Strength training of some sort is essential for athletes whether they are 7 or 17 years old. Whether they are using their own body weight or barbells, at Parisi, we have created a system that will ensure safety in the weight room, results on the field, and a healthy life lesson for all athletes who train with us.
If your child has mentioned downloading the TrainHeroic app on their phones, you know we keep track of every move they make while strength training. We write up the workouts, and athletes fill out the program on their phones: they write in their specific weights and get an understanding of set and rep schemes, as well as any other strength building factors. Keep reading to understand why your athlete tracks their workouts!
Safety
The most important factor in strength training for youth athletes is keeping them safe and healthy. Incredibly, since taking over this gym in 2013, we have seen practically no weight room injuries. I like to think that it boils down to a few things: intelligent exercise selection, attentive coaching, and proper programing.
When an athlete tracks their workouts, we can be sure that they are lifting the proper amount each time. We use what we call a ladder system for increasing the load on an athlete: they gradually increase the reps they do with a certain weight before raising the weight and lowering the reps back down. This ensures the athlete is ready to handle any jumps in training load.
Results
What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get managed.” Our coaches and your athletes record every weight, set, rep, and tempo for each exercise. Without that, progress isn’t possible. Our programs are created in six week blocks of the same exercises so that each child can make linear progression on an exercise provided their form is clean.
For example, a goblet squat progression might look like this over 6 weeks:
20 lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
20 lbs for 3 sets of 10 reps
25 lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps
25 lbs for 4 sets of 8 reps
30 lbs for 4 sets of 8 reps
30 lbs for 4 sets of 10 reps
A 50% gain in strength and 33% increase in volume in just 6 weeks! Some athletes can even make faster progress, some make slower progress if their technique isn’t quite right, but it’s always recorded so that our coaches know where to direct the athletes on each exercise.
Lessons for Life
Parents have told me they love the TrainHeroic app and our programing because it has taught their child how to exercise properly even when their athletic days are over. High school and college kids who aren’t necessarily playing sports anymore can still take the lessons learned into the weight room and strength train properly. They aren’t wasting their time on bicep curls, but making linear progression on squats, bench press, chin-ups, deadlifts, etc. They know how to set up the appropriate sets and reps for each of those exercises. And they aren’t hurting themselves once they are on their own.
That might be the most important part of youth strength training for 90% of the kids who don’t go on to play a sport in college: they can take these lessons and skills with them for the rest of their lives and hopefully create some very healthy habits as adults.
If you would like to learn more about strength training at Parisi, or just what your child is specifically doing to get stronger in a safe way, simply email us at EvolveTrainingNJ@gmail.com
