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Kettlebell StrongFirst and sports preparation

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Laurent

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Hello everyone,
What preparation exercises for handball in a 14 year old girl? thank you so much
 
A well rounded dose of activity: hiking, riding a bike, walking, running, jumping, bear crawl, playing catch, hanging from a bar

Strength training 30 minutes - 2 to 3 days per week would be appropriate. Can't give specific exercises because I haven't seen her move or know the injury history. Find a coach who works with younger athletes and preferably is trained to facilitate the FMS (Functional Movement Screen).
 
Preparation exercises? What do you mean?

Basic motor skills are always worth the time. Many different sports and playing is great.

For strength, different throws and jumps along squats and cleans is a good start. Build the base before specialization, if there even is any need for it.
 
This is not a specific program. This is more an account of the principles I used to when I asked myself the same question for a 9 years old girl training for tennis. The first principle, whether you are 9, 14, 45 or 72, is that strength is a skill. If you never trained strength before, you need to acquire the basics. At 14, getting the basics right will serve you for the rest of your life, so this is the most important thing. Performance can wait a few months. I trained my daughter this winter and was successful in getting her to a 40kg kB deadlift in a few months and walking lunges for 10 steps with 12 kg. However, she deadlifted a lot the 16kg kettlebell until she was able to keep her back straight and perform the lift without bowing the legs in, and lunged a lot unweighted. At 9, she doesn't have the coordination yet for heavy ballistics, so she did not doany. At 14, swings can probably be introduced slowly once the deadlifts look good.

The most important is safety, then the basic strength skills: bracing, irradiation, patterning, etc...At first, loading is not that important, just learning the skills. I don't know how this would work with a 14 yo, but at 9, my daughter loved the "I go, you go" training pattern. We trained together and I would do usually the same exercises she was doing to give an example of technique. This was not my main training session, just some easy strength stuff to keep me busy and motivate her. Sometimes, we would perform the lifts at the same time. It seems that the whole mirror neurons thing is pretty efficient and when she had problems with a lift, doing it together seemed to improve her technique immediately.

As to the exercises to use, any reasonable options would do. I started my daughter on goblet squat, kettlebell deadlift and overhead press. She is training for tennis, so I added also some throws, mostly the ones used by her coach when she trained with him in the gym once a week.

The last consideration is that if she is training for a team selection, the specific skills that will be used during the selection should be practiced. For example, there is a sprint test at selection for tennis in my province, so my daughter did some sprints. Coaching may be helpful for such skills, although at 14 she may already have good enough technique. At 9, my daughter needed some running skills (move the arms, small steps, accelerate all the way, ...). There is also a slalom test, so some footwork drills were practiced.

Once basic skills are in, the exact program to follow at 14 would probably look a lot like the program any adult would do. If there is an off season, I would say that a basic strength program including deadlifts and a press, maybe squats, would probably do some good for a few months. After that, power training could be taken up. At this point, I will stop and not make any specific recommendation as there are people here who are way more experienced than me who can make specific recommendations. I would however personally not reinvent the wheel. Get a program you can execute on (you have the equipment, time, skills, etc...) and get moving.
 
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