13 year old lifters

Coach Trover,

I'll tell you like it is...teaching proper technique in all lifts should be your NUMBER ONE priority with your son and his friends. They need to be supervised when in the weightroom and drill it in their heads that if they want to be the best athlete they can be, they MUST understand quality over quantity.

That being said, here is what you should focus on with your son in the beginning:

-Build core strength: Strength in the abs and back will pay HUGE dividends down the road. It makes no difference how strong your limbs are if you have a weak core. When training the abs, train in the fashion of bending, twisting, side bending and legs hanging. Crunches alone won't suffice.

-Work on strengthening the posterior region:Mainly the hams, glutes, low back and traps. Leg curls are not enough either. You need to train the hams from both the knee flexor region and the hip extensor region. The hip extensor is where the hams meet the glutes. This is where strength used in sprinting, jumping, starting strength, etc comes from. Now don't neglect the quads, but ensure the hams are getting enough work.

-Begin training for unilateral strength and balance: Lunges and their variations as well as high step ups both linear and lateral will train the legs unilaterally and help with balance. Rarely in the game of football are you playing on BOTH feet at the same time, so you need to develop strength in each individual leg and arm. To train arms unilaterally, use dumbells in benching and pressing and later on progress to DB cleans and snatches...but PROGRESS to those later on.

-Develop strength in the rotator cuffs:. Front, lateral and rear delt raises can develop strength and build mass in the shoulder region and lessen the chance of shoulder injury in the future. The guys can do this for a warm up or include it in the main workout.

-Work on flexibility: Work on dynamic flexibility as well as static flexibility. Dynamic should be done first (pre workout) in the form of hip mobility drills, jumping rope, ladder drills, etc. After the main workout, static stretching should be done. Be sure to stretch the hip flexors and hip rotators..this is where most football players are tightest at.

-As for speed and quickness, start out teaching good running form and work mainly on short acceleration drills. 10-20 yds with 3 mins or so rest in between reps. Agility work should include acceleration, deceleration and lateral drills such as use of cones or or shuttles. Again take about 3 mins rest in between reps. With speed and agility, don't just try to make your guys tired because if your tired you can't run fast and if your not running fast, you won't get faster.

-Start preaching nutrition, nutrition, nutrition and oh yeah....nutrition to your son. You can be on the best training program in the world but if your eating habits are crap, results will be minimized. Plus, you want your son to be as lean as possible...relative strength (strength in relation to body weight) is a huge factor in speed and quickness. The stronger and leaner; the better, the fatter and weaker; the worse.

-Condition in the form of tempo runs at 75% of max speed or less. You can perform 100 yd sprints and walk for 30 seconds to 1 min. A good rule of thumb to ensure you are running at the right speed is to make sure you are able to carry on a conversation with a person next to you while you are running. Now this doesn't mean to perform low intensity cardio...you still need to be running at approx. 75% max speed.

Thats all I can think of at the moment, but if I think of anything else, which I probably will, I'll chime in again. In the meantime, if I can help in anyway, feel free to ask. Where are you located by the way?

Its hard work doing what your son is doing, but if he loves football like I do, he won't mind it and the impact you can make on his training now will help him immensly down the road. Learn all you can and help him as much as possible, because if you don't, he might fall into the "Muscle and Fitness" trap that so many misguided youths fall victim to.

Good luck with this and always I'm here to help.

JH

thanks for the relies,
Is there a book you could recommend? His main interestests at this point are football and ski racing.
the program I've started my son on is

Seated Squats 3x10
HamString Curls 3x10
Bench Press 3x10
Lat Pull Downs 3x10
Cable Rowing 2x10
Military Press 3x10
good mornings 3x15
Leg Lifts 3x15

So far the gym where we work out only offers machines, There is another gym not far away that allows boys of his age to work out and also has free weights, are free weights at his age the way to go?
thanks again
Randy

annihil8tor,
Thanks for the reply and advice. We will move him to the new gym this week.
thanks