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Adolescents and Strength Training

The goals of training children from an early age is to improve coordination/movement patterning and to make training FUN!  A young athlete who is able to organize their body in the manner that they want and react to something efficiently is going to have an edge over their opponents WITHOUT the need of training for the sake of getting bigger and faster. An athlete who has a positive relationship with training is more likely to continue doing it. This develops consistency, the absolute best way to guarantee improvement.

Adding load to an athlete is an invaluable tool to improving athletic performance, but should only be done when their body is prepared to handle this load.  This occurs via physical maturation and improved movement patterning. Of these two things, the controllable factor at an early age is movement patterning. By improving this quality now, we set athlete’s up for success early on in their development.

Training the adolescent athlete is about keeping things VERY simple. An example is seen in an everyday exercise that we do under our roof such as jumping for example. In order to teach an athlete how to jump we must properly teach the mechanisms of landing (absorbing force). We utilize box jumps as a great way to introduce force application as well as teach youth athletes as well as older clientele how to land properly. Box jumps are great because they allow us to absorb little force in the apex of our jump (the highest point being the top of the box). Landing soft and quietly are cues that we can give athletes to perform the specific task at hand in order to best carry out the ability to absorb force once they hit the top of the box. Once an athlete demonstrates that they can confidently perform the exercise; we simply add “load” or in this case; the actual instruction of landing (absorbing force) by adding a small hurdle. By adding a hurdle; gravity is now playing a bigger role in the absorption of eccentric load on the body. It becomes more challenging for the athlete to properly land soft and quiet. This concept of progressing exercises can apply to many different movements (squatting, hinging, pushing, pulling, crawling, etc) as we like to think “Our youth athletes are in the slow cooker. We don’t want to burn them, but rather take our time with movement fundamentals!”

Many parents often ask “What is the best age to start training with my child?” The answer really lies in a couple different things; 1) Is the athlete mentally mature enough to handle the commitment of training 1x, 2x, etc. per week? 2) Are they serious about wanting to better themselves? 3) Are they coachable? 4) Where are they in their physical maturation? 5) Would they be grateful at the opportunity to learn how to better themselves physically?

If you answered Yes to the majority of questions listed above; then it sounds like we would be a great fit for your child! Movement before load is the key!

Invest into strength training for your child and set them up for success

My goal for this article to help parents find better insight on the “Why” behind adolescent strength training and activity. I want to share the experiences that I had as a young athlete to you. I want you to put yourself into the shoes of your child. Try to imagine what their goals, dreams and ambitions are when it comes to playing sports or more simply, being successful in life. Theres more to it than sports.

When I was a young kid, I played three sports; hockey, lacrosse, and baseball. Growing up on the North Shore of Massachusetts, hockey was one of the main sports that adolescent boys grew up playing. The Boston Bruins were on almost every night from September to March and there was nothing better than eating dinner and watching them. Spending the first two Mondays in February at the “Fleet Center” for the BeanPot was nothing but routine for myself and my friends. Dreaming of sprinting onto the ice for the BeanPot in front of 17 thousand people was a dream that many chased and few accomplished. I was fortunate enough to start skating at an early age; 2 years old to be exact. Every Saturday morning my parents would dress me in my hockey gear while I sat on the couch and watched Saturday morning cartoons. A glazed donut and a chocolate milk were the only things that I cared about at the time. This Saturday morning routine blossomed into becoming a pretty good hockey player for my age level. Fast forwarding 12 years later, I was now heading into my first year playing for one of the best AAA youth hockey teams in the country. There were kids on the team that we’re bigger, faster and stronger than me. I thought to myself “They must have just hit their growth spurts sooner, mine will come.” Although I wasn’t necessarily wrong when it came to hitting their growth spurt at an early age, I was wrong about one thing. I never realized that they may have been training outside of the rink. Have I lifted a weight? No. Had I ever timed how fast I could run? Only when my buddy would challenge me to a race on the playground. Had I ever did a pushup? Only when we messed up a drill or were late to practice. At the time, training for sports was something that never really existed. There were very few strength and conditioning facilities. Rather than looking for a gym, my dad always told me “Go downstairs and start working out.” So that is exactly what I did. Monday through Friday I would go downstairs in my basement and start stick handling, shoot pucks, do pushups, sit ups and jump on a dusty folding chair that leaned against my basement wall. Slowly but surely, I began to feel better on the ice. I began to beat kids to loose pucks. I even began to win battles in corners and occasionally make a big hit to make my buddies go crazy. Something began to click. I realized that I now have a choice. A choice to be better at something.  As I continued my basement ritual, I saw a trend in the other sports that I played as well. I began throwing the ball harder with more velocity in baseball when I pitched. Running down the field in lacrosse was a breeze. Slowly, I was morphing my body to be resilient to the demands of the sports that I played. I was obsessed with it. One Christmas, my parents bought me a home gym set. It was a makeshift power rack with a bench, barbell, and a pulley system. To this day, my dad still says it was the best purchase he ever bought me. Over time,  I started to collect various pieces of equipment and my little basement downstairs started to look like a legitimate place to train. Little did I know, I was forming good habits away from any playing surface. I was starting to pay attention to my body. Eating right and eliminating junk food was a priority to me. I started to drink protein shakes and put on size. Spending less time playing video games and more time playing wiffle ball or flag football with my buddies was on the top of my list as well. Staying active helped me to become more coordinated with other areas of movement that I was blind to. Staying active also helped clear my mind and showed me there are other ways to have fun outside of the living room and playstation.

In my opinion, kids nowadays don’t get it. They don’t understand how important it is to go outside and just play. Now; video games, Instagram and Snapchat are far more important than any pickup basketball games. I believe that parents don’t get it either. They won’t let their kids be kids. Getting parents to buy into movement, strength training and overall activity is where the problem will be fixed. Educating parents on the importance of physical education is so crucial to their child’s longterm athletic and social development. Get your child to take part in sports. Have them play more than one sport.  Should they focus on a specific sport? Absolutely! Giving a child a goal in something is far more important than not having one. Do they want to play a high school sport? College sport? Professional? Let them dream and listen to what they want. Get them out of the house and out of their comfort zone. Have them make new friends that will influence them to join new social crowds. Have them play for different coaches so they get to experience how different some coaching strategies can be from one another. This may sound bias, but get them into a strength and conditioning or training facility. Show them the importance of physical health and wellness. Have them compete. Have them fail. Show them how to learn from their failures. Although the dream for me of running onto the ice the first two Mondays in February for the BeanPot, or playing for the Boston Bruins was not accomplished, my parents gave me something to strive for. No matter what their goal is,  push them to go after it. Push them to Dream Big.