Starting Young: A Comprehensive Approach to Youth Strength and Conditioning
In Focus: Cultivate a Lifelong Love for Exercise
We begin with one goal in mind: praise the interest.
As a parent myself, I get too caught up in correcting my child’s form, and push them to do the exercises that I want them to do. I notice that I get push back, and my son isn’t excited to workout with me anymore. Falling in this trap is easy to do. When first starting to engage in structured exercise, parents are encouraged to celebrate their child’s desire to get stronger, faster, and keep up with teammates. Rather than jumping straight into formal training programs, the focus should be on creating a positive relationship with exercise. Children learn by observation, and kids who see their parents or coaches actively engaging in physical activity will naturally develop a desire for movement.
Build a Comprehensive Program From a Young Age
Strength and conditioning for youth athletes isn’t just about lifting weights. You need to emphasize a well-rounded approach. At all levels, body awareness and body control are the first principles of training, with programs incorporating the following:
Mobility and Flexibility: Run through a proper warm-up and dynamic stretching at each practice and before each game.
Speed and Agility Training: Teach your athletes how to move efficiently and safely, especially during landing and cutting. Even the youngest of your athletes will benefit from ladder drills.
Build a Strength Foundation: Prepare young athletes to handle the physical demands of their sport more efficiently as the intensity of competition heightens through the years. We can’t expect a 12 year old to just jump into weight training, they need to ease into a weight program over the years leading up.
Implement Injury Prevention Techniques that are specific to their sport or hobbies
The controlled environment of a weight room, when used appropriately, provides a safe space for learning proper technique and engaging in multi-planar movements using a variety of equipment – from bodyweight movements and teaching proper form, to progressing to using kettlebells and dumbbells to sleds and sandbags.
Consistency Over Intensity
Recent studies suggest that resistance-training programs lasting >23 weeks are most effective in attaining maximal strength gains. With our athletes, we want to build a solid foundation of strength, power, joint stability, muscle mass, bone density, boost confidence and improve overall health. Strength gains occur with different types of resistance training for a minimum duration of 8 weeks with a frequency of 2 to 3 times a week.
In an interview with Eric Cressey, Dr. Greg Rose suggests to introduce two structured lifts per week starting around age 11. The consistent, gradual approach to increasing weight and exercise volume can result in over 700 well-executed lifts by the time this athlete reaches 18 years old. This method proves to be far more beneficial than sporadic, intense efforts that might lead to injury or burnout.
The focus should be on:
Perfecting Technique: Prioritizing form over heavy loads.
Encouraging Effort and Improvement: Celebrating even small gains, which not only build physical capabilities but also reinforce a positive attitude toward exercise.
Making It Enjoyable: Training should be engaging, fostering both competition with oneself and a desire to improve.
Expert Insights: A Guideline By Age
Here are my personal thoughts based on anecdotal experiences and taking into account the current literature in youth strength and conditioning:
Before the age of 7: Keep the strength-building process fun with exercises such as frog jumps, bear crawls, crab walks, kangaroo hops, and one-leg hops. Work on hanging and monkey bars to development upper body strength and shoulder stability. Keep in mind that our youngest athletes develop at very different paces. So, while some 5 year olds may absolutely benefit from bodyweight strength and conditioning training, other kids might not have the appropriate body awareness until 6 or 7.
Ages 8–10: At this stage, the primary goal is building a foundation of movement literacy and body control. Strength training should consist of bodyweight exercises (e.g., squats, push-ups, planks) with a focus on proper form, posture, and coordination. Plyometrics should be low-intensity and fun—think hopping, skipping, jumping, and bounding drills that emphasize landing mechanics. Agility work can be introduced through games and basic change-of-direction drills that promote reaction time. Running should focus on mechanics and variety—short sprints, form drills, and aerobic games that keep them moving and engaged.
Ages 10–12: As kids gain more coordination and awareness, you can begin introducing light resistance (e.g., bands, medicine balls, or very light weights) for strength training while still emphasizing bodyweight mastery. Plyometrics can progress to include jump-and-stick landings, mini hurdles, and box jumps with a focus on control and stiffness. Agility drills can become more structured, incorporating cones, ladders, and reactive elements. Running work should emphasize sprint mechanics and include short-distance sprints, acceleration drills, and multi-directional movement.
Ages 12–14: This age group can begin more formal strength training with guidance, incorporating basic compound movements like goblet squats, dumbbell presses, and kettlebell swings while reinforcing proper technique. Plyometric training can increase in intensity and complexity with multi-jump sequences, bounding, and depth jumps. Agility work should challenge both speed and decision-making, blending programmed and reactive drills. Sprint training should now include acceleration, top-end speed mechanics, and some aerobic capacity work for sport-specific needs.
Ages 14 and Up: At this stage, athletes are often ready for a more individualized and performance-driven approach. Strength training should follow a structured, periodized program emphasizing progressive overload, proper movement patterns, and balanced development across major muscle groups. Barbell lifts like back squats, deadlifts, bench press, and Olympic lift derivatives can be incorporated with proper supervision. Plyometrics should be high-intensity and purpose-driven, focusing on explosive power, reactivity, and transition movements (e.g., jump to sprint or lateral bound to cut). Agility training should closely mimic game situations with reactive cues, decision-making under fatigue, and high-speed change-of-direction. Sprint work should be segmented into acceleration, max velocity, and deceleration, while conditioning should reflect sport-specific energy demands and competitive pacing. Recovery, mobility, and workload management also become increasingly important for sustained performance and injury prevention.
Ask The Expert: Does The “Stunts Growth” Myth Hold Up?
I’ve always found that the logic does not add up when it comes to a strengthening program for youth athletes. Children already expose themselves to significant forces – running, jumping off of playgrounds and trees, carrying heavy backpacks, and throwing a baseball at high speeds. We allow our kids to sprint and jump as much as they want (which can create forces up to 8 times their body weight), but do not allow them to perform supervised weight lifting.
Contrary to popular belief, the forces that our youth are exposed to in various sports and recreational activities are greater in both exposure time and magnitude than during competently supervised and properly performed maximal strength training. To date, there is no evidence suggesting that proper strength training will injure a growth plate. In fact, strength training actually has been shown to improve bone density in children.
Check out these two articles published by the American Academy of Pediatrics discussing the benefits of strengthen training in our youth athletes, and debunking the theory that strength training affects growth.
Resistance Training for Children and Adolescents
Strength Training by Children and Adolescents
One final thought to parents who are concerned about injuries related to strength training: here is a fun study that showed two-thirds of resistance training-related injuries sustained by 8- to 13-yr-old kids were to the hand and foot, likely related to dropping and getting pinched by weights. These injuries should be preventable in a supervised, safe exercise environment.
Final Thoughts
The key message for parents and coaches is clear: Early exposure to strength and conditioning, when done in a fun, controlled, and comprehensive manner, sets the stage for a lifetime of athleticism and health. By demystifying myths, focusing on proper technique, and maintaining a positive, consistent approach, young athletes can build a robust foundation that not only improves sports performance but also supports overall physical well-being. Our goal is to make exercise not a chore, but a celebrated part of everyday life—a lesson that resonates far beyond the playing field.