What Youth Training Should Look Like

The Highlights

  • Let kids be kids
  • Multisport athletes make the best athletes
  • Many of the best athletes don’t even show their true potential or peak performance until late in high school or college

The Problem with How We Train Kids

Walk into most youth fitness programs, and you’ll see kids doing versions of adult workouts. Kids ARE NOT small adults. Their brains and bodies are wired for something completely different, and training them like miniature athletes before they’re ready doesn’t accelerate development. It limits it or, worse, burns them out.

What Kids Ages 5-11 Need

At this age, the goal is movement literacy. Before speed, before strength, before sport-specific skills, kids need to become confident, coordinated movers. That means rolling, crawling, jumping, landing, throwing, catching, and playing games that challenge their body awareness and spatial sense. The research is clear: kids who develop a wide movement foundation early become better athletes later, in any sport they choose. Kids who specialize too soon get injured more, burn out faster, and often quit. Let kids be kids.

What Kids Ages 12-18 Need

Once the foundation is there, the approach changes. Now we build real strength, power, speed, and stamina using the same principles that guide elite athletic development. Not a watered-down version. The actual thing, applied appropriately for their age and development. And in modern times, as most any coach will tell you, if your high school-aged kid is not strength training, they stand very little chance of competing. Most will say they have no chance.

This is also the age when mental performance enters the picture. How a young athlete thinks about training, competition, confidence,  handles setbacks, and builds consistency matters as much as what they do physically.

Your kid has time. Train smart.

Find programs that prioritize movement quality over intensity. Look for coaches who understand long-term athletic development, not just what looks impressive in a session. And resist the pressure to specialize early. The data is not on that side.

Remember, fitness and sports are a lifetime commitment. Be in it for the long game.