I’m 11 years old. Probably the youngest on this forum. And I want to train. I want to get big. This might seem kind of weird coming from an 11 year old girl, but I do. I play softball, basketball, and tennis. I want to be the best. I won’t quit a program that you give me.
The point of this post is basically, what type of program should I do? I don’t understand the concept of DE and ME days. Could you point me towards an article that explains these?
I have access to a 10 pound barbell, a bench press bench(no decline or incline avail.) A pull up bar, jumpsoles, all the weight plates I can lift+more. Dumbbells, Treadmill, 6 pound medicine ball. NOT a lot.
I’m going to try to get SOMETHING off of the new T-Jack forums, but I doubt I’ll get it. Especially if they put an age limit on it.
I know the form for deadlifts and squat, though I have no rack. I’m saving up all of my allowance money and report card money trying to get a big weight machine setup, but it’s going to take awhile. With the equip I have, what can I do?
Tokyoo,
I commend you for wanting to get involved in resistance training at a young age. There is plenty of research that shows resistance training for children is safe and beneficial provided that it is done in an appropriate manner.
I spend a lot of time in gyms and I regularly see people doing some of the dumbest, unproductive, and often unsafe workouts.
My advice for you is to keep it simple.
Learn how to eat correctly, learn how to train right, get plenty of sleep, choose a lifestyle that allows you to make good progress, and keep learning about the art and science of training.
This is a lot of stuff to learn and you could spend many, many years reading and experimenting to determine what works and what doesn’t.
I would recomend finding a mentor or a coach. Find someone who knows what they are talking about and pick their brain. A mentor can save you a lot of time and teach you exactly what you need to know in order to make good progress.
It might be wise to save your lunch money (or ask your parents!) and hire a fitness professional. Granted there are a lot of really crappy personal trainers out there but there are plenty of good ones too (typically the ones that also read T-mag!). Let me know if you need help locating a fitness professional.
Learning proper exercise technique is very important and having a knowledgeable professional design you a plan of attack would save you a lot of trouble.
I would recomend sticking with basics when it comes to training. Sure, eventually you might venture into Dynamic Effort (DE) and Max Effort (ME) training but to start with you’ll probably get more bang for your buck by sticking with mid to higher repetition ranges (maybe between 8-15 reps to start with).
There are some great people here at T-Mag who will surely be able to give you valuable advice. Keep learning and stick to the basics and you’ll do just fine.
Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Yes, I do plan to study all of the things you mentioned throughout my life. I was just wondering if you could reccomend any books, articles…etc. that I could read to learn even more? I’ve already read almost all of the previous T-mag issues. Thanks for the feedback.
I agree with pretty much everything that Kbattis said, except the peronal trainer thing. The mentor would be a MUCH better idea, also learn all that you can.
It is always good to hear of a younger person actually caring about their physical well-being.
Your post has also reminded me of a post I wanted to make that had all the definitions for common terms, such as DE, ME, GPP, 1RM, and a whole slew of others, things that many people know but alot of newbies don’t.
I think I will do that when the new site opens.
-Dave
ps… does this mean we have to watch our language now?
pss… have you even HEARD of He-man?
Gosh… 11 you say…
My advice is to start some sort martial arts work or gymnastics work so that you can work on your strength, flexibility and discipline, then head for the big weights once your hormones have kicked in and you have figured out your monthly cycles.
I am not keen on girls training hard so young, sorry…
There is so much to consider when training hard and I just don’t think an 11 year old should be so obsessed so young. There is plenty of time for obsession over body image once your hormones have kicked in and you enter a new phase in your life!!!
Just my 2c…
Take care,
Chessie…
If i didn’t know any better, I would think that you’re the smartest 11 year old boy ive ever seen or lying about his age. Either way, focus on the basic stuff. I used to do tons of push ups, sit ups and pull ups at that age before i touched weights. It might be a good start. I can’t say the same thing for most of other kids that spends all of their free time playing video games and getting fat.
Yeah,
Focus on general movement skills at your age, running, jumping, throwing, squatting, pushing, pulling, twisting.
At your age you are “programming” quality movement skills into your brain. If you can find an olympic weightlifting coach to learn the form for the Clean and Jerk and the Snatch.
Russian athletes would spend years learning proper form (usually just using a dowell rod as a training tool)for these lifts and when their bodies matured they would start increasing the weight slowly.
Keep us posted on your training and best of luck.
From my experience an 11 year old female should not worry about external resistance and instead focus on body weight movements such as push-ups, Hindu squats, pull-up, hand stands, chair dips, one legged deadlifts and so forth. Here would be a good circuit for you to perform twice a week:
A1) push-ups
A2) Hindu squats
A3) hand stands
A4) legged deadlifts
A5) chair dips
When you first start this circuit do 10 sets slowly working up to 50 sets.
When you?re able to do 50 sets on the above circuit then your ready for external resistance focus on bid compound multi joint movements such as the bench press, squat, deadlifts, push press ext., ext. It would be unwise for you to specialize in one sport play as many sports as you can. When to specialization depends on a lot of variables but in general I would wait until high school to specialize in any one sport. If you don?t heed my advice about specialization you will not be as good as a non specialized athlete.
The best advice I can give you is to never stop asking questions. Don?t stop reading about weight training and conditioning.
Eat as much as you can, sleep as much as you can, and play as much as you can, if you follow my advice your be a super athlete.
I made a mistake:
A4) is suppose to say 1 legged deadlift
Thanks for all of the feedback so far. A question to boss- What do you mean do 50sets? What would one set be?
One set is one full circuit, you don?t really need to do 50 sets I was just giving an example of what I?ve seen and used, alternately you could work up to 20 sets; it really depends on a number of variables. An option for A5) chair dips you could substitute pull-ups after you can complete 10 sets of the circuit that is if you have a bar. By the way this program is intended to increase whole body muscle endurance.
Sorry, I don’t want to sound stupid but, how many reps per exercise should I do during the circuit? I mean like…
A1) push-ups x how many
A2) Hindu squats x how many
A3) hand stands x how many
A4) legged deadlifts x how many
A5) chair dips x how many
= one set
I forgot to include reps I?m sorry! I would suggest 5-10 reps per exercise. Start with 5 reps progressing toward 10 reps per exercise.
That would look like:
A1) push-ups x 5
A2) Hindu squats x 5
A3) hand stands x 5
A4) legged deadlifts x 5
A5) chair dips x 5