HOW TO USE A BENCH TO TEACH STRENGTH TO KIDS

The final video for this short series on strength training for kids is how to incorporate a simple bench into the strength development of kids. We feel the best strength training we ever get in our lives is the strength we gain on the playground. I want to meet someone who is 40 years old who continued to play on the playground for 2-3 hours a day like when we were kids. Trust me they would be a physically fit to say the least.

Take the time out of your day to allow your kids to play on the playground. If you do not have time to go out to the park try doing little things like in this video to encourage them to use their bodies in a way that will help to make them strong.

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LUNGES FOR KIDS

We now move to a lower body move for the kids. Lunges are in our opinion the best choice for lower body strength. For kids especially it has some many beneficial components such as balance, flexibility, power, and of course strength. Try different variations of the lunge such as side lunges or walking lunges. Next week will will show you how to incorporate some basic equipment to help improve the overall strength of your young athlete.

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The article begins with some information on research done with kids but there is also this link to a study down on adults.

The article on the kids was interesting. They noticed a major correlation between the activity and how quickly the children fell asleep. The more activity they received, the quicker they fell asleep. The quicker we get to sleep the more likely we are able to get through our natural sleep cycles that allow for a true and complete rest at night.

Take a minute to check out the article. If you are not able to fall asleep quickly at night we have several recommendations for you. One is of course higher levels of activity during the day. Next is to do some exercise to unwind in the evening. We built our Am/Pm program for this very reason. Loren also posted on this Yesterday. Also just like everything else we talk about in regards to something not being right with your body, ask why. Why are you not falling asleep. Are you lying there thinking about the laundry list of things that you will need to do at work the next day? Try getting a pad and paper and just make a list.

Try to establish why you are not able to fall asleep and do your best to make the changes to allow for a great, restful night sleep. The health benefits are numerous and your family and co-workers will thank you for it!

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HANDSTANDS FOR KIDS

The second exercise for building strength in younger kids is my Son's and I personal favorite, the Handstand. All three of my children have or will be doing gymnastics. I love the training it provides for younger kids as they are able to do some great obstacle courses on a bigger scale than what we can do at home. I also like the way kids are challenged to create more power in their bodies allowing them to perform more difficult moves.

The handstand when done by pressing off of both feet evenly allows you to generate equal power through both hips, and shoulders. Personally I prefer this over the standing option where momentum plays a large roll in the kids ability to get up into a vertical position. Try these out with your kids, they will learn to love them quickly as their bodies develop the power to get all the way up.

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PUSHUPS FOR KIDS

For the 5th series on our Exercise of the Week Program we are going to give all of you parents and P.E. Teachers a few tips on strength training young kids. It is important to remember what real strength represents. At any age strength is a representation of body control. This is where your power comes from is the coordination of any movement in the body to generate maximum force.

In young kids body control is in its natural stage of their Natural Strength Progression according to the 4 Laws of Training. Making sure to not interrupt this natural process of strength building is important. We will do several examples over the next few moths and then give you a complete program at the end.

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I have always been a fan of kids doing sports such as gymnastics to help build there total body strength. I am much more of a fan of kids doing the old school actions of tree climbing and fence scaling but that simply does not happen as much as it used to in suburbia.

Here is the video, you will be amazed by this kid's strength. Oh I forgot to mention, He is only 5!

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Before you assume I am that totally overbearing sports parent who shoves sports down my kids throat let me just tell you this has all been his decision. He absolutely loves sports. Maybe even more than I do. I try to coach him as little as possible, I have not been a head coach on his team yet. he and I just have some fun together in our free time working on his skills for his various sports. I hope to be his coach in High School for the various sports I coach now so I want to make sure he is not totally sick of me by the time he gets there.

To this point most of his sports have been all about fun and learning but I am noticing how quickly this is changing. In his soccer tournament he is participating in this weekend it is interesting to see the different levels of the kids. He is playing a year up, for you in the soccer world he is a U-9 playing on a U-10 team. This means the ids are bigger, faster, and stronger than he is. There are several kids on the team that are in the same situation This does not bother him but I notice the way that the parents on our team are becoming unhappy about our boys getting beat by the older teams.

The reason I bring this up is that I notice the amount of stress and pressure that is being placed on these kids at younger and younger ages. To some this may be a good thing but I think it is very dangerous to start teaching kids at the age of 8 that their worth is determined by their athletic success. Sports has become such a major integral part of our society which to me is fine. I love sports but I think that we are taking it too far when we start putting so much value into an 8 year olds Soccer Game.

I cringe every time I see a parent overly criticize their kid on the field when to be honest the kids are out there simply trying to understand the game. Lets not add pressure to an already stressful situation for them. Encourage and let them grow. Everyone who plays a sport leaves themselves open to criticism but lets not criticize an 8 year old for letting a ball get by him in goal. Save that for the people getting paid to play, not kids who are simply trying to have some fun.

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I have never played baseball on any kind of serious level but being around athletes and coaches for the last few decades I was always under the impression that it was a big mistake to have the younger kids (ages 9-14) throw a curve ball. Many coaches and parents would bring this topic up frequently. It was not until more recently that I realized that this can really not be the case.

Here is what I believe about throwing and not only just young pitchers but all pitchers. First to throw a ball without the risk of injury requires several things to be happening. You need to have balance, strength, flexibility, power, coordination and on and on and on. Can we just make life easy and call it muscular efficiency. We have in every other post so why not this one. So with the motion of throwing, it is just like everything else we ask our bodies to do. Our ability to do it is based upon the overall efficiency of our muscular system.

In a young pitcher you have to understand the limitations that go along with being a 9-14 year old boy, or girl for that matter. First and most importantly they are limited in their muscular endurance when it comes to power. They simply do not have as developed of a muscular system as kids who have gone through puberty. Their strength endurance is not as high as it becomes later in their physical development. I am not a Doctor but I have simply watched the thousands of athletes I have trained over the years and the younger kids lack the strength endurance to do high reps of power moves like pitching.

My 8 year old can run all day. Today at Trinity Camp he ran 150 meter sprints close to 20 times with a few minutes recovery but he lacks the strength and power to do even a small number of legitimate pushups, even with steroids (kidding of course, unless slurpees count as steroids).

Another issue is growth. As younger athletes go through their big growth spurts it wreaks havoc on their overall muscular efficiency. As the skeletal system lengthens the muscles and of course the tendons and ligaments try to keep up. During this time it is very easy for their bodies to loose that natural posture they had just a few years prior.

Now the danger comes into play of doing repetitions of power type moves. The lack of muscular efficiency means they will most likely not be using proper throwing mechanics regardless of what pitch they throw. Curve ball, fastball, slider, sinker, they are all going to be detrimental to their young arms if they throw to many of them.

The article goes on to say more or less the same thing only not in regards to muscular efficiency. The article instead says that it is about the amount of pitches a kids throws that is far more important than the type of pitch it is.

I worry that we keep asking our young athletes to do more and more. If you are a coach or parent, please allow your kids to continue to play multiple sports and encourage them to still go out and just play. Obstacle courses, climb fences and trees, just go out and challenge their bodies. The best way to help prevent injuries in the younger athletes is to keep giving them the muscular stimulus they need to protect their soft tissues. It just so happens this is the same training they did before they were the next All Star pitcher.

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When you wear a shoe, the shoe actually replaces the need for stimulus to certain muscles in the feet since the shoe is now responsible for certain aspect of movement like stabilization for example. If the shoe is worn often enough the body will become dependent on the shoe to replace what should be the muscles job.

I have never seen much research on this topic until I came across this article. It is a short read so I encourage you to read it but the basic summary is that they found that in the study the young children who wore shoes showed a much more "adult like stride". They took longer steps with a higher knee lift. In theory this sounds like wearing shoes is actually better than not but I still disagree.

At the end of the article they also recognize the danger in this as they conclude with, " However, influencing in this way children's gait pattern during acquisition could restrain children's natural development affecting musculoskeletal structures strengthening or even sensorimotor maturation."

They say it could affect it and I am going to give my opinion and say it has to affect it. How could wearing a shoe not impact the natural development of the muscles in the foot.

I try to encourage both my kids, and my clients to spend some time going barefoot. We even do it sometimes for conditioning with our various sports teams. Our track and Cross Country teams in particular spend time doing stride work and other drills in the grass barefoot to help with their natural stride development. If you currently do not go barefoot much at all, I encourage you to do so. Many of you will be surprised how tired your feet become when they have to actually do the work instead of your shoes.

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He currently is in the 95th percentile for the kids his age across the United States and considering that one person apparently has over 108,000 points I am convinced they are not being completely honest. I went back and looked at what my son has been doing and for an 8 year old to accomplish that many points is staggering. We are talking several hours of intense exercise almost everyday. Perhaps I am not being fair, it is possible I guess for a high level competitive gymnast or swimmer but at 8 years old thats hard to do. I consider my son to be pretty active but he is over  70,000 points behind whoever this person is.

I have really enjoyed watching my Son do this program and I am considering offering it to the High School Students I work with. The Dates are From May 1st- July 24th which means they will need to do quite a bit of the work on their own once school gets out in Mid June but I still want to encourage them to try.

If you are looking for something extra to help get you off the coach and exercising, sign up, they have a program for adults as well.

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