Stepping Back: What a University Strength Coach Learned Working with 11-year-olds all Summer

My name is Cole Hergott, and I am the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Canada. And this summer I decided to coach 11-year-olds.

You see, the summers in the university setting slow down a considerable rate, which drives me CRAZY! I enjoy the break for the first two to three weeks, but after that I long for the busyness, the grind, and all the fun! So, in order to help keep myself occupied in the summer I decided to help out one of my friend’s businesses and run some youth training sessions in our varsity space, Sparta. I figured it would be a great way to dive back into actually having to coach the basics from the ground up, teach kids valuable life lessons, and have lots of fun too. I used to coach youth, but haven’t done it for several years, so I eagerly offered to help my friend. Seeing this as an opportunity to enhance my coaching skills and distract my mind away from the idle time on my hands.

Holy smokes! What a change of pace, what a pile of mistakes, what a bunch of lessons from the school of hard knocks. Here are some things I learned while taking a step “back” to coach these kids, that can hopefully help any coach mentoring younger kids.

1. Coaching kids is anything but a step “back”

Kids are fun, but man are they a change of pace from university athletes. There is a huge difference between warming up a group of 20-year-olds and TELLING them what you are doing (ie. Front Squats & Bench Press) versus needing to corral a group of 11-year-olds and demo multiple times what exercise they are doing. Kudos to coaches who work with youth all the time because it is a whole other beast.

2. Learn names

This goes for any situation, but I mention this because I didn’t do a good enough job right away. As I was only seeing these kids one time per week, it was tough to learn names and I honestly just got lazy with it. If I could go back, I would not do that. Why? Because as we all know, it is much harder to coach and cue someone if you don’t know their name (“Hey bud” only works for so long), but it is even harder to grab the attention of someone to direct them to do what they are supposed to and quit distracted when you don’t know their name. Learned that lesson the hard way, way too late. Learn names first, coach later.

3. Let them explore

With younger kids, they are just learning exercises for the first time. Will it be perfect? No. Should it be perfect? Eventually maybe, but I think there is lots of value in letting kids explore movement and see what works for them. Yes, their heels are coming up on their squats. Yes, their knees are moving everywhere but the right direction in their change of direction work. Yes, their butt is dropping in their planks. However, are they at least understanding the main shapes? Are they getting better each week? Are you asking them how it feels and where they are feeling it so they can start to link the two together and as you make small changes, they can start to feel what it should be like? I’m not saying you don’t correct form or teach them to do it properly, but having them figure it out a bit on their own is a good skill. Tell them where they should feel it, show what it should look like, show them what it should NOT look like, and give them a bit of freedom to try things out to see how they can connect those dots.

4. Listen to them (not their parents)

Parents are great (as a dad, I have to say that). They are the ones that sign their kids up for sports/activities and encourage them to work hard. But parents can also lose perspective, like the parent that wanted me to do Back Squats with their 11-year-old hockey player because they have training camp in two weeks and they wanted their legs to be “built”. I’m not arguing with the parent’s logic (squats are a great way to build legs), but their kid lacked the motor control to perform a bodyweight squat with their heels down, and when we did Goblet Squats, they could only grab a 30 lbs, dumbbell before form started to break down. So again, I love the parent’s enthusiasm, but sometimes they need to leave it to the professionals to decide what their kid can handle. For example, a Barbell is 45 lbs., so struggling under 30 lbs., doesn’t lend itself well to move up… yet.

The point I want to get across is listen to the kids. If they are constantly asking you to play games, then play games. If you only planned to do two sets of relays but they want to do more, then do more. If you tell them to do squats and chin-up’s then their smiles turn to frowns, maybe change it up. Look, I’m all for challenging people and exposing these kids to hard work and teaching them movements (see later point). And when they are that young (under 13) this is most likely their first workout. Therefore, one of the biggest goals is to get them to enjoy it, so that they can continue enjoying it for the rest of their life (beyond not making the NHL… no offense). Now if you have an eager group of kids asking you to lift weights, then teach them. See what they want and facilitate an environment of fun, enjoyment, and learning.

5. Make it fun

As you can tell by my last point, getting the kids to have fun is a big piece. I want them to love training so they continue on and get better at it. I knew I only had one summer with these kids, so my main goal was to get them to have fun in each session. That led me to structure each workout with a game for warm-up, relays for speed work, and another game after our lifting portion (see more on my session template later). I wanted each kid to be excited, have a smile on their face and get better from working hard without knowing it. I knew I was on the right track when I had a few parents make the comment of “I don’t know what you guys do in these sessions, but he loves it! Says it is a lot of fun”.

Boom. Mission accomplished.

6. Teach them

While fun was my main goal, I also wanted the sessions to have objective value to these kids and parents (they are paying after all). With only one session per week, I knew I wasn’t going to magically increase their vertical jumps or sprint speed. But I wanted to show them the basic movement patterns, and help them progress, so that they can be successful in their next lifting/training adventure. So, we did pogos to teach them to be stiff and springy, deeper jumps (i.e. broad jumps) to teach them to produce and receive their body force, as well as sprint games to expose them to change of direction and reactivity. Then in the weightroom we did squats, split squats, push-ups, chin-ups, rows, and eventually got to hinging. Was it perfect at first? No. Did I over cue and nit-pick everything? No (see point 3). I coached them, then let them explore. If there was a glaring issue, I coached it “Try and keep your heels on the floor in your squat”, “Keep your butt up in your push-up’s”. Then session by session they made progress until we added weight to the movement after six weeks or so (six sessions). It was slow progress, but slow-cooking their development at age 11 is the way to go, trust me. (To the disappointment of a few parents… See point 4).

Then as an added teaching moment I ended each session with story time, where I told them a fun analogy to get a physical development point across. The topics ranged from why to drink water, why you don’t want junk food before a game, and why we need to sleep. They ended up being some of the most fun parts of the sessions and the kids were really receptive to them. Plus, each week I would ask them what the tip from the week before was, to make sure they paid attention, and that it actually stuck. It was a big success!

7. Set them up for success

Success looks different for every kid. Some of them are really strong already but lack movement coordination and applying their strength in a dynamic movement (jump or sprint). Some of them are very coordinated and can jump higher than I can, but lack the ability to control their knees or trunk when external load is added. Regardless of their ability, I wanted to expose them all to what they would need to do as they progress in their sport development- sprint, jump, land, brace, throw and lift. While sports are made up of the first five, the last one is how we increase performance in the others. So, if these kids are going to start lifting in middle or high school, I wanted to make sure if their coach asked them to squat, they had already been successful at it. Same with push-up’s & hinges.

Again, teaching a kid to land properly or hinge for five consecutive weeks might not necessarily help them on their next game. But those movement skills will continue to build and eventually have a big return. Especially when they continue to load them, either through added weight in the weightroom or speed in the field of play. Trying to keep the future in mind is a big piece with training youth.

8. Have a plan

While it might sound like I had the perfectly planned the whole summer, and the kids had executed everything to the T. It was anything but perfect. I wasn’t totally sure what level the kids would be, so I wrote up the following template for session one and hoped for the best:

• Warm-up (+ game)
  • Speed Work 1
    • 1 Sprint exercise
    • 1 Jump exercise
    • 1 Throw exercise

• • Speed Work 2
    • 1 Sprint exercise
    • 1 Jump exercise
    • 1 Throw exercise
  • Weightroom
    • 1 Leg exercise (squat or hinge)
    • 1 Push Exercise
    • 1 Pull Exercise
    • 1 Core exercise
• Game at end
• Storytime to finish

I actually really liked this template. It had the right mix of fun, skill development, and weightroom training. What I didn’t like about my plan was that I came up with each week’s session the day before. Meaning that instead of developing out a 12-week program for the 12-weeks of training, I took it week by week. While I feel that was an effective move considering I was coaching 11-year-olds with zero training age (as it is hard to know how they will progress when they aren’t used to training), I wish I had a bit more preparation and forethought to where I wanted them to be at the end of the 12-weeks. As I take pride in my forethought when I program for my university athletes, I was disappointed with myself when I realized I wasn’t doing the same for these kids. Again, while I think it is much harder to accomplish developing a solid plan for youth kids, there is still something to be said for progression and lateralization planning. When we got to the end of the 12-weeks, I realized we probably could have taken even more steps forward & loaded more movements, but as I wasn’t thinking past the next week. (aside from making sure I had a fun game and killer analogy).

If I do this again next summer, which I hope to do. I will start with a super basic one to two sessions just like I did this summer. And then sit down and plan out some of the progression and checkpoints for the once I see who I am dealing with. Instead of winging it each week. This will make all my previous points (teaching them & setting them up for success) a little easier. As well as allow me to better understand how movement ready they are. For example, if you can goblet squat the 45lb DB for 5 reps, then we can try Back Squats. Some might never reach it, or want to, but it will allow me to guide the kids who are eager forward into deeper progressions, getting them movement and load ready. Rather than have them be held back with the kids who are less psyched to participate in improving their performance.

Conclusion

Overall, I had a blast coaching these kids. It was a great change of pace from the usual university athletes. And it allowed me to try new games, work on teaching the basics again, and step out of my comfort zone. (Plus, I really like teasing youth kids so that was a bonus.)

If you have plans to coach youth, or are already in that realm, I would strongly encourage you to learn from my mistakes and experience this past summer- learn names, make it fun, listen to the kids, teach them, let them explore, set them up for success, have a plan, and lastly- buckle up! Coaching kids ain’t no joke!

Good luck coach.

Peace. Gains.

Cole Hergott