Can it help reduce the relative age effect in sport? Yes, and it can also reduce selection bias between early- and late-maturing athletes. But it's not for all sports.
Big consideration, in my opinion, is the social and emotional factor.
Considering the platform that a lot of kids, at various ages, play sport primarily for fun and to be with their friendship group; even at high skills level.
You push them into bio-banding, and then the fun and social factor is essentially removed. They're not with their mates and peer group.
A 15 yo and a 12 yo don't, often, want to hang out together. Splinter groups develop. Huge consideration and challenge. I've seen this in youth martial arts, football and rugby.
Then, the other key factor is... wherr do you place the highly skilled/'talented' late developers? Those (very) few kids who are 3 or 4 years biologically 'young' for their age; but are first on the team sheet?
These are often the outliers, in my opinion, who are real talents, if any.
I think it might or could work or apply, generally, if you introduce it in a high performance context. And the youngsters buy into it as an elite training pathway.
You're right about the age and ability differences. This is always a problem in youth sport because we assume (hope) that all x-year-olds will be similarly skilled, but they almost never are. Do you assign training squads by ability or age? Clubs and coaches answer this question based on philosophy and circumstance. Understanding the consequences for each choice won't solve the problem but it might clarify the reasoning process.
When I first came across bio-banding I assumed that it was just some 'academic' idea that might work on paper but would never make it into the wild. After reading about how the Premier League gave it a try though it doesn't seem to be quite as labor intensive as I thought. But it's still too administratively intensive to make it to the big time of youth sport. Calculating the predicted adult height needs 3 measurements, and the maturity offset needs 5, all of which have to be collected several times each year (at least 3x). Like many things I tried as a swim coach I did it once, realized that the work involved was simply not sustainable, and never did it again.
Big consideration, in my opinion, is the social and emotional factor.
Considering the platform that a lot of kids, at various ages, play sport primarily for fun and to be with their friendship group; even at high skills level.
You push them into bio-banding, and then the fun and social factor is essentially removed. They're not with their mates and peer group.
A 15 yo and a 12 yo don't, often, want to hang out together. Splinter groups develop. Huge consideration and challenge. I've seen this in youth martial arts, football and rugby.
Then, the other key factor is... wherr do you place the highly skilled/'talented' late developers? Those (very) few kids who are 3 or 4 years biologically 'young' for their age; but are first on the team sheet?
These are often the outliers, in my opinion, who are real talents, if any.
I think it might or could work or apply, generally, if you introduce it in a high performance context. And the youngsters buy into it as an elite training pathway.
You're right about the age and ability differences. This is always a problem in youth sport because we assume (hope) that all x-year-olds will be similarly skilled, but they almost never are. Do you assign training squads by ability or age? Clubs and coaches answer this question based on philosophy and circumstance. Understanding the consequences for each choice won't solve the problem but it might clarify the reasoning process.
Good topic Bill. Difficult to apply.
When I first came across bio-banding I assumed that it was just some 'academic' idea that might work on paper but would never make it into the wild. After reading about how the Premier League gave it a try though it doesn't seem to be quite as labor intensive as I thought. But it's still too administratively intensive to make it to the big time of youth sport. Calculating the predicted adult height needs 3 measurements, and the maturity offset needs 5, all of which have to be collected several times each year (at least 3x). Like many things I tried as a swim coach I did it once, realized that the work involved was simply not sustainable, and never did it again.
Really - Coach Bill!