Training for Young Athletes: Best Practices
An athlete goes through multiple trainings in his entire career. There are a lot of things an athlete do and experiments to reach their best version. An athlete’s life is full of discipline and hard work.
Youngster taking up athletics as a career has to completely transform their lives. Apart from a proper diet, a budding athlete needs to be disciplined in his training to get the best out of their body.
Multiple kids sports programs are conducted in training sessions along with some exercises to train the budding athletes. The purpose of this article is to spread awareness among budding athletes aged 10-17 years for some of the best training and programs to become a good athlete. So, let’s take a look.

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Training for Young Athletes: Sprinting
The first training on the list is sprinting. A planned drill around a 10-yard sprint will be quite effective at the start. In this, one has to drill the starting position and basic sprinting mechanics. The next step would be a reactive sprint drill. To do this drill a tennis ball is the best prop.
The coach drops a tennis ball on the ground, and the athlete has to sprint from his position and catch the ball before it hits the ground for the second time. Another simple drill is a race between a group of athletes who run for 10 yards.

Training for Young Athletes: Jump Training
In this training, one can start with normal hops for a minute or two as a warmup. Hopping means basic jumping and could be considered as a part of skipping with a skipping rope. The other drill in this training can be the Hurdle jump to increase the effect and illustrate progression after skipping. Hurdle jump emphasizes triple extension, including hips, knees, and ankles.
To set hurdles, start with a 5-hurdle setup wherein the athletes hop over all 5 hurdles and land between each hurdle for at least 2 seconds. Once the athlete gets his pace in the 5-hurdle setup, you can increase it further to 10 and so on.
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Training for Young Athletes: Lifting
Lifting is another exercise that should be performed by a budding athlete. Lifting can be done in different versions, like squat, bench, or deadlift. For squats, an athlete should go for a goblet squat with a 45 lbs dumbbell for at least 5 reps. Bench press should be started with 20 lbs of dumbbells again for 5 reps.
Bench press is good for measuring the strength of the athlete. Finally, while attempting the deadlift, good reps of 5 with a 90 lbs Kettlebell or a trap bar will be adequate to train the posture. All this lifting therapy is a vital part of strength training.

Training for Young Athletes: Conditioning
During conditioning, one should pick exercises which are too simple to screw up. Any exercise that requires more than 2 cues should be avoided during conditioning.- This includes Olympic lifts, compound lifts, and other dynamic movements. Exercises like sled push, bike sprints, jumping rope, and other exercises that include 2-3 cues are helpful during conditioning. Higher jumps should also be avoided because the higher you jump, the fewer reps you perform.
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Therefore, conditioning goes hand-in-hand with simpler exercises that require minimal strength. Therefore, increasing reps, rounds, and the time one trains is taken into consideration during conditioning.
Youth Athlete Training India or around the world is done with different standards and techniques. But, the above techniques are amongst the most common ones.
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