Training Son

[0ni]

Hi everyone.

I was wondering what people's thoughts are on programming for a youngster. I searched here and couldn't really find anything, most of the content here is around older populations.

I have a son, he is just two and a half years old. I'm starting to put together a plan for him so that when it's time for him to start training and he is showing an active interest in it I have it all available already. This will most likely occur prior to puberty, somewhere around 5-12 years of age.

This is an interesting scenario because he will be a novice at the start, quite obviously, but depending on circumstance might get to the intermediate stage prior to puberty. However when he enters puberty, things will rapidly change as we all know and he might even become a novice again and it's a suitable time to start pushing caloric intake.

So how to handle this - should I keep him on the novice program until puberty, or progress him as normal through the recommendations in PPFST. Or should I change back to NLP once there is a big jump in the ability to make progress on an ad-hoc basis

Cheers

[Mark Rippetoe]

Can You Put Your Kids on a Strength Training Program? | Mark Rippetoe

[0ni]

Can You Put Your Kids on a Strength Training Program? | Mark Rippetoe

How wonderful, thanks for sharing Mark

[TommyGun]

Having a squat rack and deadlift platform at home so they see you squatting, pulling, pressing and benching will do more for their interest in strength training than anything else. You wont be able to take them to the gym most of the time due to their school and sports schedules. They will watch you at home and ask questions and at some point will want to "try squatting".
Man, that moment was a real tear jerker!

[Mike Mantzouris]

I could never get any of my kids to lift with me. God knows I tried, but not until they were about 10 years old. I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Maybe just start off trying to make it fun for your son to lift with you. Get him some toy weights maybe.

[Phill]

My youngest will piss around for about 5 minutes trying to lift things before running off to chase a butterfly. I don't have a problem with that at all.

The 16 yr old however has developed an appetite for it and trains (while I mostly exercise if I had to be honest haha) at home with me. Trying to convince him to eat more to support the training, that's difficult.

[ethanvolcano24]

I have a question to add on to this - What about training kids for olympic lifts? Aren't they supposed to begin training very young? Even if it's for technique, surely there must be some increase in the amount of weight they lift. You also get child prodigies like this 8-Year-Old Weightlifter Rory Van Ulft Can Deadlift 200 Lbs.

How would these children be able to reach the strength they have without training? Surely there must have been a carefully constructed plan to ensure they could perform these exercises while minimizing risk of injury. Genetic freaks aside, there has to be a way to reach their genetic potential at so young an age.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Surely there must have been a carefully constructed plan to ensure they could perform these exercises while minimizing risk of injury.

Right. And politicians never lie, because that would be wrong.

Genetic freaks aside, there has to be a way to reach their genetic potential at so young an age.

Why would you say 'genetic freaks aside" and then give us an example of a genetic freak?