11 year old boy and soccer fitness

M

motivatedat40

0
Hi everyone
I am new to the forum and would like some advice from anyone that may be qualified to help.
My 11 year old son plays rep soccer and feels that he needs to improve his general fitness which has declined over the last couple of years.
He is 4ft 10in and 94lbs which is a relatively healthy weight for his age.
He currently trains with his team indoors on Sundays and Mondays for 1.5 hours each day per session and will continue to do so until the season begins in May at which time he should be able to get outside due to better weather.
What advice can any of you give me as a parent to help him implement some excercise throughout the rest of the week to help with his stamina and endurance.
We have a treadmill at home as well as a bench with free weights, dumbells and an excercise ball.
I dont want him to do anything that may be detrimental to his soccer skills but any advice on a set routine that he could follow Tuesday to Saturday would be appreciated.
Recently he has taken an interest in his general eating habits and we have encouraged him to continue to eat smarter which he seems to have imbraced.
Any help regarding excercise and nutrition applicable to youth soccer would be much appreciated.
Thanks
 
motivatedat40 said:
Hi everyone
I am new to the forum and would like some advice from anyone that may be qualified to help.
My 11 year old son plays rep soccer and feels that he needs to improve his general fitness which has declined over the last couple of years.
He is 4ft 10in and 94lbs which is a relatively healthy weight for his age.
He currently trains with his team indoors on Sundays and Mondays for 1.5 hours each day per session and will continue to do so until the season begins in May at which time he should be able to get outside due to better weather.
What advice can any of you give me as a parent to help him implement some excercise throughout the rest of the week to help with his stamina and endurance.
We have a treadmill at home as well as a bench with free weights, dumbells and an excercise ball.
I dont want him to do anything that may be detrimental to his soccer skills but any advice on a set routine that he could follow Tuesday to Saturday would be appreciated.
Recently he has taken an interest in his general eating habits and we have encouraged him to continue to eat smarter which he seems to have imbraced.
Any help regarding excercise and nutrition applicable to youth soccer would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum, young man! :)

We have many here that can assist you, I wish you luck with your fitness quest!


Chillen
 
Well if your son wants better stamina, I would recommend interval training. I wouldn't know what would be acceptable for that age group, but I'm 15, and my interval training consists of intervals anywhere from 10x200m to 4x1000m. Try starting him at 4x200m dashes with 1 minute rest, or have him do HITT.
http://training.fitness.com/interval-training/hitt-explained-18503.html

As far as eating healthy goes, he can cut out anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup, and have him eat only complex carbohydrates.
Ex. Whole wheat breads, oatmeal, brown rice etc.

I don't think he needs to train with weights at that age, pushups,situps etc. would suffice.
 
You should check with his coach and build from what hes already doing in his sessions with the team. That way you know what hes accustomed to doing and can ease into harder stuff. Plus the coach is probably better trained to deal with young people and ive never worked with someone so young. Safety first is the best way to go cuz i would hate to see him get hurt in any way.

Having said that i wouldnt start using the weights yet, cuz hes a little young. i would start him doing burpees, push ups, chin ups, bodyweight squats, jumping jacks and other body weight exercises. Which ones he does will be based on his strength level of course.

He should start out slowly and increase the intensity over time so he doesnt overdo it. He can do these exercises in a circuit type fashion, going from one to the next with as little rest as possible while timing himself and trying to beat that time next session.

Always start with a light 5-10 minute warm up so the body is loosened up and ready to go. Also do a couple warm up sets of each exercise before increasing the intensity.

Heres a few things for you to look over.

The first exercise this guys doing is a burpee:
YouTube - 21-15-9 burpees and kipping pullups
These will get him on his way to great conditioning.
Bodybuilding.com - Ross Enamait - Burpee Conditioning - No More Nonsense!

RossTraining - Articles

RossTraining - Articles

Once again these are just my thoughts and opinions. its great to see such a young guy interested in improving his fitness.

Best of luck to him and i hope this helped.
 
Thanks Pinoyballa
I guess interval sprinting on the treadmill may be a good way to go for now (we still have a few feet of snow outside) and limited space for him to run inside.
He has actually cut out most high cornsyrup products already (I started educating myself on my own diet recently and tracking my own caloric intake which he is interested in and asks about all the time, we have had some good positive discussions tracking some of the junk that we used to eat).
I thought some light weight training may help like light squating, lunges, hamstring curls and some core excercises with the excercise ball.
I work out around 4 times a week and he seems quite keen on joining his dad for some excercise time.
Thanks for the reply guys and if anyone else has any input it would be appreciated.
 
Thanks Wesrman

Good sensible advice.
I will look through the links that you posted.
I think making it fun like you suggested trying to beat his personal best is a great idea to keep it interesting and for him to see some reward for the energy expended is always a good strategy.
He has been playing at a decent level since he was 5 and it's only the last year or so that he seems to be struggling with his fitness, i just chalked it down to his body growing and getting unco-ordinated but i dont think it is just that anymore. I think it is more related to his diet and physical activity so I am trying to encourage him as he seems to want to improve it.
It's so hard getting young kids to start eating properly when there is so much crap out there that's marketed as acceptable to them.
I hoping for him that diet education and encouraging general fitness at an impressionable age is the way to go and maybe he can make better decisions when it comes to chosing good calories as he gets older and i am not there to help him all the time.
 
This all seems a little exsessive for an 11 year old...shouldn't he be climbing trees and melting plastic soldiers rather than getting down to serious training?

I'm not a fitness expert by any stretch of the imagination, but wouldn't a better idea would be to get them involved in other sports and help them develop a better understanding of their body? Sport at that age should be ALL about the fun and not about the competitive edge - they'll be plenty of time for him to go hardcore on the football training when he's an appropriate age for that kind of thing!
 
chris_pikeuk said:
This all seems a little exsessive for an 11 year old...shouldn't he be climbing trees and melting plastic soldiers rather than getting down to serious training?

I'm not a fitness expert by any stretch of the imagination, but wouldn't a better idea would be to get them involved in other sports and help them develop a better understanding of their body? Sport at that age should be ALL about the fun and not about the competitive edge - they'll be plenty of time for him to go hardcore on the football training when he's an appropriate age for that kind of thing!
Click to expand...

Please look at the dates of the last post before you reply. The last post was nearly 3 months old.
 
motivatedat40 said:
Hi everyone
I am new to the forum and would like some advice from anyone that may be qualified to help.
My 11 year old son plays rep soccer and feels that he needs to improve his general fitness which has declined over the last couple of years.
He is 4ft 10in and 94lbs which is a relatively healthy weight for his age.
He currently trains with his team indoors on Sundays and Mondays for 1.5 hours each day per session and will continue to do so until the season begins in May at which time he should be able to get outside due to better weather.
What advice can any of you give me as a parent to help him implement some excercise throughout the rest of the week to help with his stamina and endurance.
We have a treadmill at home as well as a bench with free weights, dumbells and an excercise ball.
I dont want him to do anything that may be detrimental to his soccer skills but any advice on a set routine that he could follow Tuesday to Saturday would be appreciated.
Recently he has taken an interest in his general eating habits and we have encouraged him to continue to eat smarter which he seems to have imbraced.
Any help regarding excercise and nutrition applicable to youth soccer would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Well, you're a parent. You'll know what is sensible for a growing boy to eat at his age.

As for the getting in shape.. the soccer practices on Sunday and Monday + the games he will play are probably just not enough. I don't suggest any weightlifting at that age, just stick to cardio, push ups, and sit ups.

A good thing to do daily (it would maybe take 10-15 minutes to do)
1 minute of sprinting
25 push ups
25 sit ups
5 minutes of a light jog
25 push ups
25 sit ups
1 minute of sprinting

That might seem hard, but after he gets used to it he will have his breath for much longer than before. As he gets in better shape, make the workout a little bit harder. The key with this workout, is to not let him stop too much (for a breather).
 
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