Oly programming for my 8 year old

[Dave Wilson]

Hello All,
I took my 8 year old daughter to my last meet, She loved it and immediately wanted to compete.
She is currently training once or twice a week, something like this.

Saturday:
Burgener warm up, RDL, and OH squat, all with PVC

Snatch work up to 15k
Cln & J up to 19k (lots of hang and floor variations with both movements to keep her attention)

then fun stuff - pushups, pullups, situps etc...

Monday or Tuesday
Deadlift or Squat variation
Conservative totals:

Dead Lift 34.5k
B Squat 31k
F Squat 22.5k




My daughter is still excited to compete (looking at April or August) and she is asking for more. Should I add a little more work load. Is she ready?

Here is some back ground:
8 (9 in April) years old
weight 29k

Gymnastics from age 4 to 6
2 years of soccer, 3 years of baseball, 1 year basketball, CrossFit now and then for the past 2 years,and Karate for about a year.
She loves squats, and the Clean & jerk

[Chris Forbis]

I have nothing to add of use. I just think it is awesome that an eight year old girl is interested in o-lifting.

Updates on her progress are much anticipated.

[Frank Needham]

What he said, I'm excited for the both of you. Cool experience to share with your kid.

[sarena kopciel]

Wow I wish someone took me to O practice as a kid! What I am not a kid anymore!!

I just think its great to share this remarkable journey with your child! Enjoy it!!

[Yuen Sohn]

Dave,
Though it doesn't provide any specifics, here is an interesting interview with Coach Peter Roselli. Some of the discussion touches on age and frequency of training:
http://weightliftingexchange.com/ind...49&Itemi d=58

Points 1, 4, 5, 14 and 15 may be of interest to you.

Oh and it's great your daughter is showing interest at such an early age...and that you're providing that for her. Very cool.

[Don Stevenson]

Awesome that your daughter is interested in weightlifting! I press ganged my younger brother (13) into it this year and he's loving it too.

A few things from my experience of dealing with juniors.

1. Keep things fun and varied, focus a lot on technique and speed, strength can be built later.

2. Don't specialise early. Make sure you include all of the basics push, pull, squat, deadlift and mid section exercises and don;t just focus on the O lifts. We get our juniors to do a lot of core work (plank holds, sit ups, back extensions etc) as well as general "bodybuilding" type work (pullups, pushups, bench press etc)

3. Max 3 sessions a week of weightlifting, max 3 weeks of increasing load before a week long back off.

4. Progress slowly and watch for signs of discomfort or pain. Anytime a kid starts to rub a shoulder or screws up their face doing an exercise it's time to ask questions. at 8 you've got 20 years to develop a junior into a world class athlete but if they do an injury now they may carry it all the way through. At the first sign of pain (not muscular soreness) back right off for at least 3 days and re evaluate.

5. Physio screening - sometimes worth getting a physiotherapist or sports science / biomechanist to assess kids on a yearly basis to pick up any functional deficits that could lead to injuries.

6. Enforce good warm up, hydration and stretching habits. Our juniors are shocking at this and need to be watched constantly to make sure they warm up and stretch.

I think thats the main stuff, i'll have to get around to writing an article on this some day

[Greg Everett]

Don's advice is solid. I think the key as he said is not to specialize too much yet. This is the time for well-rounded GPP work.

[Dave Wilson]

Thank you everyone, this has been a big help