Do you want to help your child get stronger? Or are you considering incorporating a kid’s strength-training class into your fitness studio? Either way, you may be wondering where to start and whether or not resistance training is safe for children.

It’s important to select exercises and types of equipment that are appropriate for a child’s body size, fitness level, and exercise technique and experience. Using all of these different variables to choose the most appropriate modes of strength training will ensure that your participants get started safely, and it will help build their confidence to continue training.

The grid below takes all variables into account and will help you map out what equipment and modes of training are good to begin with. Follow the age of the participant and scan down the chart through each variable. Use the modes of training that stay consistent throughout each variable. These are just suggestions on where to begin, so it’s important to use your best judgment based upon your participants.

AGE: The ages of your participants will determine where to begin and how technical you should be with your training program.

Body Size: Weight affects what modes of exercise will be most effective and help build confidence and competence in youth.

Fitness Level: If your participants have not been active or engaged in physical activity on a regular basis, you want to be sure to build a foundation of basic, fundamental movements.

Experience: The experience level of your participants will determine whether you start with basic, fundamental movement skills or if you can focus on building upon previous strength gains.

For example: A participant is 13 years old, overweight, sedentary and new to exercise. Weight machines and resistance bands are consistent amongst all three categories under that age group; therefore, beginning with those modes of training is a good start. Whether you incorporate body weight, free weights or medicine balls should be determined according to the abilities of your participants.

Once your participants master the initial basic strength-training program, they can progress to more challenging workouts.
Here is an example of what a basic strength-training program would look like for the 13-year-old, obese, sedentary, new participant.

Continuously evaluate your participants’ form and ability to follow directions when strength training. If those areas begin to break down, you can be certain that your training modes and methods are too advanced or have progressed too quickly. Keep it simple before adding more complicated ways of training.