I won't bother with a long introduction. I won't spend time on commentary or dialogue.
Simply put, here are the reasons children under the age of 12 need to be in a well designed training system -
1) Don't Train.... Teach
Maybe the confusion some Fitness Professionals are having is related to what they think youth fitness and sport
development looks like.
This is not 1-on-1 personal training. This is not about sets, reps and technical proficiency.
This is about introducing critically important movement stimulus into the lives of children at an age when their nervous systems are most accepting and will lead to the highest possible retention rates.
This is also about starting positive habitual patterns of daily activity early in life.
The goal for pre-12 is allowing children to discover movement within certain guidelines.
Over-coaching and over-correcting is an absolute no-no.
Children must be given the opportunity to move, error self-correct and eventually develop a neural blueprint for how to perform basic, primal patterns efficiently.
Those primal patterns include -
:: Running
:: Jumping/Hopping
:: Throwing/Kicking
:: Skipping
:: Crawling/Climbing
2) The Lost Art of Play
You can include quality school-based physical education in this category as well.
We used to free play everyday of our lives. Riding bikes to the park. Playing baseball. Climbing trees.
This was a normal 'day-in-the-life' for kids our age and older when we were kids.
And the effects were perfect.
Everything I just mentioned amounts to multi-lateral development.
Another way of saying that is amassing physical intelligence.
As a kid, we did everything and then some.
Not in an organized sporting session with over-zealous coaches, per say, but on our own, unregulated and completely free.
It is through this kind of free play experience that kids develop quality coordination, mobility and systemic strength.
But you know what, Jason, kids don't free play anymore.
They don't enjoy good quality PE classes anymore either.
And because of that, obesity is skyrocketing and injury rates in youth sports are going through the roof.
Without the intervention of high quality long-term development systems, where exactly are kids today going to receive the type of physical stimulus they need?
3) Technique Development
At a young age, neural plasticity is very high.
Simply put, that means we are open and adaptable to change.
When we learn something, we retain it and can call upon it as a skill at virtually any point in our lives.
As youth sports have changed, we are asking (wrongly I might add) kids as young as 14 to be able to squat, power clean and bench press at near maximal limits.
And while I don't agree with this practice at all, I can't change the situation overnight.
Having said that, it is absolutely critical that young kids (10 - 12 years of age) are taught the proper execution of things like force production and absorption, lifting mechanics and movement economy.
This is because the nervous system is at a high point for learning and can be molded favorably to understand and re-produce these physical characteristics later in life.
I have more. Much more. But there's only so much you'd want to read.
Suffice it to say, there are many reasons that 'training' for children under the age of 12 is important.
We are here to guide the children and athletes, in our area, towards long-term goals and benefits.
By combining our talents and expertise we can work together to make the athletes, in this region, their absolute best.
