You can learn a lot from training kids.
For most of them – at least most of the kids with whom I’m privileged enough to work – they’re there because they want to be there.
They found something they love and just want to do it more.
And do it better.
As a result, they’re typically pretty fun to train.
They want to work hard.
They want to do well.
They also tend to show you when they think something kinda sucks.
(They don’t always tell you – they’re just not very good at hiding body language and facial expressions yet. Super helpful for someone like me who may or may not be the best at reading subtle social cues…)
And like all of us, they’re incredibly likely to double down on the stuff they enjoy and avoid the stuff they don’t.
Which can make it tough because they have no real sense of time or future planning.
So when you tell a middle-schooler who just wants to play hockey really fucking badly that in order to do that as well as he wants he needs to do some sort of cardiovascular training…
He’s probably going to nod at you and then continue to not do any cardiovascular training.
Because he hates it.
Because he’s bad at it.
But he also wants to be faster and has zero aerobic ability.
So he needs to do something on a regular basis that will help build that aerobic ability.
At least if he actually wants to get better.
But again, he probably won’t because of how much he hates it.
And because results are slow and “next year” is really far away for him.
And because he’s a kid so he doesn’t really have full control over his own life.
So as his coach, I get to come up with creative ways to include at least a little cardio in the session while also trying to do the stuff that the gym is actually good at accomplishing – strength, power, stability, mobility, etc.
For example, instead of just doing box jumps yesterday, I placed a bunch of boxes all around the training room and we played “floor is lava.”
Because why not…
At the end of the day, I’m there to stimulate an adaptation.
We’re not there to do box jumps.
We’re there to get more powerful.
And we can do that about as well through play as we can through formalized movement patterns.
At least for now.
I guess what I’m trying to say through this long and rambling email is that most of us can learn things from kids.
We can learn what not to do – like doubling down on all of our strengths and completely avoiding our weaknesses…
But we can also learn what to do – like trying to have more fun.
We get into sports because we enjoy them and sometimes it’s easy to forget that.
There will probably be aspects of training that aren’t your favorite – like I’m not a fan of stretching – but more often than not, you should enjoy what you’re doing.
And if you aren’t, maybe it’s time to try something new.