In girls, this typically happens at around twelve years of age, and in boys at age fourteen, although it can occur more than a year before or after these estimates. PHV tends to coincide with sexual maturation and rapid changes in bone structure. PHV is the time in a child’s life in which they attain the most rapid height growth. Thus it is perhaps the least useful of all methods.Ī final method that seems to be both practical and fairly useful, is called peak height velocity (PHV). This option requires great care and concern for the child’s wellbeing and is less accurate of a method, anyway. Generally X-rays are involved, and although the researchers in this study stated that the radiation levels are safer than we usually think, it’s something many parents would seek to avoid.Īssessing sexual maturation is another method, but it too can only be undergone in a clinical setting by doctors. To measure bone growth accurately requires expensive medical testing.

The researchers acknowledged that although measuring bone growth is the most accepted method for determining physical maturation, it is also the least accessible. However, most professionals are better prepared to test children for academic placement than athletic placement. Much like in academics, chronological age isn’t always the best way to determine where a child’s placement in sports. A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research asked which methods are best for determining these differences for better athletic placement.Ĭhronological age (the one we normally go by) is not the same as biological age, since some athletes mature physically at a different rate than others. Any coach who works with kids knows the tremendous and sometimes unbelievable difference between two youth athletes of the same age, especially in the ‘tween and early teen stages. But sometimes we forget that this physical transformation happens at different rates in different children. We’re all familiar with that stage of childhood when movement gets a little awkward due to rapid growth.

Biological vs chronological age