What training should my child be doing?

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.