requested, and I hope that this will be helpful to any of you who have teen athletes. Before we begin, I want to also mention that this is not about forcing them to do these things or to eat a certain way or to take things, but empowering them with knowledge so they can choose to optimize their performance. Because this is definitely a phase of life of that very important handoff of responsibility and autonomy to them. And I don’t know about you guys, but with teenagers, you can never be the expert in your own home. At least that’s been true for me. And really the decision has to come from them. But assuming you have teenagers who are athletes and are interested in this, these are some ways that you can show up in support of them.

Now, the teen years are a critical window for skeletal muscle growth, for recovery, and for lifelong health habits. So I do think it’s very important as parents to be aware of supporting them in any way that we can during this phase, especially if they’re also athletes. And especially like for many teenagers, it can actually be quite difficult to get enough of the right kind of fuel.

All of the things I’ve talked about related to protein and micronutrients apply to an even larger degree to growing children and to teenagers. And again, as caveat before I jump in, note I’m not the expert in my own home, my own teens don’t consider me an expert because I’m just mom. However, I hope that some of these things will be helpful to you.

And I think really the building block, the first principles question of this episode is how can we support teen athletes in a way that lets them take ownership for their own health in that window of them becoming their own primary healthcare provider and the author of their own health.

So I want to first talk about key needs for teen athletes in particular, and this applies to all teenagers, but to a bigger degree if a teenager is also some kind of performance athlete or elite athlete. The big one you’re probably tired of hearing me  talk about in general, but protein needs are higher than most people think, especially for teens in general and even more so for teen athletes.

The estimates I’ve seen and what I try to encourage my kids on is, that teen athletes need at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Not even lean mass, but per pound of body weight per day for optimal growth and recovery, which is a substantial amount of protein for a lot of teenagers. So this is one that requires some intention and usually like meal planning in our house and having a high availability of really bioavailable proteins available at all time.

Again, it’s on their decision of how much to eat and getting enough protein. But as mom my responsibility, I try to really make sure there’s always various options of protein available. So however they choose to pursue that, they can. Statistically many teen athletes fall short of getting this protein, especially if they’re skipping breakfast or a lot of their diet is made up of ultra processed foods, and just like for adults, that early window in the day is actually especially key for protein consumption because that sets the kind of hormone tone and the metabolic tone for the rest of the day. And for muscle protein synthesis, for recovery, for leptin, for proper hormone function.

So when at all possible, I know that’s tough with school schedules, but encouraging teens to get a really nutrient dense and protein heavy breakfast also tends to help them have good energy for the rest of the day. I know that’s also a lot to navigate if teens are in school and up early trying to get enough protein and then often have practice after school and a really nutrient dense breakfast can go a long way.

Whole food proteins are definitely preferable when possible, though many teen athletes do end up using some forms of protein powder as well, just to be able to hit those targets. But I really encourage teens especially to focus on whole food, clean proteins as much as possible.

Things like eggs, beef, chicken, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and then add in the protein shakes, the collagen, the other forms only as a supplement to that. And then within this category as well, just from an ability to consume enough food and a calorie perspective, when teens can avoid processed foods as much as possible and prep and eat at home or bring their own food, that goes a long way to making sure there’s more nutrient density in food and more protein. Now, I recently did an episode all about creatine, and this is another category that applies to teen athletes as well. And caveat, this is an area where my own teenagers often refuse to take creatine, probably because I suggest it, but the data here is strong. Creatine is considered very safe and beneficial, not just for muscle growth, as I really dove into it in that solo episode on creatine, it also supports brain function.

This may be an another area that teens actually see the most benefit because teens, chronically are not getting ideal, optimal sleep, which we will also talk about and have a lot of demands on their energy in their life. And so creatine can help kind of boost brain function and recovery. And because it also supports optimal energy production and ATP production, this comes into play with recovery.

This comes into play with their mood and their energy levels throughout the day. This is definitely an area if your concerned or have questions talk to a medical professional, but the dose I would recommend to my teens if they were willing to do it, would be in the three to five gram per day range.

And there’s many ways to get that. Again, my go-to form is creatine monohydrate. Another area that in working with high school athletes and with my own teens, I see a lot is the issue of electrolytes and hydration. And this is so much more than just drinking water, especially for teenagers. The electrolytes are kind of like electrically available minerals that serve very particular purposes in the body, and that if they are not there, this can contribute to things like teens getting more cramps, having slower recovery, not being hydrated and not performing as well. The big ones are sodium, potassium, and magnesium. And these are essential for muscle function and energy. And statistically, most of us, and especially most teenagers, are not getting enough.

In fact, many teenagers are chronically low in sodium due to fear of salt or just simply drinking too much plain water when they’re exercising a lot. And not replenishing electrolytes. Potassium also comes into play, especially if there’s cramps and magnesium is massive for teens especially. We know that magnesium contributes to literally hundreds of things within the body and is necessary for many enzymatic reactions for hormones for skin health, but also very much for performance and energy. And most teenagers are not getting anywhere near enough.

So that is one I encourage supplementing, and my teens actually do supplement with a few things, including magnesium regularly. But if your teen is not doing that, that alone might be a game changer and you can experiment with or have them experiment with, if that’s better in the morning, if it’s better in the evening, how their body individually responds.

We also do a lot of making sure we salt our food with unrefined salt and hydrate with water and salt as well as Beam Minerals, we do a lot of that, a lot of LMNT, and coconut water. My daughter especially loves coconut water. I try to keep that in the house and homemade electrolyte drinks. And taking all those into account, it still can be a job for them to actually get enough.

Other ones that I don’t hear talked about as much, that I think are very vital. Our vitamin D levels and sunlight exposure. These actually have some really strong data for performance as well. Sunlight exposure of course, helps boost vitamin D naturally, which helps in hormone production, recovery, and injury prevention.

I don’t know if it’s aired yet when this episode airs, but I recorded a really long form episode about light exposure and how it drastically improves our nutrient absorption, our recovery, our sleep, our cellular communication, and so much more. And this is also especially important for teenagers, and I know this piece is also difficult with school schedules, but whenever possible, if teens can get morning sunlight, get some bright sunlight throughout the day, and minimize artificial light at night, which is a big ask with teenagers who have screens, I know.

Those really, really can impact their hormone levels and their recovery and show up in a massive way for performance. I typically don’t recommend supplementing with vitamin D, however, in working with a doctor or practitioner, if teens live in northern climates or are just not getting enough sun, it may be worth looking into vitamin D3 or K and or K2 supplementation, to help make sure they’re getting basic enough for their immune systems, for their recovery, for their sleep, for their bone health, their skeletal muscle development. It comes into play in a lot things here.

Touching on a couple other key  nutrients specific to teens. So I mentioned magnesium for muscle recovery, for sleep, and for stress management, that would be my big one. I also encourage my kids to get enough omega 3s and choline to support brain health and healthy levels of low inflammation hopefully. And especially for contact sports, this can be really helpful for recovery as well as. And then I also try to add in when possible things like collagen and glycine rich foods, as well as they often will supplement with glycine and full amino acids.

We have the capsules of Kion amino acids in our house, and they take that one as well. These are found in foods as well, like bone broth and slow-cooked meats. And this is supportive of joint health. So from an injury prevention perspective, that can be really helpful as well. A more obscure one that my teens also take is called pectasol.

And this is not an amino acid, but this is something that helps bind to and remove an inflammatory protein called Galectin-3 in the body. I did an episode about this when I talked to Dr. Isaac Elias about, and it’s actually studied in cancer as well. But because it helps remove inflammatory protein, it seems to have a beneficial effect on recovery time and also on sleep.

Now I wanna talk about the, I feel like especially in teens, the overlooked factors when it comes to teen athletes in particular, which are sleep recovery and injury prevention. And these are big ones because if a teen has an injury, they’re often out for the whole season, and that can derail their whole season and potentially their hopes of post high school sports as well, if that’s something that they’re interested in.

It is not gonna be a surprise. I’ve had so many podcasts about sleep being the number one performance enhancer. Teens especially are in a high risk category of not getting enough sleep. I’ve had experts on this podcast talk about how teens sleep schedule does naturally shift later. So a sleep pattern that would not be ideal for adults actually can work really well for teens.

It’s just often that school doesn’t allow for that. So teens naturally will tend to go to bed a little bit later. If you have teens as well, you might notice their favorite times to talk are late, late at night, and they naturally want to sleep later, which is often not possible with school schedules.

But most teen athletes especially need, ideally 9 to 10 hours of sleep per night, and statistically they get much less. I think if this one factor could be optimized for teens and if we let them start school at 10:00 AM we would probably see higher performing teens and fewer injuries and probably better hormone health for them as well, because sleep is when muscle growth happens, it’s when so many things related to their hormone production happen and the nervous system recovery happens, which is its own whole topic.

But nervous system of course comes into play in physical performance and athletics, and sleep is a big lever to pull for nervous system health. So essentially for teens the more sleep, the better, especially up to that 9 to 10 hours per night range. Sleep can also be tough for teens and they have a lot of demands on their time, and especially if they’re also doing sports.

So anyway we can support them in nurturing their sleep environment and then hopefully they choose to have good sleep hygiene and a good sleep schedule. But some tips that parents can assist with are things like making sure their room is cold and dark, encouraging them and modeling for them. Not to be on screens before bed.

Magnesium is a helpful one again for sleep. And Molly Eastman from Sleep is a Skill talked about on this podcast that having a consistent schedule is really helpful for quality sleep, and this applies to teens as well. So as much as possible, waking up at the same time each day, going to bed at the same time each day, especially the wake up though even on the weekends, which I know is tough, but I think if we actually let teens get enough sleep, they might naturally regulate that schedule a little bit better.

Another important point is to remember that recovery is when the gains actually happen. I find teens, because they typically have a lot of energy and their hormones are so optimized, they love training, they wanna train more. And if anything, the downfall is that they think if some training is good, more training is better.

I know in my thirties I have learned that that is not the case, that more is not always better and effective is better. But for teens, they typically have a pretty demanding training load, and they enjoy the training. It’s the recovery that needs the encouragement. Because strength and speed don’t happen during training, that’s when the foundation is laid.

But they actually improve during recovery and during sleep. Like I mentioned, that nervous system component. And so any way that we can support their recovery and especially their sleep is really, really helpful. Things like cold plunges, sauna, mobility, stretching, breath work, those are all recovery tools that we can make use of.

And just nurturing a calm environment in the house as much as possible. Now, a little bit related to this, but a little bit more of an obscure tip, is that baking soda was actually considered a banned substance for a while because of its potential to affect both performance and recovery. And I’m talking about like regular baking soda that you get at the grocery store. A half a teaspoon of that in water, there’s some fascinating data and studies that show that that can impact the lactic threshold as well as performance metrics. So athletes who do that regularly before exercise can typically perform longer without getting tired, and seemingly might also have a little bit lower risk of injury. But this is an almost free tool that they can experiment with if they want to.

Then there is the aspect of injury prevention, which I know a lot of teens do think about, and also ties into longevity, which probably not as many teens think about. But many young athletes train too hard in comparison to the amount of mobility work, load management, stretching, and recovery they are doing.

So anytime we can help create more space for them in the recovery aspect, in giving them tools for mobility work, for stretching, for having downtime and recovery is really helpful because again, that’s where the gains actually happen. Other lesser known things are things like the importance of barefoot time for strong feet and ankles and joint health, and avoiding too much repetitive stress in one area, which can be difficult when they’re doing a focused sport or that’s gonna have a repetitive movement.

So it’s helpful to balance those things out. So my house is typically a barefoot environment. My kids even go to the grocery store and go other places barefoot as much as possible when they’re not doing their sport. I do also feel like for teens especially a big part of this is actually not owning this ourselves as parents, not taking on the emotional responsibility for it, but reinforcing their autonomy and their ownership in that process.

Because especially if they’re wanting to pursue post high school athletics, this is an area that they are going to have to manage. And that the more tools we can give them to manage on their own, through their own decision and their inner decision around it, the more that will support them later on, because we’re not gonna be there to manage that for them as they get older.

And this ties into how I think of parenting as well in the episode I did on that, but I think it’s really important,I would argue with kids of all ages to whatever degree possible, but especially with teens and especially when they’re focused on a goal like athletics, to let it be their decision. To trust that they are very strong and very capable. To give them the data and the access to the tools and let them choose.

Because also there’s an element of, with teens, the more we force something, the more they might resist it. And it truly also is their choice in pursuing whatever sport they’re doing is their pursuit and their passion, it’s not ours. So recognizing that and supporting them from a place of honoring their autonomy.

And I think it’s helpful also to enter those conversations through the frame of making their life easier, helping them make their performance better. And making their goals more attainable, not from a place of rules and restriction. I’ve talked about how I had to unlearn this when it came to food and diet, but not restriction, but in nourishment and how to sort of build a relationship with my body that let me accomplish my goals versus entering from a place of restriction. So an example of this would be comparing their bodies to a high performance vehicle and letting them choose the options of do you wanna fuel your body with high performance fuel? Do you wanna fuel it with low grade fuel? It’s their choice. It truly is their choice, but certain choices can help them be faster, stronger and recover better. And I think within this as well, is giving them and reinforcing really what they already have, their freedom to experiment. They may not take your word for it, they’re teenagers and that’s perfectly normal and psychologically appropriate. If they don’t believe you, let them track their own energy levels, maybe get them a wearable and let it be their decision, or they can pay attention to their soreness or their recovery based on different habits. They can pay attention to their food intake and see if that seems to make a difference or experiment with supplements, but let it be their experimentation.

Just make suggestions like try eating 30 grams of protein at breakfast every day for a week and see if you see a difference in practice. If you wanna try these supplements that I got, you see if you feel a difference in practice. And then I think the really big thing is while letting it be their decision, just helping remove barriers wherever we can.

So the things I feel like parents can be supportive in are keeping making sure there’s nutrient dense foods always available, especially high protein foods for athletes. Having easy access to not just hydration, but all of the minerals that come into play to really optimize hydration and then model a culture of good sleep and recovery habits within our house. And this is a semi complex topic, but I wanted to just touch on some of the high points because again, teen athletes are busy. I don’t wanna introduce too much into their already busy schedules, and I feel like those are the biggest levers that can be pulled to help really impact the outcome for them while letting it be their experimentation.

So recap, high points, action points for supporting teen athletes would be: Having high nutrient foods and especially protein and whole food sources available as much as possible. Hydration and electrolytes and minerals matter a lot. So having things like Beam Minerals, like magnesium, like LMNT, like salt in the house as much as possible, and having access to as much hydration that as they can handle. Creatine and sunlight are overlooked tools that can be very, very powerful. It’s their choice, but sleep is a non-negotiable for performance. There was even a study that looked at the top performing athletes and mindset was a huge differentiator. Sleep was also statistically a massive differentiator. People, athletes who get that factor dialed in will perform better. And then recovery is just as important as training.

And I feel like that is a tough one with teenagers because they are so good at performing. But anytime we can support and encourage the recovery and sleep, that is super helpful. My encouragement would be to not be a dictator in this area, but to be a guide and a support structure. Teens do their best when they feel like they have a say in their own health.

This is something that is going to be theirs to manage their whole lives long. They’re already so capable of managing it on their own. And our role at this age, I feel is to show up in a supporting role and to let it be their decision and to be there for support when they need us. If you found this episode helpful, if you have teen athletes, I would be honored if you would share it with parents of other teenagers or leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts.

That helps other people to find this podcast and listen, and I am deeply grateful whenever you choose to do that, but whether you do or you don’t, I’m so happy that you shared your time with me today. I hope something in this episode has been helpful to you and to your teen athletes if you have them.

And as always, thank you for sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with me today, and I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.