Kids And Training

How young do you start sports training your kids? That is the age old question. Everybody has an opinion. Don't start training until they are such and such an age. They are growing, it will stunt their growth. I've heard them all.

I have a simple answer to this age old question. Give them as much as they can handle. It sounds simplistic, yet if you think about it, it's just common sense. Now I would never advocate weight training for 5 year olds, I would however advocate some kind of physical fitness.

What do most kids love to do more than anything? Play! I have never met a child that didn't want to play. Whether it be tag, dodgeball (I know it's the worst), kickball, whatever. Kids want to play. Our jobs as parents is to make sure they play. It really is that simple for the young kids. Play, play, play, play, just play.

When my kids were this young they ran. They ran through the house, they ran through the yard, heck they ran through the grocery store. I didn't care, I knew the running was making them better. They didn't know it, but I sure did. In my earlier posts I talked about my oldest being faster and stronger than everybody else. He got that way by running. Run, run, run. And you know what, little brother Devan wanted to be like big brother Jordan so he ran too. Always trying to catch up, he ran. To this day, both boys can still out run most anyone.

This is my first piece of advice. Get your young athletes running. They will be training and they won't even know it. An even better idea: Run with them, they will love it and so will you!