Growth and Maturation - What’s the difference?

Growth and maturation are two key terms that must be understood in the context of training youth athletes. While they are often lumped together as a catch-all term, despite being related to one another they should actually be considered separately.

The Athletic Evolution podcast recently interviewed Dr Sean Cumming, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Bath and all round growth and maturation guru, who gave the brilliant analogy of a salmon on a salmon farm to explain the difference between the two. With a distant background in Marine Biology, it captured my imagination, so I thought I would share it below. Please do check out the actual podcast, and subscribe. It’s a fantastic resource for youth athletic development.

First of all, a couple of definitions will prove useful.

Growth

This can be considered to be changes in terms of size. For example, our height will increase, bones will lengthen and thicken, our body composition will also change. However, body composition can also continue to change or grow through increases in fat and/or muscle mass well into adulthood, so it’s important to remember that growth does not just stop when we get to adulthood. Therein lies a key difference, growth does have a fixed end point.

Maturation

Although it might seem more complicated due to its varied processes, maturation is quite simple to understand. To simplify, it’s the journey starting at the moment we are conceived, through to ‘full maturity’. It has an end point. Although that might differ in timing and occur at different speeds in each of us, with a little bit of luck, we all get to full maturity.

On to the analogy…

Salmon farming, growth and maturation

So where does salmon farming come into it? Well, if you put yourself in a salmon farmer’s boots, you want your salmon to grow as big as possible (so you have more to sell), and you want them to do this as quickly as possible (so you spend less money on feeding them).

A salmon farmer wants rapid GROWTH.

Now, the problem with most salmon species is that they are anadromous fish, and have an interesting life cycle. Unfortunately for the salmon farmers, this means that as they MATURE, they become less valuable. Prior to getting ready to spawn, they undergo a few changes. They might grow a hump, a scary looking hook jaw, and canine-like teeth. Great for a salmon looking to reproduce, but not for the salmon farmer. They want the energy in their feed to be converted into valuable salmon flesh, not into their skin or other unsavoury morphological characteristics.

A salmon farmer wants fish that exhibit slow MATURATION.

This is probably where the analogy needs to end, but is a great example of the differences between the two. You can have or want one and not the other, although they are related. When it comes to youth sport, they both must be understood, measured and considered in the broader context.