Some people think working with young athletes is not as important as working with adults.  This isn’t true.  Good athletes start young.  For trainers, working with children is demanding, but also rewarding – you can see the progress your players make.

When you train children, remember:

			Develop skills based on age and ability
			Divide children into groups, based on skill and body size (not just age groups)
			Make sure equipment is safe and adapted to the size of the children
			Change game rules for younger children

This article looks at when to train, when not to train and what to train.

A.  When to train

Ages 3-9 are important years for learning physical skills.  If children develop good skills at this age, it will be eaiser for them to develop later on.
At this age, the basic biomotor abilities are important.  These are:

			speed
			strength
			endurance
			co-ordination
			mobility / flexibility

Training children can be divided into three periods – foundation, development and mature participation.

1.  Foundation period

			Three to four years long.
			Includes a wide variety of games and fun activities, designed to build confdence.
			Develops body weight, strength, mobility, aerobic endurance, basic skills and rhythm.
			One training session a week, increasing to three a week for older children
			Competition limited to playful situations

2.  Development period

			Four to six years long.
			General training leads into specific training.  The percentage of specific training should increase gradually over the last 2 years.
			Develops appropriate training and competition behaviour.
			Begins goal setting appropriate to level of development.
			Three training sessions a week, increasing to six in later years.
			More formal competition, increasing in difficulty.

3.  Mature participation period

			Five to six years long.
			Percentage of specific training increases.
			Time spent training increases a lot.
			Frequency and difficulty increases a lot.

B.  When not to train

1. Children are very different to adults.  This is obvious, but important to remember when training children.  Adult training programmes are not suitable until children have stopped growing.

2. Endurance (the ability to do a long period of physical activity) is lower in children.  However, childrens’ levels of endurance do not depend only on physical fitness – motivation is also very important.  Levels of fitness and motivation are both very important in all forms of endurance exercise for children.  Don’t do long endurance training with children.  Children prefer exercise in short, repeated sessions.

3. Don’t set activity levels too high, or demand too much.  When children are expected to lay games to adult standard, there can be problems.  

4. Strenuous exercise in cold winter conditions may cause or worsen asthma in some children.

5. Children should not exercise when ill, if they have any kind of infection, or too soon after any illness requiring bed rest.

C.  What to train

1. Children like to play – build an element of play or competition into training programmes.

2. A good way of increasing endurance among younger children is to have a high level of motivation.  Competition can increase motivation.

3. Let children set their own levels of activity – but make sure the critical periods of development are identified and that potential can be fulfilled.

4. A wide variety of functions (endurance, strength, speed and co-ordination) should be reguarly practiced.

5. Don’t concentrate too exclusively on training only one skill.  This can sometimes mean that the full range of skills are not beng practised.  It can damage the career of a promising player.  A child player may be very tall, or a quick runner – but remember these things change when children grow.  General development, and not specialisation, should be stressed as a basis for later improvement.

6. Don’t expect all children to progress at the same speed.