Strength Training for Youth Athletes
Today’s blog is for coaches and it deals with strength training for youth athletes. When it comes to strength training for youth athletes there are 4 things you should always keep in mind:
Keep it Simple
Keep it Safe
Teach Proper Form
Have Fun
When I’m talking about youth athletes, I’m referring to athletes from approximately 7 years old to the point where the athlete hits puberty. Let me explain what I mean with each of these 4 points.
Keep it Simple
You want to choose exercises that they can do and be successful with. This early success will spark excitement and create confidence. There is absolutely no need to try and get fancy when trying to get a kid stronger. Does it look cool if they can do some fancy exercise when they are young? Absolutely! However, there is a difference between an expression of strength and development of strength. Having young athlete’s do complicated exercises and drills early on can be discouraging, as they don’t understand that failure is part of the process yet. They may adopt the mindset that they suck at this and not want to try anymore.
Most of the exercises youth athletes will be doing should be with their own bodyweight. There’s no need to load them with external weight until they have mastered their own weight and they are no longer receiving the necessary stimulus from their body weight. Now you might have seen on my Instagram youth athletes goblet squatting, but that was after months of body weight squats and lunges. Just make sure to progress each athlete appropriately as they will develop at different rates.
Keep it Safe
Safety is obviously important when training all athletes, but especially for kids, as we do not want to damage the growth plates. Damage to a growth plate can lead to bones that are misshaped or potentially not the correct length. For this reason you want to avoid exercises or drills that are too advanced or in which there is a lot of impact on the joints. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have kids jump, what it means is that you should teach them proper landing mechanics first and then progress their jumping appropriately. Weight bearing exercises and low impact movement is important as it will help increase their bone mineral density, but just progress things appropriately. If they can’t do a drill safely yet, don’t have them doing it!
Teach Proper Form
Yes teaching proper form is a little redundant as it goes hand in hand with keeping it safe and simple, but it is very important. Learning proper movement patterns at a young age is so beneficial as it sets them up for success in their sport, future training, and will help keep them healthy. For example, a kid learning how to sit back into a squat at a young age from doing body weight squats will have numerous benefits. This hip hinge pattern is important when squatting, landing from a jump, decelerating while running, and learning it at a young age will not only increase their performance but also help prevent injuries.
In my opinion, a large culprit for kids having poor form is their coaches asking them to perform exercises they aren’t capable of doing yet. So once again Keep it Simple! If you need ideas on how to properly regress an exercise send me a message and I’ll see if I can help.
If a kid has mastered their bodyweight and has great form lunging, squatting, jumping, doing push ups, etc., by the time they hit puberty their strength gains will sky rocket as they will be ready to load proper movement patterns. So often you see kids going way too heavy with crap form. First off this will lead to injuries and secondly it takes much longer to correct form when you learned it incorrectly first. It is extremely frustrating for both the coach and the athlete to have to decrease their lifting weight to re-learn how to do a lift.
Have Fun
Coaches have such a large impact on kids and this responsibility should be taken seriously. One of the most beneficial things a coach can do for a youth athlete is spark their excitement. A kid who enjoys training and wants to get better will always have better results, as they’ll give you their best effort. This is why it is important to make sure the kids are having fun and enjoying the training. If you’re able to make working out an enjoyable experience for them, they are much more likely to continue exercising and living a healthy life into adulthood.
As mentioned earlier, the worse thing you can do to a kid is discourage them so they no longer want to try. At times you just need to find things they enjoy to do and even if it isn’t what you think might be optimal for their performance let them do it! A kid who is excited to come in and train will have much better results than a kid who is performing great exercises but doesn’t want to be there.
Hopefully you’ve taken something away from this blog and just remember to always do what is best for the athlete!
