ABSTRACT
The need to recognise and accommodate the individual athlete, when working with youth populations, is arguably more pertinent than when working with adult athletes. The application of determining athlete maturity is of relevance given that children mature at a tempo that is individual to them and independent of chronological age groupings that are often used in competition. Despite the plethora of growth and maturation related research, the transfer from theory to practice can often be ambiguous and confusing. ‘Growth’ refers to the process by which something has increased in size as a whole whereas, ‘maturation’ refers to the process towards a mature state and can be established using indicators of maturity, which include skeletal maturation, somatic maturation and sexual maturation. Due to the added complexities of growth and maturation within youth populations, research examining adult training programmes and exercise physiology cannot simply be extrapolated to youth athletes.
