The importance of growing height in sporting development

Sporting parents have an aspiration to equip their children with the right coaches, right skills and tools to have a fighting chance of following in their footsteps before overtaking them.

It is most parents’ hope, whether it be academics or sport, that the next generation of little humans are superior, better equipped, and smarter. 

One important indicator parents should look out for is the growing height of their children on their sporting development journey.

This should be tracked as early as possible, which will indicate possible problem areas ahead of time which can be addressed by professionals. 

Let’s say your dad was the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan or legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, and you as a child had a dream of following in your fathers’ footsteps.

One of your parents’ biggest fears would be that you were too short. 

That is not to say you cannot play professional sport being short, but there is just a very high chance you won’t follow in your father’s footsteps in his chosen sporting position. 

Peter Schmeichel’s height is 1,92m and his son Kasper Schmeichel, who plays in the premier league for Leicester City is 1.89m.

The average height of a Premier League player is 1.9m and the shortest player in the league is Jed Steer, who is six-foot-tall (1.83m).

I am sure Peter was a concerned father when Kasper was growing up and constantly monitored his height and weight because a lot was riding on Kasper becoming a professional goalkeeper.

Academies in Europe will not even look at you if you don’t conform to a certain height level for a goalkeeper position. 

Important reasons to track height: 

Genetic pre-dispositions

Tracking growth is important because it can indicate genetic pre-dispositions e.g. achondroplasia which is a disorder of bone growth that prevents the changing of cartilage resulting in dwarfism. 

Malnutrition

This occurs when your diet does not contain the right amounts of macro and micro nutrients – mental disease (e.g. anorexia) and physical disease – 13% of athletes in “judged sport” have eating disorders according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. 

Endocrine disorders

Adrenal insufficiencies where your adrenal gland hormone releases too much, or too little, cortisol hormone causing a hormonal imbalance. The crushing disease is when the pituitary gland is producing too much, which leads to an overactive adrenal gland. Hyperthyroidism is when the thyroid gland produces too much thyroid hormone leading to weight loss, fast heart rate, sweating and nervousness. 

Injury

This is when damage is done to the epiphyseal plates in the bones caused by a severe impact injury or overloading your body through heavy weights (gym). 

One of the biggest questions parents with a young sporting child ask is how tall their child is going to be when they grow up.

This helps parents determine which sports they will have a natural advantage in and start directing them from an early age in a variety of sports they might excel in to monitor growth. A coach or trained professional must gather height, weight, head circumference and body mass index (BMI).

The conditioning needs to be the same each time the data is collected to have an accurate assumption of growth.

To determine the future potential height of an athlete, work done by Sherar et al concluded that using height, weight and sitting height could accurately predict adult stature within 5-8cm in boys and 3-8cm in girls.

The Tanner method is another method for calculating mid-parental height in children. For a boy, you take the mother’s height and father’s height plus 13cm divided by two and for girls, you subtract 13.

The formula is pretty accurate although the final height prediction might vary a bit more in Indian and Asian cultures. 

The most accurate way to predict height is by using a “child bone age”, which is determined by an X-ray of the hand. 

There are so many factors that can prevent your child from growing which include medicines, health conditions, environmental factors, genetics, contact sports, hormones and nutrition and this is why it is important to keep aware of your children’s development because if there are any potential problems, you can seek professional help.

For aspiring athletes that choose to follow in their parents’ footsteps, it is advised to take an assessment to determine if he or she is on track and measure track every three months with a professional.