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[S1063]Strength Training For Children

by Tom Ambrozewicz, Tom

Many people are skeptical about just how healthy childhood weight training can be, but parents should put their fears to rest-Children as young as six years old can benefit from participating in weight training. Contrary to the popular myth, children who hit the gym with their parents do not have stunted growth. In fact, weight training has few disadvantages for children. If your child want to be active and you want some extra family time, try using the weight room together for a fun experience that instills healthy habits into your child's mindset at a young age.

Children should not begin weight training or other workouts until they are physically and emotionally mature enough to handle it. This falls around age 6 for most children. If you are still unsure, you doctor can help you determine if your child's body is ready for the gym. As a parent, you will know if your child is mentally ready-injuries can happen if not careful, so your child should be able to listen and follow directions to prevent this from happening.

Of course, your child's routine should not be nearly as intense as an adult routine. At this point in their lives, it is more important for children to learn healthy habits at the gym instead of trying to build muscle mass. Until your child goes through puberty, they are unlikely to build muscles because the level of testosterone will be very low. Instead, your child will generally feel better and notice an increase in strength and endurance. This is important for children who participate in sports and for children who are overweight.

A trainer or coach can help you determine the correct routine for you child, but generally, you just want to make sure that your son or daughter works out the entire body and has adequate warm up and cool down time. Start with about 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercises. One activity that children like is jump roping, but if you have a group of children, you can also play an outdoor game to get the heart pumping as well, such as tag. Once your child has warmed up, do one weighted exercise for each group of muscles. Unlike you, your child should not push his or her limits to the edge, but instead focus on gradually increasing weight over a longer period of time. End the workout with 10-20 minutes of stretching to help you and your child cool down.

Realize that not every day at the gym is a good day, so excuse your child's misbehavior occasionally. You might want to consider working out at a gym specifically for children or families to avoid getting in the way of serious bodybuilders. Weight training together can be a fun activity and may motivate you to stick to your healthy schedule.

Before you begin this exercise, make sure you have provided enough space where all the stuff can go. If the cupboards or drawers are full and overflowing, you can't expect them to put their stuff in them. You will have to reorganize the storage space or even install some additional shelves, boxes under the bed, or chests of drawers to accommodate all the things that are precious to your child.

Ideally you want enough storage space so that there is still some spare capacity even after everything has been tidied up. Otherwise, if everything is crammed in, it can be very hard to find anything when you want it - which makes the solution of scattering everything across the floor rather attractive.

Next thing to do is to make a routine and set up reasonable expectations. Many children are by nature very meticulous and organized; some are not. Also, their concept of tidiness may be very different from yours. If you think you can see their room spic and span all through the day, you are mistaken. It is an unreasonable expectation; it will only lead to frustration. It would be better if you take your child's views and then establish a reasonable standard of tidiness, and how often that should be achieved.

Remember, your goal should be to teach your children how to responsibly look after their belongings. That their untidiness upsets you is your problem. You will have to allow them to fail at times and face the consequences of that. In other words, you may have to put up with their untidiness for a bit longer.

Reasonable expectations could be putting things away before bed and a thorough tidy-up once a week. Then it is time to make a contract.

Once you and your child agree on the general framework of the contract, the next thing is what to do if they do, or don't, achieve that?

Again, it is better to focus on rewards such as privileges earned based on achieving the goal. This can be combined with a chart system connected to other chores.

In rare cases you can use some punishments for failure, but only as a last resort. And, the punishment should commensurate with the crime. You may want to try out the "black bag" technique, which is to put all scattered things in a big black bag which will be thrown into the attic, basement or garage for a week. If they tidy up the room by next Saturday, they can have it back. If not, then the next week's black bag collection is also thrown into the basement. This continues until they do some tidying up!

Key to the process, however, is a total absence of shouting or other punishments. All is done calmly. At the appointed time you simply go up to the room and gather up the offending articles.

The black bag technique works very well. No child wants to part with his belongings. At the most you might have to use it a couple of times. That is usually enough to drive home the message.

There may be times when you are expecting visitors and you need your child's room. This is your need and out of the contract. So, remember that this is extra to your original contract, so it would be only fair to offer an additional incentive for them to tidy up. Be grateful that they are doing you a favor by lending their room to you.

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Both Tom Ambrozewicz & Dr. Noel Swanson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Tom Ambrozewicz has sinced written about articles on various topics from Free Credit Report Score, Gym and Hypnotherapy. Tom Ambrozewicz is one of the pioneers in using breakthrough audio technology on his web sites. You can read, you can reading to. Tom Ambrozewicz's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.

Dr. Noel Swanson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Parenting, Kids and Teens and Parenting. Dr. Noel Swanson has a free newsletter on and also frequently writes for Yes. Dr. Noel Swanson's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.