Youth Athlete Strength Training

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When should my kid start a training program? A question that is posed to all strength coaches alike since the vast majority of athletes playing competitive sports are youth athletes. This means that the vast majority of strength and conditioning centers will probably have a solid number of youth athletes (ages 9-16). Every coach will have a different answer, and I believe it lies in your definition the phrase “training program.” At TP, we follow the Long Term Athletic Development plan (LTAD). Simply put, each age group will have a structured plan, how structured that plan may be is dependent on the age group. The younger the athlete, the less traditionally structured the program is. (And to be honest, we like to throw out everything a textbook might say about how to train a youth athlete).

So… when should my kid start training? The answer is yesterday! Just like any other profession, strength coaches have stereotype, and that is we make all of our athletes lift heavy weights all the time. While this may be true for some coaches… it couldn’t be further from the truth for us. Don’t get me wrong, lifting heavy weights is essential, but only in the appropriate setting. This stereotype makes people shy away from sending their kid to strength coach, when in actuality, hiring a certified professional could be the best investment you make for your athlete’s career. But if we don’t just lift heavy weights all the time, what do we do with youth athletes?

We teach them how to use their body’s while making the sessions as engaging and fun as possible. For kids under the age of 13, training will more often than not look like games and obstacle courses than lifting. Kids do not want to hear “hey, you got 3x10 on back squat, tempo of 31X.” They want to hear “hey, this is a race! You need to carry this ball over these boxes….first one back wins!” As simple as this may sound, youth training can truly be structured play. You can incorporate the same squat pattern in any number of ways without having to actually “squat.”

A typical youth session may look something like this:

  1. 8 minutes obstacle course warm up

  2. 10 minutes shuttle sprint race

  3. 10 minutes sled race grocery shopping

  4. Bear crawl-crab walk- single leg balance ball catch 3x10 each

  5. Multi-position start to sprint- prone swimmers- single leg box jump

  6. Seated stand up to sit down- push up position cone drop

Now, I’ll give an example of a typical high school level athlete’s session:

  1. 12 minutes- Linear based dynamic warm up

  2. 10 minutes- A-Skip progression SS 10 yd sled push (match skip prog)

  3. 10 mintes- 10 yd sprint SS 10 yd sled tow at 30% bw (3:1)

  4. Trunk and Spine work

  5. Power/ Plyo block

  6. Strength Block

  7. Accessory Block

Now, doesn’t one of those sessions look way more fun than the other? They are more similar than you think! The obstacle course warm up takes all of the components of the linear dynamic, and smashes them together in one fun course. The shuttle sprint race gets athletes to sprint as fast as they can, while changing directions, just like a 10 yd sprint and 10 yd sled tow would. The bear crawl to grab walk to single leg balance is just trunk and spine work smashed together! I can go on, but you get the point! It’s all the same movements, just presented in a different way for different levels of athletes.

At the end of the day, we want athletes to enjoy training, and create a positive relationship with the gym. Once they start to grow up, and their sport gets more serious, so will their training. Youth strength training has a negative stigma attached to it, and I believe that comes from misinformation and poor coaching. Youth training can be so much more than lifting weights. It can be literally anything that gets kids to engage, learn, develop, and most importantly have fun.

You’ve made it this far, you might as well check out our instagram: here

Or you can checkout an example of a simple warm up drill we use with our youth athletes: cool video