Just curious, what would be a good way to help with 11 yr old girl to improve overall fitness/strength
our girl has been doing Judo for sometime after covid and fell love of it. She wants to get better at it and I wonder what would be a reasonable fitness routine for kids at this age to help her performance. but I’m not sure what would be a proper training volume or intensity for her. Is there any general guidlines on this?
You can try rock climbing/bouldering. I think it would go well with her Judo. Plus I often see parents with their kids climbing together at my local gym so it can double up as a fun family activity.
Focus on skill training, so just practicing judo and whatever other sports interest her the most. Otherwise, calisthenics such as pushups, pull-ups, squats.
Definitely calisthenics/bodyweight workouts and maybe even throw some yoga in for flexibility since she was also doing martial arts.
That’s great! It’s good to get kids interested in exercise and fitness!
At her age, the most important considerations are:
Safety — always a big priority, especially with kids near heavy chunks of iron. Set your ground rules for her working out (for example no doing sets without you present, no horsing around the weights, etc). Safety also includes training good form on all lifts, and…
Developing motor coordination and control of their body — calisthenic movements like pushups, running, jumping, etc. are all great ways to get young athletes moving and keep them engaged! She’s probably doing a lot of this in her classes anyways though
Creating a healthy relationship with her body and the weight room — especially with young girls, it’s important to emphasize achievement-based goals that she can carry with her into young adulthood
It’s also important to note that as long as they’re taught proper form and have a good spotter, it’s very safe for kids to lift weights (the biggest risk comes from general debauchery like running around and knocking things over, or training bad form on lifts, but adults do that too), just err on the side of a slower progression.
Volume is hard to say — start with 10 or fewer sets per workout, and change from there. If she can’t keep her energy/attention for the whole time, shorten the workouts. If she flies through without breaking a sweat, slowly add sets.
Intensity should start low as she learns the exercises, and should continue to ramp up slowly to build the habit of keeping good form and learning how her body responds with added weight. Bodyweight exercises or running can be higher intensity, but that varies from kid to kid (the kid with asthma won’t be able to do as much as the natural-born soccer star).
A training day could look something like:
3 sets of Cone Drills
3 sets of Box Jumps
2 sets of Split Squats (start unweighted and add weight as she masters the move)
2 sets of Pushups (superset with Split Squats)
It doesn’t seem like much, but include a good dynamic warmup at the beginning, and you can always add more if you need to!
In short, training can absolutely resemble the way adults train, but scale back the volume and intensity to build a good foundation and leave room for growth!