Rules for Youths Training for Sports Performance

Jason Price, MS, CSCS, ATC, LAT, CPT, USAW Club Coach

I wrote an article a while ago on Myths about Youth Resistance Training.  I rereleased it to the Twitter community and I have received some good feedback on it so I decided to put my thoughts down in an article on my Rules for Youths Training for Sports Performance.  In my gym at Ullucci Sports Medicine in Rhode Island most of my clientele is between the age of 12 and 18. For many of them this is their first experience with resistance training and for almost all of them I am the first Strength Coach they have come across.  I am a huge proponent of Youth Strength Training.  I spent the first part of my career putting athletes back together once they were broken as a Collegiate Athletic Trainer.  What drove me to Strength & Conditioning was to work with “healthy athletes”. Boy was I wrong; in my youth age group I see some of the same dysfunction, joint immobility and muscular amnesia as some of my much older personal training clients.  It gets me wondering if as school budgets are getting cut for Athletics and Physical Education is now a once a week torture for kids in most schools are we not developing our “Athletes”.  I say “Athletes” because with these young athletes are specializing in one sport before the age of 10, are we not missing something in how they develop their athleticism.   I think yes!  I believe that young athletes need to be involved in year round Strength & Condition programs so that they don’t become unbalanced and learn skills other than the ones necessary for their sport.  So, here are Coach Price’s Rules for Youth Training for Sports Performance:

Rule 1 – You don’t need to train like the pros! – This is the one question I get from both parents and young athletes alike.  What exercises are the pros doing and will I/my son or daughter be doing them.  Do not worry yourself with what the pros are doing.  There will be plenty of time to worry about what Joe Pro Star is doing when you are on the cusp of reaching that level.  If you are not getting paid to play (this means making actual cash money and have it going into your bank account for rendering your services to a team or earning said money in your bank account because you won it via your athletic prowess.  Being on scholarship is not being paid it is bartering   Being on scholarship does not mean you are an “elite athlete” it just means you are good enough at a sport or skill that someone will trade you an education to a sometimes institution of higher learning for your services.)  Most youth athletes looking to train to be better prepared physically for their sports need to be treated as novices in the weight room.  I don’t care what Premier/travel/AAU program you participate in; you are a novice to training unless you are one of the select few who have been introduced to the art and science of resistance training at a young age.  So, unless you were raised in the Former U.S.S.R. or China this rules you out.  Train like a novice and not a pro.  Keep it simple and keep it safe. That is it. Use basic exercises and appropriate loads.

Rule 2 – You may be athletic but you are not an athlete! – Athletes are total packages. If you are good at soccer and can’t flex at the hip without turning your spine into a C you are not an athlete. If you play Basketball and can’t jump without your knees slamming into each other you are not an athlete. I can keep going with examples of what plenty of problems or conditions that I see in these “elite” level youth athletes.  Listen, an athlete can move and is free to do so. An athlete can generate power and has strength. If you are a good Baseball player but, cannot press a barbell over your head (this is a whole other article so before you kill me on this you non overhead exercise people just keep reading) or deadlift 100 lbs off the ground then you are just a good Baseball player not an athlete.  Youth Athletes need to develop their athleticism. Becoming a complete athlete will reduce your risk of injury, get you strong, and keep you mobile.

Rule 3 – Choose exercises that require the most muscles.  Youth Athletes must squat, deadlift, press, bench press, pull up, and row. They should do exercises that require large amounts of muscle, many joints, tons of coordination, and they should mimic basic human movement not sport specific movements (all you functional training and sport specific gurus don’t kill me yet, let’s focus on the context of the articles Youth Trainees and novices).  Again keep it simple.  Perform these exercises over and over and over again.  That is why they are called repetitions.  Get the movement right and learn the proper technique before the load is raised.  Keep the technique correct as the weight is increased.  A Football player with a 200 lb squat that is below parallel and with a rigid torso is has a good chance of becoming stronger for football.  A football player with a 300 lb quarter squat and a flaccid torso is just a football player with a shitty squat.  Do it right, keep to the basic exercises, focus on improving technique then increasing weight and do them repeatedly each training session.  Don’t be quick to complex things by adding too many exercises.

Rule 4 – Hire someone who knows what they are doing – I have had plenty of athletes come to me after they have trained with a parent of a friend, a coach, or just learning it from the internet.  I have had parents hire me for a few weeks think their kid knows enough to get stronger and then get them a membership at the local Fitness Center.  A youth athlete should be in a year round conditioning program.  This does not mean that you have to pay someone year round to train.  If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford that, then yes!! Do it.  But, the majority of athletes and their parents can’t.  But, when you are learning the skill of resistance training pay the money to learn it from someone who knows what they are doing.  Just because your coach played big time Division I sports and can lift heavy things does not make them qualified to teach it to a youth athlete.  There is a skill and art to coaching resistance training.  A qualified instructor is someone with a college degree and is certified by a governing body that holds a yearly convention and publishes a research based journal.  There are good personal trainers and there are bad.  You want to look for someone who is credentialed by the National Strength & Conditioning Association, The national Council on Strength and fitness, USA Weightlifting Federation, or The National Academy of Sports Medicine.  There are well over 200 different organizations that offer a Personal Trainer credential.  Some you have to take a course others you just have to fill out a application.  You want to make sure your Strength Coach or Personal Trainer is qualified.

If you follow these four rules for youth athletes three things will happen.  Once the youth athlete will be safe, two the youth athlete will get strong, and three the youth athlete will be well prepared with the skills necessary for lifelong physical fitness via use of resistance training.