Wondering about the pros and cons of weight training for kids? We’ll show you why the benefits are overwhelming…

Approx. read time: 2 min.

1lbs of muscle increases your resting caloric expenditure 30-50 calories per day. At Sandbox, the average teen lifter will gain at least 7lbs of muscle in their first year of working out (3 days/wk with a low to moderate effort at eating a balanced diet). That’s an extra 210 to 350 calories burned per day at rest… That’s 21.9 to 36.5 pounds per year!

Imagine if you did that as a teenager… hindsight 20/20 eh?!

Whether your teen is interested in working out or not. Exposing them to a fun and empowering fitness experience could be one of the best gifts that you ever give them.

When you’re young, you just have no idea how impressionable you are. When I was a kid I was lucky enough to have baseball and fitness to keep me out of trouble (despite my best efforts). But I knew kids that didn’t have the same luxuries, and they did what kids do… They get into trouble.

The pre frontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for discernment) isn’t fully formed in the teen years. As time goes on, that part of our brain grows and we’re able to consciously refine what we want, but that doesn’t change the fact that those teen years lay a strong foundation for adult decision making.

That’s the first reason I think personal training deserves some consideration as your kid grows up. It’s just a fact… The younger we’re exposed, the easier it is.

The second reason is that weight lifting is getting a better reputation every year as being one of the only exercise methods to be directly correlated to increasing life longevity. As weight lifting continues to grow in credibility, it also grows in complexity. Hitting the elliptical for 30 minutes then hoping on some random machines is great, but that’ll just scratch the surface on the benefits of becoming proficient with weight training and program design

One of the best parts is the learning curve for teens in the weight room is CRAZY fast. I can get them to master complex movements in 6 sessions or less instead of the 60 sessions (or more) it can take with an older body.

Imagine if you had learned how to lift weights, properly fascial stretch and foam roll as a teen? Imagine the money you’d save trying to reverse the effects of stress, gravity and aging. Teens doing some personal training early just keeps paying off.

A couple final thoughts, society has accidentally screwed up how we see exercise. Half the time it’s framed up to be punishment. We all have had those teachers or coaches that’ve said “take a lap” whenever you’ve acted out of line or underperformed. Punishing people with fitness is sending the wrong message longer term…

The other half of the time we’ve reserved ‘being fit’ for certain people. It’s grown to be a source of identity. There are some people that’ll never consider getting fit because they’re just not “that type of person”. This is wrong in so many ways.

A couple concluding thoughts:

  • Find a way to make them pay for it, if they invest, they’ll retain the info better.
  • Don’t worry about them becoming vain. We actively discourage muscle shirts and moronic mirror flexing. Rest assured, if they start acting vain, we’ll make fun of them until they stop, works everytime haha
  • If they don’t keep it up perfectly, don’t worry, they’ll have fun and when we have fun, we remember. There will come a day where those memories will be the foundation of all their health efforts.