Exploring the Advantages of Body Weight Training
Weight training for kids is often a controversial subject area. Many people believe that it is too taxing on a child’s growing body. In this article, Executive Editor TK Stohlman and sports trainer Ryan Lee discuss the benefit of body weight training as an effective alternative to using machines or other weights.
Stohlman: Ryan, what advantages are there to body weight training?
Lee: There are a lot of advantages. I’m a huge fan of body weight training. When you don’t have any equipment you get to be creative using just your body weight. One advantage, obviously, is you can work out anywhere. If you are a coach and you are training a soccer team with thirty kids in the middle of the field, you can do a workout without having to drag out dumbbells or benches or bring the team to the weight room. You can work out anywhere, anytime with any amount of space. The other thing is that body weight gives you just enough resistance. It doesn’t make sense to have a kid use weights if they can’t even do something with their own body weight. I always say start with body weight first then progress to resistance.
One favorite weight exercise is the bench press. However, I wouldn’t put an athlete on the bench press until they can at least do push ups. Begin with a basic push up and after they start getting good with that, change it around. You can do a push up with your feet elevated, your hands elevated or even with just one leg elevated. There are literally over a hundred ways to do a push up.
There are a lot of ways to get creative with just body weight and you don’t need resistance. For example, you can do partner exercises. Imagine you have two kids, one is on all fours and the other person is doing a push up with their feet resting on the other person’s back. That is an elevated push up. Or they do push ups with their hands on their partner’s back. That is a hands elevated push up. There are a lot of really fun and creative body weight exercises you can do. This is why I highly recommend starting with body weight training and then progressing to the resistance training.
Editor’s Note: Thank you to Ryan Lee for providing his expert advice.
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