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Recently, I was asked by a group of peewee league football parents to train their kids for the upcoming tryouts. My first response to them was, “They’re eight years old. They should be having fun, not being pressured to win at all costs.”
They explained to me that other parents had hired strength and conditioning coaches and that they feared their kids would be left behind come cut day. We all know how impressionable kids are at that age and how much a cut will potentially ruin athletics for a kid for years to come. So I took on this challenge reluctantly…at first.
It is no longer reluctant. I relish the opportunity to help mold them with proper training and proper mechanics. It has become the highlight of my training week. All sentimental stuff aside, training kids that young means you must have control over the group. Their attention span is about as short as a match, and you need to ensure that you have their full attention and don’t come off like a 1970s era gym teacher. Make it challenging and fun and don’t forget the fun part. Don’t expect the kids to have a good time if it’s all work and no play. Set aside time at the end for a game, and make sure you constantly use positive reinforcement when they do something correct. In addition, fix their mistakes without being negative. It’s your job to ensure these kids learn. By being negative, you’ll ensure they won’t.
One obvious point—call them by name. Don’t neglect that. Parents love to hear, “Great run, Derek. Good job.” And so do the kids. Build pride and make them happy to be learning.
Each session is one hour in length. Here’s a sample session of what I do:
Warm ups
Hip and shoulder mobility work
20 yards and back of:
- High knees
- Carioca
- Bounders
- Side shuffle
- Backpedal (reinforce proper backpedal technique with the weight on the balls of the feet and the upper body bent forward at the waist)
Plyometrics
Most of the plyometrics I do are light. There aren’t any box jumps or depth jumps yet. But I use some drills to help teach their bodies to be more explosive and not just have breakaway speed.
- Jump rope, 3 x 1 minute
- Double leg forward hops, 4 X 10 yards up/10 yards back
- Standing broad jumps, 3 X 3
- Standing one leg hops, 3 X 20 seconds
My reasoning for this assortment is to teach them how to move their feet fast, how to rebound quickly, how to exert maximum force when necessary, and how to balance themselves. It may not be perfect, but I feel it works.
Strength
Eight year olds don’t need to be put under a bar. They need to be comfortable in their own bodies. They need to learn the proper mechanics of doing squats, push-ups, and core work and how to do them safely. Time was spent teaching proper form of push-ups, squats, and planks. I don’t have access to a pull-up bar where I train these kids, so I have to skip that part of it for now.
Push-ups: We start with the entire body on the ground and the hands in place. On my count, they push up to the prone position and repeat only on my count. There isn’t any racing to the finish here. We do 3 X 20.
This builds strength and some explosiveness in the upper body without the stress of throwing or the issues of teaching eight year olds the proper throwing mechanics. All of these kids can do push-ups very well. One of them even did 50 in a row, so the logical next step was to incorporate a small bit of explosiveness to them.
Squats: We do 3 X 25, again on my count. All of these kids can do squats very well, and form isn’t an issue. We also do box squats off bleacher seats for 3 X 10.
Luckily, there are bleachers nearby that work perfectly for this. So I decided to incorporate an easy form of body weight box squats. The rule is they have to sit down as they do on a chair and keep their abs tight. On my count, they stand up as fast as they can without using their hands to help themselves up. At first, most couldn’t do it. Now, they all can and it’s showing in the drills.
Sports-specific drills
We do various lateral movement drills, cutback drills, backward pursuit drills, and other football drills related to moving on the field with and without the ball. Most eight year olds have just one path—straight ahead. I’m trying to teach them how to move side to side, cut back, pursue backward and then quickly transition to a sprint, and stay in proper position to be ready to make a move or a tackle.
I end all sessions with a game of touch football for the remainder of the time. This is their reward for a job well done. Like I said, it can’t be all work and no play for eight-year-old kids. Of course, I play quarterback and keep the peace between super competitive kids.
I believe this is a good template for getting young kids in shape and ready for football season. It teaches basic movements and basic explosiveness and allows for enough repetitive drills to teach the body how to react and move. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoy working with these kids, and I’m glad the parents trusted me enough to be the guy to help them on their path to athletic success.