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Coach, thank you for the detailed explanation! It makes a ton of sense. I’ve kind of gravitated towards not worrying so much about “play” skills with younger kids (my only context is youth sports, so not specifically training them to do these things). Like I’ll let them run, jump and throw within a pretty wide range before I’m worried about correcting. When it comes to something more technical (shooting a basketball, swinging a bat), I’ll find a couple big cues for kid but then it’s really slow progression from there. It’s really cool to see how you’ve thought through and planned it out.
I will say, adults and kids that never played sports are almost the opposite - they’re more likely to get hurt jumping or running than doing almost anything else, it seems. So I am really strict about following progressions, very similar to what you laid out, for them. I’m sure I would with kids if I was actually working training them.
Right, I’m pretty much the same way. When it comes to just playing I give my kids more leeway to explore movement skills, even if it gets a bit risky.
I do have a structure/progression in training because training is more about learning motor skills then performing them well. So I try to have them move as well a they can, and this typically requires some from of progression model.
What I find though is that by focusing on skill acquisition in the gym, it translates pretty well into improved motor habits during playing time and sports.
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The progression that I use to teach the olympic lifts to kids
Note: The “green” boxes are the mandatory steps that I use, the “yellow” boxes are remedial exercises that can be added to make the learning process smoother if a kid has trouble progression from one “green” box to the next.
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This is great. I really appreciate the thought you’ve put into this and the structured plan to get kids to the goal. I think the kneejerk reaction right now is “don’t do anything with kids!” as if they’ll just wake up at 16-18 years old and be great athletes… then the opposite end of the spectrum is just throw them all in the grinder and let them do whatever and see who survives. Seeing your structured approach is very helpful.
It’s funny because most people think that I only train(ed) elite athletes or bodybuilders.
In reality, I’d say that I have worked with at least as many kids. When I started out as a strength coach, I worked mostly with 8-18 years old kids from sport school program.
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It’s not just about making them better athletes though. It’s about lifetime habits.
When my father was a college professor they did a study on a group of to young kids that where give twice the amount of phys.ed as the normal group. To allow them to do that they reduced the number of weekly hours spent on maths, grammar and history.
At the end of the year the group with more phys.ed and actually had better scores in maths, grammar and history despite having less hours spent on those.
Then they did a follow up study something like 30 years latter and found that the kids who had been involved in the phys.ed rich program were more active as adults.
The point is that by having kids train early on, making it part of their routine, they are more likely to keep training and adopting a healthier lifestyle.
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I’m hugely onboard.
Just having a son I can see the difference, even in daily tasks. As an example, if he comes home and tries to start homework immediately after sitting in school all day, he can’t do it, gets frustrated, and gets everything wrong. If I have him go ride his bike or play at the playground or something for an hour, he can come home and knock his homework in a fraction of the time and actually understand the material.
The world has reduced informal “play” opportunities, so I think we now have to be a little more deliberate about forcing these habits.
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I agree 100%. That informal ‘playtime’ you speak off counts equally as much for adults by the way.
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this is a great thread, thanks . . I have a 7 y/o wrestler who I have do box jumps, pushups, pullups, squats while holding a 8lb med ball and banded rows . . after reading this I think I’ll add some lateral jumping and hang cleans after wrestling season is over . . or maybe do heavy med ball over shoulder as opposed to hang cleans
Great information CT, I really appreciate you sharing!
With Jayden, we started with lifting and carrying medicine balls. I found that to be a more natural way to introduce resistance training than lifts.
We have med balls ranging from 8 to 35lbs.
Vey specific to wrestling too.
January 9th,
About to go do my workout. After yesterday’s complexes, today is technique work on the snatch.
In this workout I do power snatches as well as 1-2 exercises aimed at improving snatch performance. I’m probably be doing muscle snatches as a warm-up for the power snatches and behind the neck snatch press to keep improving my overhead position (might add an overhead squat at the end of the set).
I’ll let you know what I did and why a bit later.
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Had a weird workout…
I felt good physically but really off neurologically. Kinda like a feeling of being there, but not really (if that makes sense).
It still started out fairly well, my muscles snatches were smooth and then the power snatches did feel snappy. But I almost felt “drunk” so I didn’t want to push the weights too much for fear of getting injured due to lack of control.
So after ramping up to 185 on the power snatch I decided to do some shoulders/upper back work to solidify my overhead position. Truth be told, in a proper overhead position, the upper back/traps/rear delts are doing a lot of the supporting. But this can only be done if you are in a proper position.
Anyway, I did a combo set of:
A1. DB cuban presses x 10
A2. DB Lu raises x 10
A3. DB lateral raises x 10
(no rest, same weight for all 3)
For 3 sets
Then Dual resistance pull apparts (attaching a band to the cable in a cable station) for 3 sets of 10
Actually got a good pump in the whole “yoke” region.
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This is super awesome. I imagine this progression can be used and is fantastic for adults too 
Of course! However with adults the progression can be faster.
I found out that melatonin doesn’t agree with me.
Took it last night as I’ve been having a harder time sleeping recently and when I woke up I felt almost drunk. I honestly couldn’t function until now (12:30).
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I’ve had the same experience.
What I learned is that it works better to use less of it and to take it much earlier. 0.5 mg taken 12 or 13 hours before your normal wake up time.
I think this is hard to read, but I saw that approach first explained here and it’s worked for me: https://www.med.upenn.edu/cbti/assets/user-content/documents/Burgess_UsingBrightLightandMelatonintoReduceJetLag.pdf
That makes sense. I’m still probably not going to use it though. But if I do, I’ll certainly take less and earlier… it really feels like I’m jetlagged.
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January 10th
Because of the brain fog from melatonin (the best way to describe it is that it felt like I had severe jetlag) I kept it easy for today.
Did two small hypertrophy workouts, the first one was for biceps and triceps.
Well, it was mostly biceps with some triceps thrown in there when I would start to lose feeling in the curls.
I started out with the empty bar, doing reps close to failure, and ramped up until I could only get 3 reps (probably did 12-15 sets). Whenever I started to lose the feeling in my biceps when curling (what people call the mind-muscle connection) I would do a set of triceps extensions and I would regain some feeling in my curls afterward. Interesting phenomenon.
Then in the PM I trained Jayden (front squats, military presses, deadlifts) and I did sets of my “shoulder protector superset” between his sets.
That superset is:
A1. DB cuban press x 10
A2. DB Lu raises x 10
A3. DB lateral raises x 10
I did, I think, 5 sets.
Then did 4 sets of regular (and heavier) DB lateral raises for 6-8 reps.
Tomorrow is my second Gunthor complex day. Hopefully, I regain my nervous system by then.
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