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Youth Strength Training
Programs for Health, Fitness, and Sport
by Avery Faigenbaum and Wayne Westcott
248 Pages
The benefits of strength training for youth are clearly documented. Yet teachers, fitness instructors, and youth coaches are often not sure how to proceed, and they end up watering down adult versions of strength-training programs.
That is definitely not the way to go. But authors Avery Faigenbaum and Wayne Westcott, with their 50 years of combined experience in teaching youth strength-training classes and coaching, can tell you the way to go—and back it with the most current research on instructional techniques and program design for youth.
Long recognized as leading authorities on strength training, Faigenbaum and Westcott guide you in designing efficient, enjoyable, and productive programs for kids of varying abilities in elementary school (ages 7 to 10), middle school (11 to 14), and high school (15 to 18). You will focus first on broad-based, balanced muscle development, and then move into comprehensive, sport-specific strength-training programs.
In addition, Youth Strength Training will teach you
- productive protocols for warming up and cooling down;
- procedures for enhancing joint flexibility;
- innovative ways to incorporate resistance exercises into physical education classes, sport practice sessions, and exercise facilities; and
- proper exercise technique for 111 resistance exercises using weight stack machines, free weights, medicine balls, elastic bands, and body-weight resistance.
Much has changed since the authors first wrote a book on strength training for youth, and those changes—including information in the areas of nutrition, hydration, and recovery to maximize the effects of strength training and minimize the risks of overtraining—are incorporated in this book. Additional changes, based on the authors' studies, are reflected in workout frequency, exercise repetitions, related training components, and other factors that affect program design and conditioning results. All programs were fashioned with the latest NASPE standards in mind.
Faigenbaum and Westcott have included new information on periodization and long-term planning, perceived exertion scale for youth, overtraining and undertraining, dynamic warm-ups and static stretches, new exercises, effective instruction of youth, and plyometrics.
Through strength training, kids as young as 7 can safely develop a strong musculoskeletal system that can help them improve their health and fitness and also withstand the rigors of sport participation.
Youth Strength Training is the definitive source to guide you in designing and overseeing the programs of the kids you work with, whether you're in a school, fitness center, or home setting. If you want to see high rates of strength development and spark a lifelong interest in strength-building activities, rely on Youth Strength Training.
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I Fitness Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Ready to Train
Strength Training Versus Weightlifting, Powerlifting, and Bodybuilding
FUNdamental Fitness
Muscles, Bones, and Connective Tissue
Program Assessment
Getting Ready
Summary
Chapter 2. Program Prescriptions
Training Guidelines
Program Considerations
Play Education
Summary
Chapter 3. Exercise Technique and Training Procedures
Understanding Children
Being a Teacher
Developing the Fitness Workout
Using Equipment Safely
Keeping It Progressive
Summary
Part II Exercises
Chapter 4. Free Weights
Training With Free Weights
Free-Weight Exercises
Summary
Chapter 5. Weight Machines
Training on Weight Machines
Weight Machine Exercises
Summary
Chapter 6. Elastic Bands and Medicine Balls
Training With Elastic Bands and Medicine Balls
Elastic Band Exercises
Medicine Ball Exercises
Summary
Chapter 7. Body-Weight Training
Using Body Weight as Resistance
Body-Weight Exercises
Summary
Part III Program Design
Chapter 8. General Preparation
Preparatory Conditioning
Training Youth
Dynamic Motivation
Summary
Chapter 9. Basic Strength and Power for Ages 7 to 10
Components of the Warm-Up and Cool-Down
Strength-Training Program
Strength-Training Exercises
Training Considerations
Summary
Chapter 10. Intermediate Strength and Power for Ages 11 to 14
Components of the Warm-Up and Cool-Down
Strength-Training Program
Machine Strength-Training Exercises
Medicine Ball Strength-Training Exercises
Training Considerations
Summary
Chapter 11. Advanced Strength and Power for Ages 15 to 18
Components of the Warm-Up and Cool-Down
Strength-Training Program
Machine and Free-Weight Strength-Training Exercises
Medicine Ball and Elastic Band Strength-Training Exercises
Training Considerations
Summary
Chapter 12. Sport-Specific Power and Strength for Young Athletes
Training for Sport Conditioning
Baseball and Softball
Basketball and Volleyball
Dancing and Figure Skating
Football and Rugby
Ice Hockey and Field Hockey
Soccer
Swimming
Tennis
Track: Sprints and Jumps
Track: Distance Running
Summary
Part IV Long-Term Planning and Nutritional Support
Chapter 13. Periodization and Recovery
Overreaching and Overtraining
Models of Periodization
Rest and Recovery
Long-Term Development
Summary
Chapter 14. Eating for Strength and Performance
Basics of Healthy Eating
Children's Nutritional Needs
Hydration
Snack Foods
Summary
Appendix A: Sample Workout Log
Appendix B: Suggested Readings
Index
About the Authors
Avery D. Faigenbaum, EdD, CSCS, is a professor in the department of health and exercise science at the College of New Jersey. Dr. Faigenbaum is a leading researcher and practitioner in pediatric exercise science, with nearly 20 years of experience in working with children and adolescents. He has authored more than 100 scientific articles, 20 book chapters, and 7 books related to youth fitness and conditioning. In addition, Dr. Faigenbaum has lectured nationally and internationally to health and fitness organizations and has developed youth fitness programs for YMCAs, recreation centers, physical education classes, and after-school sport programs.
Dr. Faigenbaum is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and of the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He is also a member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee and was a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports for 7 years.
Wayne L. Westcott, PhD, CSCS, is a fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA and adjunct professor of exercise science at Quincy College, both in Quincy, Massachusetts. He has served as a strength-training consultant for Nautilus, the United States Navy, the American Council on Exercise, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and the YMCA of the USA. He has also been an editorial advisor for many publications, including Physician and Sportsmedicine, Fitness Management, On-Site Fitness, Prevention, Shape, and Men's Health. He has authored or coauthored 23 books on youth strength training worldwide and has helped numerous colleges, schools, YMCAs, and fitness centers develop youth strength-training programs.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
Strength training impacts childhood obesity
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children.
Over the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled for adolescents and has more than tripled for children. And the likelihood that an obese child will become an obese adult is both real and alarming.
Since obese youth may lack the motor skills and confidence to be physically active, they may actually perceive physical activity to be discomforting and embarrassing. Thus these youth desperately need strength training to condition their muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones because a fundamental level of musculoskeletal fitness is essential for youth to experience and enjoy a physically active lifestyle. Although strength training is not often associated with a high caloric expenditure, obese youth are less willing and often unable to participate in prolonged periods of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise. Not only does excess body weight hinder the performance of weight-bearing physical activity such as jogging, but the risk of musculoskeletal overuse injuries is also a concern.
Strength training provides obese youth with a positive activity that enables them to enjoy purposeful exercise, experience personal improvement, and train cooperatively with friends in a supportive setting and exciting atmosphere. Observations from our youth strength-training centers suggest most obese children and adolescents find strength training activities enjoyable because this type of exercise is not aerobically taxing and provides an opportunity for all youth, regardless of body size, to experience success and feel good about their performance. Furthermore, since obese youth tend to use the heaviest weight loads, they typically receive unsolicited feedback from their peers who are often impressed with the amount of weight they can lift. The first step in encouraging obese children and adolescents to exercise may be to increase their confidence in their ability to be physically active, which in turn may lead to an increase in regular physical activity, a noticeable improvement in muscle strength, and exposure to a form of exercise that can be carried into adulthood. Our review of the literature, which was published in the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest, clearly indicates that participation in a supervised program of strength exercise can make a world of difference in a child's life.
6 important considerations before implementing a youth strength training program
Considering a youth strength training program? Important information to read before you do.
Program Considerations
Youth should genuinely appreciate the benefits and risks associated with strength training, and teachers and coaches should have a solid understanding of strength-training principles. If you adhere to the following considerations, youth strength training has the potential to be a pleasurable and valuable experience.
- Participants must have the emotional maturity to accept and follow instruction.
- There must be adequate supervision by teachers and coaches who are knowledgeable about strength training and who genuinely appreciate the uniqueness of childhood and adolescence.
- Strength training should be part of a comprehensive program to increase both health- and skill-related fitness.
- Participants should precede strength training with dynamic warm-up activities and end each workout with cool-down stretching.
- The program should emphasize concentric and eccentric muscle actions.
- Participants should perform all exercises through a full range of motion.
Although we recognize the value of traditional stretch-and-hold exercises, we incorporate static stretching exercises into the cool-down of our physical education classes and youth sport programs rather than during the warm-up portion. Although warm-up protocols that include static stretching have become standard practice, over the past few years long-held beliefs about the potential benefits of warm-up static stretching have been questioned. There has been a growing interest in warm-up procedures that involve the performance of dynamic hops, skips, jumps, and lunges that elevate body temperature, enhance the excitability of muscle fibers, improve kinesthetic awareness, and maximize active ranges of motion. Since muscles are actually turned on during dynamic warm-up activities, they will be better prepared for strength-training activities.
Properly administer a youth strength training program
When designing and overseeing weight programs for kids teachers should remain enthusiastic and focused on safety.
Being a Teacher
Teachers should be knowledgeable, supportive, and enthusiastic about strength training. They must have a thorough understanding of youth strength-training guidelines and should speak with children at a level the children understand. Teachers should be actively involved in the learning experience and should demonstrate exercises properly. Because children tend to absorb more information with their eyes than with their ears, we keep our verbal instructions short and make a point to demonstrate every exercise to all the children. We often have more experienced boys and girls demonstrate the exercises for the class. This is an important concept because participants who have strength-training experience make good peer tutors, which helps to keep them interested and engaged instead of bored and disruptive.
Teachers should be patient with children and allow them the opportunity to master the performance of an exercise before moving to more advanced training techniques. This is particularly important when working with children who appear physically awkward or clumsy. In this case, provide additional instruction, encouragement, and time to learn a new exercise. In addition, offering these children a choice of exercises might ensure continued participation. For example, if children have difficulty performing a barbell squat exercise, you can suggest a dumbbell squat as an alternative. This would provide an opportunity for the children to continue strength training when they would otherwise be disinterested because of a lack of confidence in their physical abilities. With constructive feedback and adequate time for practice, young people become more confident in their physical abilities and feel more comfortable performing advanced exercises correctly.
We begin our youth strength-training programs with a major focus on education. We do not lecture to children in a classroom, but we do create a learning environment in which participants feel comfortable and capable of succeeding. We spend time discussing safe training procedures, the relevance of strength training, and realistic performance expectations. We remind all participants that it takes time to learn new skills and that long-term progress is made with small gains every training day. Although some young exercisers may want to see how much weight they can lift during the first week of class, we redirect their enthusiasm and interest in strength training toward the development of proper form and technique of a variety of exercises.
We discuss the value of physical activity and introduce the children to proper exercise technique, training guidelines, and safety procedures. Remember show and tell from elementary school? We follow a similar strategy when working with youth. This approach provides a method of teaching strength-training exercises while assessing knowledge, performance, social behaviors, and motivation. After positioning the participants so they all have a clear view of the teacher or coach, we use the following strategy when introducing a new exercise to the class:
- Name the exercise. Use one name and stick with it throughout the lesson.
- Explain the exercise. Use simple terms to describe the exercise and tell the participants how the exercise can benefit them.
- Show the exercise. Demonstrate the exercise several times and from different angles so that all participants can see a full picture of proper execution.
- Perform the exercise. Ask the participants to perform the exercise and offer positive, constructive feedback on proper body position and technique.
- Observe the exercise. Walk around the exercise room and watch the kids strength training. Look for specific skills and ask participants to assess themselves and their peers.
- Discuss. At the end of the session, encourage kids to honestly talk about their perceptions of the day's activities. This information will help you plan the next session.
Although some participants may want to see how much weight they can lift on the first day of class, we redirect their enthusiasm for strength training by focusing on proper exercise technique. We use checklists that describe in detail proper exercise technique as well as coaching cues. Exercise technique checklists are particularly useful for multijoint lifts such as the squat, bench press, and power clean. Although the amount of weight that participants use for these lifts will vary depending on their body size and strength-training experience, exercise technique checklists can be used for improving exercise form, adjusting training loads, and evaluating individual progress.
A step by step guide for a proper bench press
Photos, tips, and guidelines for a safe and beneficial bench press exercise for youth.
Muscles
Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps
Procedure
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor. If your feet don't reach the floor, use a stable board to accommodate size. Grasp the barbell with a wider than shoulder-width grip, wrapping thumbs around the bar. Hold the barbell at arm's length above your upper-chest area.
- Slowly lower the barbell to the middle of your chest. In the bottom position the forearms should be perpendicular to the floor. Pause briefly, then press the barbell to the starting position. During the movement, the upper arms should be about 45 to 60 degrees from the torso and the hips should remain on the bench.
Technique Tips
A spotter should be behind the lifter's head and should assist the lifter with getting the barbell into the starting position and returning the barbell to the rack when finished. Impress on young weight trainers the importance of a spotter during the exercise because the bar is pressed over the lifter's face, neck, and chest.
Learn this exercise with an unloaded barbell or light weight.
Do not bounce the barbell off the chest, and do not lift your buttocks off the bench during this exercise.
To avoid hitting the upright supports, position your shoulders at least 3 inches (~8 cm) from the supports before you start.
Rest and recovery time critical for youth strength training programs
Balance the demands of training with children’s need for recovery.
Rest and Recovery
While more has been written about how to design strength-training programs than how to recover from practice and training, working with youth of any age involves balancing the demands of training (required for adaptation) with recovery (also required for adaptation). Although some parents, teachers, and coaches still have a “more is better” attitude, the perception that boys and girls can recover from hard workouts faster than adults is not supported by research.
Since children and adolescents are still growing and developing, we believe that youth may actually need more time than adults for recovery between high-volume and high-intensity training sessions. Although a day off between workouts might be adequate for youth who participate in recreational strength-training programs, training to enhance sport performance involves higher levels of physical as well as psychological stress. Therefore, well-planned activities are needed in order to maximize recovery and return to an optimal performance state. Thus, appropriate recovery is particularly important for youth who participate in more than one sport, specialize in one sport year round, or participate in extracurricular strength and conditioning activities.
Since recovery is an integral part of any child's training program, we incorporate less intense training, or LIT, sessions into our youth programs as part of our periodized training cycle. Instead of simply taking a day off, our participants have LIT sessions that include activities that facilitate recovery, enhance joint stability, improve range of motion, and reinforce learning of specific movement patterns. LIT sessions are valued by our young participants as an important component of our multifaceted approach to enhancing performance and optimizing recovery. Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, LIT enables participants in our programs to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Since the greatest adaptations take place when the muscles have recovered from a previous training session, less intense training (LIT) enables participants to train hard when the muscles are at their strongest.
Youth in our strength-training programs typically perform an LIT session after more demanding training sessions. For example, if our high school athletes train with relatively heavy loads on Wednesday, they will perform an LIT session on the following workout. As a general guideline, during an LIT session participants will train at a reduced intensity while focusing on proper exercise technique. The LIT sessions may include several exercises for the major muscle groups as well as prehabilitation exercises for the lower-back and shoulder regions. That is, exercises that may be prescribed for the rehabilitation of an injury are performed beforehand as part of a preventive health measure. We have observed that LIT sessions that are sensibly incorporated into youth strength-training programs facilitate recovery and reduce the risk of injury while providing an excellent opportunity to reinforce key movement skills and optimize training adaptations.
In addition to varying the strength-training program, teachers and coaches need to pay just as much attention to what is done between training sessions as to what is done during training sessions. Strength training can place relatively high stress on the body, and therefore the importance of optimizing recovery needs to be reinforced regularly. This is particularly important for young athletes who are still growing, developing, and socializing with their friends. Youth coaches should realize that the “more is better” attitude is counterproductive and will likely result in injury, burnout, or poor performance.
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