Who would likely get hit by puberty?

Well, there are 3 things with puberty:
1. Fast growth - people already said tons about it.
2. You grow, but the muscles dont - this i think is mostly for boys: they stratch but need some time to build muscles to sustain it. When you are an athlete or dancer, this is a big deal.
3. Your body proportions change - this is for girls. Wider hips, bigger breasts, all those things affect your center of mass and pretty much all your movements. It may sound like not a big deal, but...

Also, those changes do not happen overnight, so its not like you wake up, re-learn everything and you are done. You change every day, and you come to tarin and whops, its all slightely off already. You fix it, and then next day you fix it, and then basically spend a year running to remain at the same spot where you were.

People dont seem to realize it - for example, we had tons of people here complaining about Elena Radionova not improving artistically while she had her growth spurt, and claiming she isnt working hard enough and blablabla. While she quite likely did an insane effort to just keep her jumps, for instance.

OmNomNomNom said:

This really is another beef of mine when it comes to the dark side of fs. Humans aren't made to be perfect, they're not in top condition all the time (with the exception of Zhenya), so it's always heartbreaking to see someone being neglected/dismissed due to reasons out of their control preventing them from performing their best. every. time.

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It would be more heartbeaking to see someone who performed their best desmissed just to not neglect/desmiss someone who didnt, no?

Of course the more wealthy a skater is the more likely they can have coach, choreographer, personal trainer, nutritionist, psychologist, doctor, physical therapist and all these things can help get through puberty!

I think it is rarer for men to make a splash on the major international stage when they are young. They rarely move right up into major international or at least Worlds level competition at age 16, and when they do, they rarely start winning right away. You see it happen. Nam, Denis Ten, and Timothy Goebel are three that I can name who were successful so early and then struggled under the public eye. But most guys go through adolescence before the larger public is watching. Nathan had all kinds of growth-related injuries the three years before moving up to seniors, before he started training the huge jumps. Sadovsky has really struggled, but it's not nearly as public a discussion as it would be if he had won Nationals, been placed onto the World team post Nationals, and then missed the Worlds free skate. Also, the men are so explosive, it's hard to know when an athlete like Samohin is just imploding or whether he is struggling with adolescence. An athlete from a small country--like Denis or Deniss or Elizabet--has to work through adolescence in the public spotlight because he/she is the only athlete the country has to send; but that spot on the team will very likely still be there when the struggle is over. Often men from the larger countries don't climb high enough to make the team until after the effects of adolescence have passed. Though others fall by the wayside first; and if you're a guy with much height at all in the U.S, I'm sure you are encouraged to try pairs.

That seems to be changing more recently in the men's event. Patrick Chan, Yuzuru Hanyu, Shoma Uno, Boyang Jin have all medalled at either their first or second World Championships and came from high successful junior careers. I would say that the more unusual path to the top is someone like Javier Fernandez, who early in his career seemed like he was going nowhere. His first European Championship and Worlds bronze medal is 2013 was his 7th trip to each of those events. Fernandez clearly benefited from being the best in a country with no skating tradition to even have that many opportunities to compete without success and didn't achieve his potential until after making the move to Brian Orser and the cricket club. He should be a role model for other athletes - even those in countries with great depth - not to give up if you don't have early success as well as be prepared to make big changes to your life if you want to be the best.

tennisguy said:

That seems to be changing more recently in the men's event. Patrick Chan, Yuzuru Hanyu, Shoma Uno, Boyang Jin have all medalled at either their first or second World Championships and came from high successful junior careers. I would say that the more unusual path to the top is someone like Javier Fernandez, who early in his career seemed like he was going no where. His first European Championship and Worlds bronze medal is 2013 was his 7th trip to each of those events. Fernandez clearly benefited from being the best in a country with no skating tradition to even have that many opportunities to compete without success and didn't achieve his potential until after making the move to Brian Orser and the cricket club. He should be a role model for other athletes - even those in countries with great depth - not to give up if you don't have early success as well as be prepared to make big changes to your life if you want to be the best.

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I agree. Being from the US, it seemed like Javi appeared out of nowhere. Skaters like Javi, Denis, and Misha were skaters that I had never heard of before I discovered them as Seniors. Plushy, Johnny Weir, Adam Rippon and Joshua Farris were all famous Juniors. In some cases, I have to wonder if having no competition in your home country makes it more difficult. I remember when Joshua, Jason, and Shotaro were all Juniors at the same time. I'm sure they pushed each other to higher heights. Johnny and Evan have talked about their rivalry for years. I think they benefitted from having a rival in their home country much like Plushy and Yags....

mrrice said:

I agree. Being from the US, it seemed like Javi appeared out of nowhere. Skaters like Javi, Denis, and Misha were skaters that I had never heard of before I discovered them as Seniors. Plushy, Johnny Weir, Adam Rippon and Joshua Farris were all famous Juniors.

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I've always been pretty leery of paying too much attention to juniors because that transition can be very difficult and if you go down the list of World Junior Champions in all disciplines you'll see familiar names that have gone on to great careers but also many names that never made that transition to senior competition. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd place skater or lower was the one to watch but it's so difficult to know.

sarama said:

In general a late puberty is not going to help,

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Actually I think it helps a lot more if the major growth spurts come later rather than earlier. Assuming the skater started training at the same age (let's say 6 years old), it's a lot easier to master triple jumps, for example, as a small 12-year-old than as a large 12-year-old. And certainly easier than as a large 10-year-old with 2 years less skating experience.

Yes, the kid who was small and childlike at 12 who suddenly becomes taller and heavier and curvier at 15 or 16 will struggle with her jumps when that happens. But if she already had consistent triples for several years before the major changes, she already knows what it feels like to rotate 3 times in the air and will more likely be able to get the jumps back as she adjusts to her new body and improves her technique (power/speed, jump height) accordingly.

The kid whose body changed to near-adult size and shape before mastering any triple jumps is much less likely to get them at all.

The difference is, that the kid with the early body changes will probably never be an elite skater and will therefore remain unknown to fans, whereas the kids who reach elite levels as juniors or first-year seniors and then struggle with later body changes do it in front of the whole world. (Well, the part of the whole world that follows figure skating.)

tennisguy said:

I've always been pretty leery of paying too much attention to juniors because that transition can be very difficult and if you go down the list of World Junior Champions in all disciplines you'll see familiar names that have gone on to great careers but also many names that never made that transition to senior competition. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd place skater or lower was the one to watch but it's so difficult to know.

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I would advise against paying attention to junior skating for the purpose of seeking out future stars, predicting the future or choosing favorites to try to follow long-term.

If you good junior-level skating by young teenagers on its own merits, then by all means follow junior events for the immediate viewing pleasures they offer, regardless of which skaters will may on to senior fame or which are already at or past their personal peak.

tennisguy said:

That seems to be changing more recently in the men's event.

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It feels that way. As though all the young guys coming up have more quads in their pocket & are jumping right to the top. (Which, of course, they aren't. Samohin, Zhao, Aliev, Torgashev, Petrov, Samarin, Hiwatashi, Nadeau, Vasiljevs--they all went out in senior competitions this season with mixed results, and only Vasiljevs went on to senior Worlds, where he finished 14th for the second time). In 2010, only Denis was sixteen. Most of the young guns that season were 19. Jin & Shoma are 19 now. It will be interesting to see if the age trend for the men is really lowering or if the Shoma/Jin/Chen trio just assailed the world with so much noise that it felt that way. There is always a changing of the guard mid-quadrennium. One undisputably unusual aspect of this quadrennium is that all four of the top-placing men from the last Olympics have continued to compete.

[email protected] said:

You are, may be, new but the argument is tiresome: "the puberty affect mostly Russian youngsters". There were some other variations to this: like brilliant Japanese youngsters and "girls de jour" from Russia.

In fact, it is very individual: when it starts and how it affects a skater. Wakaba might have the effect, Rika Hongo. I think just in one year Marin Honda grew visibly taller. Is she going to be immune against puberty? We shall see the next couple of seasons. She is what, 15 now? Liz Tursynbaeva is 17? Will she always look like she looks now?

Gracie looked very different pre-Sochi than after - no one here raised the puberty issue with respect to her for some reason.

In fact there are very few skaters in the world who can claim that the puberty is over for them and who are still in top-10: Ashley, Carolina, Anna. Then there are some who are near top-10 but who usually do not get into national teams these days: Liza, Rika, Mirai. Russians are in both lists.

Interesting that there was a big outcry here to raise the age for senior competitions to 17-18 just 1 year ago. Russian youngsters were the primary reason. Somehow it has stopped recently. Well, Anna is 19, Zhenya is going to be 18 in the fall. At the same time the only one in Japan now is Satoko - the rest are "sonograms".

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Kaetlyn Osmond is 21, so I'm pretty sure you can add her to the list. And Gabrielle Daleman is the same age as Anna.

In general Europeans seem to be hit harder than Asians. As for early vs late puberty, that doesn't seem to matter as much as gradual vs sudden growth/puberty changes.

Jason Brown for example was always small and still is a relatively small man, but he went from being a little kid to a grown man in the course of like 1 year. I think that's a big part of why the 3a was so hard for him to get. Joshua's Farris meanwhile seemed to be more stable in juniors because his growth was more gradual, not an abrupt spurt.

In ladies, both Liza and Adelina dealt with the abrupt growth spurt, going from little girl to woman in such a short period of time. For Anna P and Zhenya it was a more gradual process.

The other thing I think plays a factor is genetics and how much one physically grows during puberty. For someone like Mao or Yuna, their pre puberty height and body build didn't change that much post puberty. The same can be said for Nathan Chen. Then you look at someone like Roman Sadovsky who has really struggled technically the past few years and it's not that hard to see why; he was very tiny growing up, hit puberty late, and then grew hugely. Most boys who are 5 feet at 14 won't grow to be 6 feet at 17, but he did, likely due to the combination of genetics and late puberty. Nam's situation is kind of similar though he has retained his slight body frame through his massive height gain, which makes sense given his parents are tiny (though he probably has some tall relatives somewhere). I also think more boys struggle with puberty than people realize. Emmanuel Savary, Deniss V a couple seasons ago, Arthur Gachinski, Andrew Torgashev, etc. Sure Shoma and Boyang adjusted fine, but they seem to be pretty lucky in regards to staying so small post puberty...

silverlake22 said:

In general Europeans seem to be hit harder than Asians. As for early vs late puberty, that doesn't seem to matter as much as gradual vs sudden growth/puberty changes.

Jason Brown for example was always small and still is a relatively small man, but he went from being a little kid to a grown man in the course of like 1 year. I think that's a big part of why the 3a was so hard for him to get. Joshua's Farris meanwhile seemed to be more stable in juniors because his growth was more gradual, not an abrupt spurt.

In ladies, both Liza and Adelina dealt with the abrupt growth spurt, going from little girl to woman in such a short period of time. For Anna P and Zhenya it was a more gradual process.

The other thing I think plays a factor is genetics and how much one physically grows during puberty. For someone like Mao or Yuna, their pre puberty height and body build didn't change that much post puberty. The same can be said for Nathan Chen. Then you look at someone like Roman Sadovsky who has really struggled technically the past few years and it's not that hard to see why; he was very tiny growing up, hit puberty late, and then grew hugely. Most boys who are 5 feet at 14 won't grow to be 6 feet at 17, but he did, likely due to the combination of genetics and late puberty. Nam's situation is kind of similar though he has retained his slight body frame through his massive height gain, which makes sense given his parents are tiny (though he probably has some tall relatives somewhere). I also think more boys struggle with puberty than people realize. Emmanuel Savary, Deniss V a couple seasons ago, Arthur Gachinski, Andrew Torgashev, etc. Sure Shoma and Boyang adjusted fine, but they seem to be pretty lucky in regards to staying so small post puberty...

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Andrew Torgashev struggled more last season because he was injured and missed all of the previous season with a fractured ankle. It took Kaetlyn two seasons to get back to form after breaking her leg and i think it will take Andrew another season to get back to where he was before the injury plus he is at the age where male skaters can make huge improvements in their skating in just a matter of months. And of course he's now doing quads like all the young guys coming up are so he's more inconsistent. But once he gets it all together watch out because this kid is special and he is the total package.

I have always been of the opposite opinion, so this answer has really got me thinking!
I'm 31, 5'3, 98lbs, and had hit this size & finished puberty by age 12. I'm not certain how long my "growth spurt" phase lasted, but probably ran from age 10-12 seeing as I was (ironically) a super tall child (so, the "judge by what they look like when young" thought would've failed with me!).
I was a swimmer, and the majority of the other girls didn't develop til 15 +, and I always figured that it was an advantage for me to have not needed to re-calibrate or adjust my technique at a more serious time in my career development. I took it that perhaps an early puberty would be beneficial to skaters in this way.

Now though you've got me thinking about how I wasn't considered a serious competitor in early adolescence, and how this would've affected me if I'd been a more competitively natured kid. I was certainly overlooked for camps, travel teams, etc., and rightfully so. The psychological aspect of "not being good" would probably deter many young athletes from continuing hard training, or even accessing the support (parental, coaching preferences) necessary to develop their potential. The idea of quitting to pursue a "normal" life would be much more attractive than working your butt off at something you sucked at.


In terms of determining HOW tall you'll grow, I believe that "hand scan" performed by dentists (don't know the technical term!) is pretty accurate, it was for me.

The genetic/ethnic factor is important too, I trained with girls of Eastern European ancestry who weren't allowed to train early mornings until they'd finished puberty, as their mother knew they needed to grow tall and wanted to ensure they got enough sleep to grow and did not have their development delayed and potentially messed up.

Is it possible for skaters to "go easy" during their developmental years so that they can be done with puberty young and then get on with mastering everything in the body that they will have from that point on? Or will this make advancement, even with good coaching, psychological support etc impossible?

Jammers said:

Andrew Torgashev struggled more last season because he was injured and missed all of the previous season with a fractured ankle. It took Kaetlyn two seasons to get back to form after breaking her leg and i think it will take Andrew another season to get back to where he was before the injury plus he is at the age where male skaters can make huge improvements in their skating in just a matter of months. And of course he's now doing quads like all the young guys coming up are so he's more inconsistent. But once he gets it all together watch out because this kid is special and he is the total package.

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Agree about the injury hampering Andrew, but in sure it happening right as he hit puberty didn't help matters either. He didn't have the hard jumps when he was younger before he grew and before the injury, so trying to learn them while coming off an injury and adjusting to the growth is certainly going to be tough. Fortunately I don't think he will wind up that tall, he looks a LOT like his dad (facially but also physically) and his dad is a pretty small guy. I agree that he has the whole package so I hope next season is more stable for him.

I also don't think late puberty is always better in sports. Yuzuru and Patrick both seemed to grow up at a young age. When Yuzu competed at Junior Worlds he didn't look much different than he does now, despite being 14 or 15. I think what really helps is if you can learn, or at least start learning, the hard tricks before you hit the big growth spurt. Didn't Mishin say that was key to girls getting the 3a?

sarama said:

Is it possible for skaters to "go easy" during their developmental years so that they can be done with puberty young and then get on with mastering everything in the body that they will have from that point on? Or will this make advancement, even with good coaching, psychological support etc impossible?

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My understanding (from my experience as a young adolescent beginner many years ago, more recently from reading and observation at local rinks over several decades as an adult skater) is that most skating skills (including jumping and spinning) are more effectively learned during the developmental years and that it's much harder to pick them up later.

Reason 1 is that neural pathways are still forming during childhood. Younger skaters can develop a sense of balance on the blades that literally becomes second nature in a way that adults and older adolescent beginners will never feel as natural with even with the same total amount of ice time and instruction.

For spins, it probably helps for the neural system to get used to the balance and sensation of rotation early, for similar reasons.

Also, children are naturally more flexible than adults. It's possible for acrobats/gymnasts, dancers, skaters, etc., to develop extreme flexibility moves by starting in childhood and both stretching and strengthening to increase flexibility gradually and improve control. People who start training flexibility after puberty will be limited in how much they’ll ever be able to achieve. Still, even those who started young and train rigorously will lose some flexibility as they become adults.

For jumps, it's much easier for a small body to rotate than a larger one. Young skaters can get the feel of double jumps in their body before they have the power to get a lot of height off the ice, and then improve the quality of the jumps as they mature. (Although they and their coaches do need to be careful not to get comfortable with landing underrotated jumps so that it becomes an ingrained habiit.)

For those who will go on to learn triples, again, if they're going to be learning them in the pre-teen years it helps to be still small. It's easier to "relearn" triples after puberty than to learn them for the first time in a larger body.

I’ve read, and also heard from a friend who used to be a competitor, that coaching philosophy in Canada 30-ish years ago was to learn one jump at a time and master it fully before starting on the next jump. That worked in the 1980s when competitive senior ladies tended to have two or three triples in their repertoire. After figures were gone in the 1990s and competitors were aiming to include five different triples, the Canadian ladies had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the world until the coaches started to change their approach.


Children tend to be more daring about attempting new skills than older and larger skaters. That can be good, but it can also be dangerous if the kids don’t understand the potential for injury, especially overuse injuries. So it’s important for coaches to keep up with the latest knowledge about optimal training approaches, to teach skills as soon as skaters are ready to start learning them but not to let them burn out by overtraining in ways that will cause acute or chronic damage to their bodies.

@TGee has posted some links showing that Canada now seems to be in the forefront of developing that knowledge and disseminating it to coaches and parents.

Good point. Puberty issue affect other skaters as much as Russian ladies, but they are not talked about that much. Marin Honda, very few mentions about how puberty might affect her, for example. Gracie, Wakaba for sure changed a lot body-wise. To keep your jumping abilities, you can either have the same body throughout your career, like Yuna, Caro, Sasha, Satoko, or perfect technique, like Yuna, Caro, or both. Body type has a lot with genetics. So Eteri is being smart by choosing skinny and relative short girls to train.

[email protected] said:

You are, may be, new but the argument is tiresome: "the puberty affect mostly Russian youngsters". There were some other variations to this: like brilliant Japanese youngsters and "girls de jour" from Russia.

In fact, it is very individual: when it starts and how it affects a skater. Wakaba might have the effect, Rika Hongo. I think just in one year Marin Honda grew visibly taller. Is she going to be immune against puberty? We shall see the next couple of seasons. She is what, 15 now? Liz Tursynbaeva is 17? Will she always look like she looks now?

Gracie looked very different pre-Sochi than after - no one here raised the puberty issue with respect to her for some reason.

In fact there are very few skaters in the world who can claim that the puberty is over for them and who are still in top-10: Ashley, Carolina, Anna. Then there are some who are near top-10 but who usually do not get into national teams these days: Liza, Rika, Mirai. Russians are in both lists.

Interesting that there was a big outcry here to raise the age for senior competitions to 17-18 just 1 year ago. Russian youngsters were the primary reason. Somehow it has stopped recently. Well, Anna is 19, Zhenya is going to be 18 in the fall. At the same time the only one in Japan now is Satoko - the rest are "sonograms".

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SnowWhite said:

Kaetlyn Osmond is 21, so I'm pretty sure you can add her to the list. And Gabrielle Daleman is the same age as Anna.

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Sure, forgot about the Canadians, my fault. And yes, Osmond visually has not changed much. She somehow breezed through puberty or it coincided with her injury.

Marin Honda seems to be naturally thin and is not particularly tall. Also she looks pretty mature for her age already, I don't see puberty giving her a hard time in the coming years and she may be through the worst of it already.

The Korean girl Eun Soo appears to be the same way, although with her there's a chance she could grow pretty tall since she just turned 14 and is already around 160 cm

hippomoomin said:

Good point. Puberty issue affect other skaters as much as Russian ladies, but they are not talked about that much. Marin Honda, very few mentions about how puberty might affect her, for example. Gracie, Wakaba for sure changed a lot body-wise. To keep your jumping abilities, you can either have the same body throughout your career, like Yuna, Caro, Sasha, Satoko, or perfect technique, like Yuna, Caro, or both. Body type has a lot with genetics. So Eteri is being smart by choosing skinny and relative short girls to train.

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Gracie came through puberty pretty good though she had that one season when she didn't make Nationals as she grew a lot but mostly all that changed with her was she grew tall but she came out of it with even better and tougher jumps. Heck in 2011-12 she was doing tougher jump content and combo's then most Senior ladies internationally and she came out of puberty as a stronger jumper which doesn't happen a lot. That's why the high hopes for her back then because she wasn't some 4'8 70lb 13 year old who you didn't know would even still have their jumps 3 years later but instead she looked like a young woman and not a little girl.

I have a bad feeling about Zagitova in the matter. Shape of her body reminds me 13yo Yulia Lipnitskaya in 2011-2012 season, when she won everything at the junior level. The very next season Yulia had many problems.