Strength and conditioning training help kids and teens improve their health and overall fitness, but that’s not all! This type of training is based on findings from extensive scientific research and has proven results in reducing injuries, improving confidence, and (of course) enhancing athletic performance.
We’ve designed our program specifically for middle school and high school athletes, to improve strength, power, speed, and agility. We start with the fundamentals, build on the basics, and help our athletes become more versatile and dynamic through evidence-based performance programming. Plus, student athletes who want to compete at the collegiate level gain an advantage by learning and practicing required movements (e.g., power clean, squat, and bench press), as well as gaining strength and conditioning.
Build Confidence and Coordination Through Improved Body Awareness
When you think about confidence and building skills, you may not immediately think of body awareness. However, consider the power of knowing and understanding where your body is in a given space. (e.g., how you’re holding your spine, how your limbs move, etc.). This is body awareness, and it’s essential for performance in any sport. To improve technique in movements required for sports like wrestling, football, track and field, and basketball, athletes must have good body awareness.
But body awareness isn’t just for sport. It can help kids and teens feel more comfortable in their bodies and moving through any number of spaces. We help our young athletes build this essential skill by incorporating several bodyweight-based exercises into our program, including but not limited to squats, lunges, unilateral movements like split squats and RDLs, bird dogs, dead bugs, and more.
As our athletes master these techniques and movements, they gain a deeper understanding of how their bodies move. With that understanding comes improved coordination, and with that coordination comes increased confidence – on the competition platform, on the field, and in life.
Improve Flexibility and Mobility
Our kids spend more time sitting than any generation before them. As a result, many children and teens have already lost a great deal of their natural mobility and flexibility by the time they reach middle school or high school. At the same time, sports, dance, and other rigorous activities require a significant amount of flexibility and large range of motion through the hips, ankles, shoulders, and/or thoracic spine.
That’s why we’ve built proven flexibility and mobility drills and exercises into our eight-week strength and conditioning program. These exercises help our athletes perform lifts and other movements correctly while avoiding injury. They also assist in developing agility, the ability to change direction quickly without losing speed. Our athletes leave our program with increased flexibility, mobility, and agility to perform better in every sport or activity they undertake.
Prepare for Sport Performance
Football, soccer, wrestling, and basketball are just a few of the collegiate-level sports that include olympic-style weightlifting movements in their training regimens. Some of these sports have strength requirements for the snatch and/or power clean. Student athletes who pick up weightlifting movements, and practice strength and conditioning training, will always have a head-start over students who don’t have a strength training background. At its core, our program is designed to help students prepare for performance in any sport they choose to pursue.
Avoid Injuries to Stay in the Game
We all know that warming up properly can help prevent injuries. After all, you don’t see Team USA athletes heading out to sprint the 200 without first warming up, right? Numerous studies have proven that proper warm-ups, dynamic stretching, plyometrics, and strength training and conditioning all work to significantly reduce athletes’ risk of injuries. Our well-rounded strength training program includes thorough warm-up and cool-down routines, exercises to condition joints and develop stabilizing muscles, and make our athletes as bulletproof as possible against injuries!
Learn How to Eat for Performance in Training, on Game Day, and at Play
Along with developing our athletes’ physical capabilities, we also spend time educating them on proper nutrition and how to fuel their bodies for performance. We know that kids can be extremely picky eaters, but when they have a better understanding of how the food they eat can help them do better at the sports they love, they’re a lot more likely to eat their veggies!
The nutrition component of the program includes teaching kids and teens how to:
- Eat balanced meals throughout the day
- Stay hydrated for health and performance
- Choose nutrient-dense foods to fuel their movements
- Make the best choices to fuel their bodies for training and competition
Make Friends and Have Fun!
Last, but certainly not least, our program is fun! We don’t believe that training and exercise should ever be punishment. Whether your child is a developing student athlete or they’re just trying to find something active that they don’t hate, we work to instill joy and fun into our programs – to show our athletes that training is a celebration of the body and all the amazing things it can do. Plus, your child will be training with kids their age. They’ll learn and grow together with plenty of chances to bond and build lasting friendships.
Ready to get started? Sign up for the 8-week youth strength and conditioning program now! Have more questions? Reach out to us today!