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Gaz, fufu, Phineas, gtmed, Marat, anyone?

Flathead

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I have two sons ages 11 & 13 who both play select basketball & baseball. With high school coming up around the corner they're both looking to kick it up a notch. I've spent the last month racking my brain, trying to develop a 2d fullbody split workout routine & I keep coming up with PLer/strength routine that would have them in the gym for 2+ hrs, lol! The idea here is to increase strength/endurance in areas like pitching, long toss, vertical jump, overall speed, etc... I know there's a delicate balance with kids at such a young age when it comes to weight training, so I'm looking for any advice. Thanks



Flat
 
Honestly, my advice would be this:

getlifting.info » Strength for Newbies

But modified to only twice a week (so they'd do each workout only once) and to obviously encourage frequent participation in their sports. At that age pretty much all the action happens at the skill level - the more they play their sports the better they'll get.

What they do in the gym right now won't have a huge crossover - BUT, if they get their form on the big compound lifts right now, and get used to gym training, when they get a bit older they'll have a huge advantage over their peers when gym stuff WILL start to make a difference (when hormones and muscle mass starts going crazy).

The newbies program is pretty short, their numbers will be going up every single week which is gonna be fun for them to watch, and you can always add a small "finisher" circuit to each session to cover one or two things in that list.

The way a trainer i know does this for his clients is write all the finishers at the start of the program, and put them in an envelope. The client will pick one at random from the bag. We're literally talking 10 minutes of some sort of circuit - just keep it simple without too much technical stuff. You can really be inventive and fun here and it'll be a cool way to end their workouts. I'd mix up certain elements of the game, while doing something that will tire them out - this'll train them to use their skills when they're tired and their adrenaline is up.
 
Great feedback Gaz, that's exactly the kind of responses I'm looking for. I think making it fun for them will also be key. The reasoning behind the 2d split is their sports take up about 6 days e/w between practices & games. I'll put pencil to paper over the next few weeks & post up a few split ideas & get your guy's opinions. They're going to start as soon as basketball is over (in 3wks).
 
Flat, how experienced are they with training?

A lot of times all newbies need to train in a similar way just because they still need hypertrophy and their gains are going to be linear for awhile. Gaz's program has good exercise selection. I'd add maybe power cleans to that. For most exercises I would stick with 3 sets of 5 reps. You may want to go with 1 or 2 sets of deadlifts just because recovery is tough with deads. Cleans obviously need fewer reps - I'd recommend 1-3 per set. If the technique breaks down, you need to shorten the sets.

Just make sure they're moving correctly - get the proper flexibility and movement patterns down now and they will have a huge training advantage over others when they get older. You always hear about HS athletes who can "squat" 400 lbs., but then when you see them perform the squat, you realize that you are going to have to completely re-teach them the movement.

The main difference is going to be conditioning, a bit of exercise selection, and prehab.

Here's a good article on conditioning that I tend to agree with: Heart Rate Training: Time to Enter the Zone

For the baseball player I would caution against doing a lot of overhead pressing movements and I would have him doing some shoulder prehab every week. Here's a good article on that: Shoulder Prehab Program for Baseball Players | STACK Blog
 
i would look into a sports specific basketball coach, and sports specific baseball coach.

sports specific trainers...
 
Flat, how experienced are they with training?

No real background other than chasing me around the gym on occasional Saturdays.

A lot of times all newbies need to train in a similar way just because they still need hypertrophy and their gains are going to be linear for awhile. Gaz's program has good exercise selection. I'd add maybe power cleans to that. For most exercises I would stick with 3 sets of 5 reps. You may want to go with 1 or 2 sets of deadlifts just because recovery is tough with deads. Cleans obviously need fewer reps - I'd recommend 1-3 per set. If the technique breaks down, you need to shorten the sets.

Will add cleans & limit deads. I'll have to learn cleans myself, as a PLer we don't do much in the way of cleans.

Just make sure they're moving correctly - get the proper flexibility and movement patterns down now and they will have a huge training advantage over others when they get older. You always hear about HS athletes who can "squat" 400 lbs., but then when you see them perform the squat, you realize that you are going to have to completely re-teach them the movement.

The main difference is going to be conditioning, a bit of exercise selection, and prehab.

Here's a good article on conditioning that I tend to agree with: Heart Rate Training: Time to Enter the Zone

Good read

For the baseball player I would caution against doing a lot of overhead pressing movements and I would have him doing some shoulder prehab every week. Here's a good article on that: Shoulder Prehab Program for Baseball Players | STACK Blog

Both my kids are pitchers so this is something I'll have to pay close attention to! Thanks for the info!!!
 
i would look into a sports specific basketball coach, and sports specific baseball coach.

sports specific trainers...

This is something I plan on looking into.

Hmmm... is this the program that I started designing and you guys helped me with, or pure inspiration? If it is the one I started, I want some credit! haha

Either way, GREAT PROGRAM

Very top shelf ideology!

And as importantly...feed them well.

Agreed, they're part of the reason I have a $300 grocery bill e/w, lol!
 
I wish you were my father.
 
I'll add that Eric Cressey has a bunch of terrific information available. Check out all the info at Cressey Performance. He specializes in baseball players and shoulder/elbow maintenanence and he has plenty of great, general baseball-specific information.
 
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