Strength training for young people

“You never see an oak tree with huge branches and a tiny trunk”

Strong trunk

Kathryn “Wiggs” Catto on a last week’s level 1 coaching strength and conditioning for sport course.

This was her way of describing to young teenage boys the necessity of developing strength in a safe and progressive manner.

Unfortunately in the rush to “look good nekked” a lot of bad advice is heeded by these boys.

Top heavy

In the desperate attempt to develop limb size (rather than strength) the training programme negelects the fundamental needs of the developing body.

“No one ever died of weak biceps”

Roy Parsloe: lecturer on my A level p.e. course in 1991.

Why on earth would we put a preacher curl into a school gym? The kids spend all day sat down in classrooms as it is.

If you train sat down or lying down, then your entire trunk area is made redundant. We then have a situation where people need to work on their “core stability“.

Pull ups are better

This lady may be trying to “tone” her arms, compared to the boys who would be trying to “get hench“, but they are all sat down.

Every dumbbell exercise and 90% of the bodyweight exercises I demonstrated on the course were done standing up or in prone support. This limits the overall weight you can lift, but it is our ability to apply strength on the field that is important.

The young person has to learn how to control their own body weight in different planes of movement and at varying speeds before picking up a weight. The quick fix is to sit or lie down (and have a mate pick up the weight and pass it to them) but there are no benches or chairs on the rugby pitch.

Thanks to all the candidates who threw themselves with abandon into the practical sessions and the classroom discussions.

I hope I managed to stimulate some thoughts into how they go back and work with all their players: solid foundations and sound programming beat fads and short cuts every time.

Further reading:

• Top 8 tips on how to move like an athlete
• How can I reduce the chance of my players getting injured?