How many days a week should a young athlete train?

For most kids in the foundation phase, 2 to 3 sessions a week is plenty, in line with the [CDC's youth physical activity guidelines](https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/guidelines/children.html), which recommend muscle-strengthening activity at least 3 days a week. It's enough to build movement quality and consistency without crowding out sport practice, other activities, and recovery. More isn't better at this age. Consistent and well-coached is better.

What if my kid has never lifted?

That's the normal starting point, not a problem to fix quickly. A good program starts with bodyweight movement and body control before any load gets added. There's no rush to catch up to anyone. The foundation phase exists for exactly this athlete.

Is it different for girls vs. boys?

The training principles are the same. Movement quality, progressive load, and coaching attention matter equally for both. Placement is based on the individual athlete's experience level and readiness, not gender, and both boys and girls start in the same foundation phase.

What Age Should Kids Start Strength Training?

Q: Is strength training safe for kids?

Yes, when it's supervised and age-appropriate. The NSCA and American Academy of Pediatrics both support resistance training for kids and teens as safe and beneficial. The risk isn't the training itself, it's unsupervised training with no progression or coaching behind it.

With qualified coaching and age-appropriate progression, kids can start foundational strength training as young as 8. That's not a controversial opinion anymore. The NSCA and the American Academy of Pediatrics both back supervised resistance training for kids and teens as safe and beneficial, as long as the program fits the athlete's stage of development. The part parents miss isn't the age. It's the "supervised" part.

I've coached youth athletes in Davis County for 18 years. The question I get most from parents isn't "should my kid lift weights." It's "isn't this dangerous for kids." I get why they ask. Most of what they've seen is either a powerlifting meet or a kid on YouTube maxing out a barbell. Neither of those is what strength training looks like for an 8 to 12-year-old, and neither is what a good program should ever ask of a young athlete.

What does strength training actually look like at each age?

Strength training for kids isn't one thing. It changes with the athlete, and a coach who's paying attention moves through phases instead of running everyone through the same program.

For younger kids, roughly 8 to 11, it's almost entirely bodyweight. Squats, lunges, push-ups, planks, hops, skips, crawls. The goal is body control and movement quality. Can this kid squat with good posture? Can they land a jump without their knees collapsing inward? Can they brace their core under load? None of this involves a barbell. None of it involves a number on a plate. It's building the movement vocabulary that everything else gets built on top of.

For middle school age, 11 to 14, we start adding load, but lightly. Dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands. The weights are light enough that form never breaks down before fatigue does. We're teaching the athlete to load a hip hinge, to push and pull with the right muscles doing the work, to control a barbell before it ever carries real weight. Still no maxing out. Still no ego lifting.

By high school, athletes who've gone through that foundation can start real progressive strength work: barbells, structured percentages, actual strength blocks. But that's only appropriate because the base was built first. Skip the base and you get a strong kid with bad patterns, which is a setup for the exact injuries parents are afraid of. That's the same phase-based structure behind our training programs: placement before load, every time.

Does strength training stunt growth?

No. This is the myth that won't die, and it comes from a misunderstanding of an old, mostly outdated concern about growth plate injuries. Growth plates are areas of developing cartilage near the ends of long bones. They can be injured, the same way any joint or bone can be injured, from acute trauma or from repetitive overload without recovery. They are not injured by age-appropriate resistance training done correctly.

The NSCA's position statement is direct about this: properly designed and supervised resistance training programs are safe for children and adolescents, and there's no scientific evidence resistance training stunts growth or damages growth plates when it's done right. The AAP has said essentially the same thing for years. Strength training done well doesn't just avoid harming a young athlete's development. It supports it, by improving bone density, coordination, and injury resilience going into a sport career.

So where does the myth come from? Mostly from people conflating supervised, age-appropriate resistance training with something else entirely: unsupervised kids loading up random weight with no coaching and no plan. That's a real risk. It's just not the same activity.

What's the actual risk parents should worry about?

The real risk isn't strength training. It's strength training without structure. A kid in a garage, loading a bar because his older brother does, with nobody checking his form and nobody controlling how much weight goes on. A kid following a workout he found online meant for a grown adult with years of training background. A kid who gets excited about a personal record and pushes into a lift his body isn't ready for, because there's no coach there to say not today.

That's where the growth plate injuries, the back strains, and the bad habits actually come from. Not from resistance training itself. From resistance training with no placement, no progression, and no eyes on the athlete. It's the same pattern behind why YouTube workouts get young athletes hurt: the exercises usually aren't the problem. The lack of a coach watching is.

This is exactly why coaching matters more at this age than at any other. A coach isn't just there to hand out exercises. A coach is there to decide what this specific athlete, at this specific stage, is ready for, and to say no to what they're not ready for yet, even when the kid wants to push further.

How does phase-based placement actually work?

Every athlete gets placed based on where they are, not their age on paper. A 10-year-old with good body awareness might move through the foundation phase faster than a 13-year-old who's never done structured training. That's fine. The point isn't to rush anyone to the next phase. It's to make sure the foundation is actually solid before building on it.

Foundation always comes first, regardless of sport or ambition. Once an athlete has the movement quality and body control down, we look at what's next: more speed and agility work for explosiveness and change of direction, or more structured strength and size work if that's what the sport and the athlete need. Which direction depends on the individual, but the foundation phase is non-negotiable for everyone. Skipping it doesn't make an athlete more advanced. It just means the gaps show up later, usually at the worst time.

You can see what that foundation-first approach produces over years of coaching in our Hall of Fame. And if your athlete already has a season on the calendar, pair this foundation with our guide to when Utah athletes should start pre-season training.

General information, not medical advice. Consult your athlete's physician before starting a new training program.

What Age Should Kids Start Strength Training? An 18-Year Coach's Answer

What does strength training actually look like at each age?

Does strength training stunt growth?

What's the actual risk parents should worry about?

How does phase-based placement actually work?

Questions Parents Ask