Topic: Training Kids In Olympic Lifting

[Andy Dick]

This may have been discussed in an earlier topic but I was just wondering on what your thoughts were on this idea.

Right now at the fitness club I work at I have a family that comes to me once a week to get personal training for their 3 kids.  The oldest misses a lot of the training but I think he is not really interested in it so I do not push the issue so we will not talk about him.  The other two are very talented athletes one is a boy who is 11 and the other is a girl who is 9.  All the kids play a lot of sports and are very athletic.  Basically would you advise against starting the teach these kids the olympic lifts at their young age even with very light weight.

Here is what I have been doing with them.  The family has been coming to me for a couple of months now.  All of the kids use light weights and do not progress in weight until the weight is visibly light.  What that means that when the kids lift they stay at the same weight until they no longer look like they are even struggling and they start to rush their reps.  Usually about that time they also start complaining that it is too light and they would like a little more weight. 

I started the kids learning dynamic warm-up drills (inch worms, arm circles, and then light plyos like jump rope ect).  For the lifts we started light db push presses, squats with the body bars (9-15 lbs), RDL with the body bars, push-ups, Lat pulldown, db shoulder press, and cable seated rows.  Then finish with abs and stretching.  Much of the time at the beginning was working on proper technique and they picked it up fast.  The little girl amazes me every day she came in able to do push-up from the floor with only a slight torso dip for 10 reps.

As time progressed I moved them to db push press, jump shrugs, squats, rdls, push-ups, lat pulldowns, db shoulder press, cable seated rows.  Still focusing on technique but working to add a little variation in there.  The kids picked up the jump shrugs very quickly especially since they had great rdls at that point.  For the last two weeks (with the little girl only, the 11 year old boy broke his patella in a soccer game so we only do upper body with him) we have done db push presses, high pulls, lunges, SB glute bridges, push-ups (which she now does 3x10 perfect push-ups on her own), assisted chin-ups (with me helping her up, but she could already do 2 by herself before even working with me) db shoulder press, db 1 arm rows.  Still working technique the most I will not push weight with these kids at all so we are just working to learn technique with different lifts.

Now with the little girl she picks up the olympic lifts progressions very quick and like I said we keep the weight light with the body bars (she loves doing jump shrugs by the way).  I am debating starting to move her towards learning a hang clean a couple weeks here down the road.  She is very strong and very athletic so I think she can handle it.  I want her to do high pulls more before then, but her technique is looking really good.  What would you do concerning this?  I am not in any way going to have her compete any time soon and I just want to keep them having fun, but at the same time start to teach them the lifts.  Would you think it is too early to start teaching her the lifts even with light weight to work on perfecting technique?

[Matt Edwards]

I think at the age they're at, now would be a perfect time to start engraving technique with very light weight into their minds. The only reason not to start them it risk of injury, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as technique is the focus and coach isn't negligent. I wish I had people having me do weight training that early, I didn't start until the end of my junior year of high school.

[Andy Dick]

I wish I had people having me do weight training that early, I didn't start until the end of my junior year of high school.

Tell me about it, but I sometimes wonder if it would have done any good because I was pretty lazy at that age.  But who knows if I got fed into a decent lifting program at that age what would have happened.  But I think it was good I didn't because being weak and realizing it is what motivated me to lift weights in high school so I could get stronger and then I was addicted.  No one to blame really because I don't think my parents knew any better anyways or even what lifting weight was.  I do wish I knew oly lifting was actually a sport in high school because I know for sure I would have been in it in an instant.  Oh well as they say "if 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts..."

[Matt Rupiper]

Andy,

go to PubMed and take a look at articles by Avery Faigenbaum.  He does has done a lot of research on youth training.  Another good article is by Burkhardt and Garhammer.  It shows that jumping (one/two foot) landings have much higher ground reaction forces compared to ~70-90% cleans (don't quote me on that number).  Get out of the mindset of injuring someone, you're qualified, anyway, she's more likely to get injured on the field that under qualified supervision in a controlled environment.  Go to any o-lifting meet and you'll find plenty of kids doing max lifts.  Another good article from the Journal of Bone and Joint surgery by Salter and Harris (1963, these are the two that classified the fractures) talks about causes of epiphyseal fractures and the kinds of forces required to cause them.  You'll find these forces don't really exist in controlled weight training, let alone controlled/supervised olympic weightlifting.  
What better way to get ready for the field/court than olympic weightlifting (except of course playing the sport itself)?