The running and not eating enough is killing his novice progress. If you can't get him to eat more, he'll have to wait until the fools at school stop interfering.
Member
Delay the program?
My son is a 14yr old high school freshman. After his first season of football he decided it would be a good idea to get strong for next season. We both started the program and have completed 18 workouts. We’re both untrained newbs so I figure a bunch of 10lb jumps will be easy. However, while it has been easy for me(34 5’10” 250 lbs[fat as hell]), it’s been difficult for him(14 6’2” 190). He stalls a lot and progress has been slow and difficult. That came as a surprise to me. He is counting calories(he needs to eat more) and averaging 180g of protein/day. He sleeps ok but should probably get more hrs/night. Def Tanner stage 4 or whatever, he’s hairy, has a low voice, balls dropped ect.
I’ve just recently heard about his gym class at school. They run at least 3 miles/week and sometimes 2 miles at a time. He says he runs hard and usually finishes 2nd or 3rd in the class. Is this likely the culprit that is slowing down his lp? Perhaps he should wait until summer to get back on his novice progression?
Thanks,
Travis
TMPHBITEU
The running and not eating enough is killing his novice progress. If you can't get him to eat more, he'll have to wait until the fools at school stop interfering.
Starting Strength Coach
If he’s in football, does he have to take PE as an elective??? See if you can get him out and transferred into an art class or something and he can color and play with glue sticks for an hour or so each day
✓ Member
I just love the practical approach here. To get your kid to be a better athlete, get him out of PE and into art class! =DOriginally Posted by Andy Baker (KSC)
TMPHBITEU
And to get him better educated, home school him.
Member
So he talked to his football coach yesterday who told him he has to do one year of pe. Only varsity counts toward a replacement for pe class and next year he’ll get some varsity anyway. So I think there are 2 options.
1: Do the program while sandbagging and doing just enough to pass the class.
2: Delay until pe class is over.
Both are suboptimal but I think I like #1. I’m going to leave it up to him though. Thanks for the input guys, it is backwards that physical education is the class that’s causing these problems.
TMPHBITEU
Right. And PE is the only class at school with problems like this, so everything else is Okay.
Member
The big overarching solution though, is to get him to eat more.
You say he's eating 180g of protein. Well, tell him to have a glass of milk at each meal every day for a week. The next week, add a glass between meals and one before bed. the next week, just do it every 2 waking hours. And then finally start adding some protein powder to it, on top of whatever he's already eating. If he slowly adapts to eating more, while training hard, he will become comfortable with it and will start gaining weight, and then his progress will stop stalling as much.
3 miles a week may be detrimental but it's also a small amount and I'd say the not eating enough is a bigger factor, right? So, he just needs to re-eat those 3 miles of calories lost.
✓ Member
Obviously, you have tried 5 lb jumps, right?
Member
Running a few miles a week is not going to derail progress, especially for a young high school kid who is growing. I would never tell a young kid to be LESS active. Do LESS running, jumping, swimming, playing basketball etc. Think of all the Soviet and Chinese kids in sports schools training for weightlifting. They have them lift several times a week but they also have them doing GPP activities like all the ones a just mentioned and more. It makes them better athletes, improves coordination, increases work capacity etc.
The problem is he's not eating enough and as you say probably not sleeping enough. Fix those 2 problems and his numbers will explode. Also if 10 lb jumps are too much go to 5 lb jumps. Slow progress is better than no progress.
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