Parents ask me this all the time: how old does my kid need to be to start training? I can give you a rule of thumb. The honest answer is that it depends on which age you mean, because every young athlete has three of them.
Chronological age, developmental age, and training age. I need to see all three before I can build a program that fits your kid.
Age one: chronological age
This is the one everybody knows. How old is my child on the birth certificate? What grade are they in? Are they playing 11U, 12U, 13U? It's how sports sort kids, and it gives us a general idea of who to pair together. At Level Up we go two steps further.
Age two: developmental age
Developmental age is where a kid is in their physical maturation. Some of the kids in our gym are in what's called peak height velocity. They are growing the fastest they will ever grow in their entire life. And it happens at very different times, especially in boys.
Walk into an eighth grade classroom and line all the boys up against the wall. You'll see boys who are almost six feet tall and boys who are five feet tall. Same grade, same teams, very different bodies. That's just where each one is in puberty.
What our numbers are showing
We're investing a lot of time and resources at Level Up into performance metrics and data tracking, so we can make better-timed decisions for each athlete. One thing keeps coming back in that data: boys in the middle of that growth window are growing two and a half to three inches and gaining 10 to 13 pounds every five to six months.
Think about what that means. Imagine you had to buy a new set of golf clubs every six months because the ones you have don't fit anymore. The club is longer. The weight is different. You have to relearn the sweet spot and adjust your swing. That's what a growing kid is doing with their own body, usually in the middle of a season.
That's a big reason I think strength training matters so much in these years. It gives a kid a way to keep up with a body that keeps changing.
Age three: training age
Training age is how much experience a kid has in a training environment, how mature they are in it, and where they are in learning to move: their squat, their hinge, horizontal pushing and pulling, the vertical press, and how they move their body in general.
Training age has nothing to do with birthdays. I have young kids in this gym who squat and hinge better than high school freshmen I've seen. And a 15-year-old who has never trained starts where a beginner starts, no matter how tall he is.
So when should my kid start?
The rule of thumb hasn't changed: when a kid can listen, follow directions, and move with control, they're ready to start learning. For most kids that's around age 8. (I wrote about that in Will strength training stunt my kid's growth?)
What they do when they start is where the three ages come in. Two kids in the same grade can need two different programs:
- The early grower who is new to training. Big body, low training age. He learns to move first. The weight comes later.
- The smaller kid who has trained for two years. He may be ready for more than his size suggests.
- The kid in the middle of a growth spurt. The job is to keep them moving well while the body changes, and to keep checking, because six months from now it's a different body.
That's why I have to have a kid in front of me before I can write a good program. Grade and age group don't tell me enough.
As a coach and as a dad
I look at this two ways. As a coach, I want my decisions anchored in numbers, not guesses, which is why we track and retest. As a dad, I want what you want: my kids safe, and playing their sport for as long as they want to play it.
We'll keep sharing what the data shows as we collect more of it. If you want to know where your athlete is on all three ages, bring them in. Call, text, or stop by the gym at 84 21st Ave.
