Judo for Parents . com

In this post I’d like to talk about weight management, weight loss, the methods used to do this and how this relates to your child’s involvement in Judo. This post extends on the prior post I wrote on JudoCoach.com on the same topic, but rather than a coaching perspective I want to discuss it from a parents perspective.

Let me start by stating that any pressure on children to lose weight should be actively avoided unless a medical doctor has been involved in that decision.

Your healthy child should not be encouraged by any coach (or club member) to starve themselves to lose weight. They should never be encouraged to lose weight by dehydrating themselves. They should never be encouraged to lose weight by “sweating it off”. They should never be encouraged to lose weight by using dieuretics.

There are a large number of “never”s in that last paragraph and I mean them all. The problem we have in Judo is that we compete in weight classes. There is scientific evidence that suggests that this puts our young Judo players at risk of eating disorders.

A study from 2007 entitled “Eating Attitudes, Body Esteem, Perfectionism and Anxiety of Judo Athletes and Nonathletes” in the International Journal of Sports Medicine sadly identified that the coach and club members are the primary sources of pressure on athletes to lose weight. This is a dreadful finding and something that you as a parent need to keep in mind.

If you ever detect pressures being placed on your healthy child to lose (or manage) their weight, then you should immediately address this with the club coach, or another official of the club (for example the child protection officer).

Eating disorders are a very scary illness, they have very serious health issues that you really don’t want your child to suffer from (check the references on my original post for more information). Even children who are not underweight can suffer from health issues if they lose weight rapidly, especially if they use dieting, dehydration, etc.

You, as the parent can help by ensuring that your child eats healthily. You can help also by ensuring that your child’s weight goes up steadily as would be appropriate based on normal developmental stages. Unless your child has been overweight, your child’s weight should NEVER decrease. This also means that your child should no be dropping weight classes, they should only ever go up, not down.

You might want to discuss your child’s involvement in Judo with your GP, there may be some value in discussing what your child’s expected final height and weight will be. Discuss perhaps what growth spurts are expected and when and what growth you might expect. It is worth looking at this with relation also to the developmental phases children go through (Long Term Player Development). This might help you and the club coach plan your child’s weight category progression.

Finally, I’d like to repeat once more, that your child should NEVER be encouraged to lose weight, diet, etc by the club coach. If your child is being encouraged to lose weight it should ONLY be from a medical doctor.

LanceW Judo children, diet, disorder, eating, Judo, weight

Judo is a fantastic exercise and will help your child develop physically (as well as in other areas) and can deliver a high intensity workout that will leave the sweating and smiling. As you child progresses they find that they want to develop their aerobic capacity and or endurance via running. Some Judo clubs even have running sessions to assist in the fitness develoment of young Judo players. In this post we shall discuss running and some of the benefits and risks associated with it, from a parents perspective.

Running for kids is natural, much like wrestling on the ground is pretty natural for most kids too. And similarly, both are acceptable exercise for kids of all ages. If your child is 5 or 15 they can run, the question normally is how far and how fast. Both the American Council on Exercise and the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) support and encourage running as a form of exercise for children.

The issues with running for children relate primarily to children’s ability to disipate heat and with the state of their joints due to growth. These issues need to be considered and addressed for a safe running programme for children doing Judo.

Heat
Children’s thermal regulation is poor compared to adults, as running will cause the body temperature to rise, it is important that running not be done in extreme heat and that children are not pressed to hard. they also need access to water etc. to assist in cooling. Equally, it is not sensible to send children out running in extreme cold or during extreme rain etc.

Bones
Children are growing at different speeds and this leaves their joints in particular in weaker states than those of fully developed adults. As such children’s running needs to be limited to prevent excess pressures are applied to the joints (most typically the knee). This will mostly mean limiting the distances run and the terrain run across.

Running Distances for Children
It is quite difficult to find definitive guidance on distances that children should be running, the following is a rough guide that should give you as the parent an indication of what distances are appropriate for your child. The key factor in deciding how far your child can run is your child them self.  You child should (especially when first beginning) be able to run the distance you choose comfortable, whilst being able to speak comfortably with you (unless sprinting of course).

5 year old running distances:

• Gentle run/Jog: .25 to 1.0 mile.
• Full run: up to .5 mile.
• Sprint: 25 metres.
• Focus: Short bursts, games, games and more games.

6-7 year old running distances:

• Gentle run/Jog: .25 to 2.0 miles.
• Full run: up to 1.2 miles.
• Sprint: 50-100 metres.
• Focus: Short bursts, grass track games with coach, much cornering and change of direction

8-10 year old running distances:

• Gentle run/Jog: .5 to 3 miles.
• Full run: up to 1.2 miles.
• Sprint: 50-200 metres.
• Focus: Care prevention of injury (Osgood-Schlatter). Gentle running, build distances slowly.

11-12 year old running distances:

• Gentle run/Jog: .5 to 4.0 miles.
• Full run: up to 2 miles.
• Sprint: 100-400 metres.
• Focus: Cross country, prevention of stress fractures in not fully developed bones. Development of technique.

13+ year old running distances:

• Gentle run/Jog: .5 to 5 miles.
• Full run: up to 2 miles.
• Sprint: 100-800 metres.
• Focus: Introduction to more structured training and competition scheduling, periodisation, etc.

As you can see even very young children can become involved in running, the key factor is preventing injuries. This is mainly done by ensuring that the children are not training beyond their physical capacities. Limiting the distances run and the number of runs per week is how this is done. Also ensuring that kids enjoy the running. If they are not smiling, then the trainingmay be too much.

As a parent, you might want to take on the role as running coach, by taking runs with your child. This si often a great opportunity to engage in your childs life as well as getting much needed exercise yourself. It is vital that you run at your childs pace, walking or stopping is ok and to be encouraged. Spend the time talking with them, this helps ensure they are not working too hard.

It is also a good way of ensuring that your child is supervised and safe. If you are forced to run on the road, then ensure you run facing the traffic and that you are the one closest to cars, so you can easily ensure your child is off the road when cars come by. Cars passing is also a good opportunity to stop and rest. Ideally yu will run off road on grass, perferably on variable terrain, so up and down hills etc. As long as the running surface does not have too many dangerous holes, branches etc. Something that undulates but has a smooth grass track is ideal, here in the UK the footpaths across farms and through woods are often ideal.

You should also invest in some high visibility clothing, especially but not exclusively, if you are running in the evenings. Cars and other traffic as a VERY serious issue for runners of all ages and levels. There are some very dangerous and plain antisocial drivers out there, so avoid cars as much as possible and make sure they can see you and your child!

Adding more exercise to your child’s life means they will need more rest, more nutrition and more time to recover. be careful that you do not fit too much into each week. Be careful also that running is not impacting your child’s Judo (or vice versa). Watch out also for “niggling” aches and pains or excess tiredness. In any of these cases do not be afraid to stop your child running for a period of time to rest and recover. Then start again with less running in all the areas: distances, durations and intensity.

As always, discuss running with you Judo club coach, you may also want to contact a local running club for their advice or to enroll your child in a junior running programme if they have one.

References: http://www.kidsrunning.com, http://www.marathonkids.org, http://www.runnersworld.com, http://www.acefitness.org, http://www.halhigdon.com, http://www.nice.org.uk/ .

LanceW Judo Child, children, fitness, Judo, kid, running, supplementary, training

Judo is a great form of exercise; in this post we shall look at some of the evidence that Judo Exercise is good for your child.

Studies have been completed that show that exercise like Judo, when done as children, provides residual benefits into adulthood in areas like bone density and the prevention of osteoporosis. Exercise is also shown to reduce obesity rates, reducing the risks of heart disease etc. Of course regular exercise needs to be included alongside a healthy diet. Exercise is also shown to improve self-esteem in children. Exercise is a prescribed treatment for depression also.

Judo can provide a variety of forms of exercise. A long low intensity workout providing aerobic benefits. Short intense workouts building anaerobic benefits. The physicality of Judo will cause increased metabolic rate and muscle growth. Of course if your child is carrying excess weight, the exercise will help tackle this problem.

Some clubs deliver sessions that are specifically geared towards physical exercise and physical conditioning. These will often have much longer “warm-ups” and also include body weight based strength exercises, such as carrying partners up and down the training hall, etc.

So as a form of exercise alone, you can expect to see some great benefits for your child. These do not include the benefits attributed to Judo. Judo has also been attributed with providing improved self-seteem and self-control. Better social development and ability to deal with physical confrontations.

References:

http://www.jbmronline.org/doi/full/10.1359/jbmr.1998.13.3.500?cookieSet=1

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/112/6/e447

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7789345

http://www.acsm-msse.org/pt/re/msse/abstract.00005768-199604000-00006.htm;jsessionid=J2bBRsHhrdTV5cZNWnmrYcVprFnyGJkg
VnYLfdN2BSwrLbZYvjfJ!559528755!181195629!8091!-1

http://grande.nal.usda.gov/ibids/index.php?mode2=detail&origin=ibids_references&therow=263816

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14974029

Sekulic, D., Krstulovic, S., Katic, R., & Ostijc, L. (2006). Judo Training is More Effective for Fitness development than Recreational Sports for 7 year old Boys. Pediatric Exercise. 18: 329-338. -> from http://www.coachingjudo.com owner Bob Challis, thanks.

lancew Judo children, fitness, Judo

A question that is asked regularly (and rightly so) by parents is the question of is what the child is doing appropriate. In this post I shall outline the vision as per the British model in the BJA.

The appropriate training for your child is dependent on one thing and one thing only. Your child!

In other words, all your childs training should be appropriate for your childs level of development. This means development in terms of physical, mental and emotional aspects. Your child may be big and strong, but young in mind. They may be mentally tough and able to cope with long sessions, but physically they may not be able to cope. Both you and the coach need to assess your child on a day to day basis and ensure that the training is appropriate.

The British Judo association has prepared a guide, the “Long Term Athlete Development” athlete development plan which should give a guide to you and in the UK BJA clubs at least should show what training your child should be doing.

Rather than rephrase it, I’ll paste it from the web page:

FUNdamentals – (male 6-10, female 6-10 years) this stage should be structured and FUN with the emphasis on developing basic movement literacy and fundamental movement skills.

Learning to Train Phase I – (male 10-12, female 10-11/12 years) during this stage young judokas should learn how to train and develop the basic skills of judo. This stage coincides with peak motor co-ordination and so there should be emphasis on skill development.

Learning to Train Phase II – (male 12-14, female 11-13 years) this is a continuation of learning to train phase I so there should be a continuation of training and developing the basic skills of judo along with emphasis on aerobic conditioning and greater individualisation of fitness and tactical training.

Training to Train – (male 14-16, female 13-14 years) there should be a continued emphasis on physical conditioning with the focus on maintaining high volume workloads but with increasing intensity.

Training to Compete – (male 16-18, female 14-17 years) again there should be continued importance on physical conditioning with the focus on developing maximum strength gains through the use of free weights.

Training to Win – (male 18+, female 17+ years) this is the final stage of athlete preparation and the emphasis should be on specialisation and performance enhancement.

I hope that acts a very rough guide for you as a parent to use to assess the training your child is doing. As I stated earlier, you need to remember is that this is all about your child and their development. The stages shown above are in fact based on averaged ages for growth spurts. This means that if your child is a late maturer you need to adjust the training they are doing.

The above phases are also based on physical development; the emotional and mental development needs to be assessed also and training adjusted accordingly.

As always, any questions, do ask your club coach, email the national federation, or leave a comment here.

Lance.

lancew Judo bja, children, development, Judo, ltad training