Why Full Body Training Is The Best Option for Young Athletes

When it comes to developing youth athletes, full-body training stands out as one of the most effective approaches. And here’s why…

Training youth athletes 2-3 times per week with full-body sessions offers a significant advantage over traditional split routines.

Here’s a common scenario:

An athlete misses their Monday's leg session due to a game or event, they’ve already gone a week since their last lower body training. Now they'll wait another week for the next scheduled session.

That’s nearly 14 days between those movement patterns. 2 weeks is a long time in youth athlete development.

With full-body training, missing 1 day isn’t nearly as impactful. Each workout includes all essential movements, so the next session picks up where they left off.

This consistency helps youth athletes during busy sports seasons or exam periods.

Full-body training is also more time-efficient as it allows the effective use of supersets. We can train lower body movement, then immediately follow with an upper body exercise. This allows more work to be done in less time since we’re training non-competing muscle groups one after another.

Another benefit of full-body training is the moderate training volume in each session, 

Reducing the risk of overuse and fatigue, rather than cramming all the work for certain movements into one day. 

So instead of completing 12-15 sets of lower body in one session, we can spread it out over the week. By only doing 3-6 sets each day while still maintaining the same weekly volume.

This balanced workload typically helps youth athletes maintain energy for practices and games while still making consistent strength gains.

For youth athletes who are building their foundation, this training style can be valuable. Regular practice of key movements helps develop proper mechanics while leaving room for progression as they advance in their athletic careers.

Have a great day,

Liam.

P. S I’m currently developing age-appropriate training programs focused on these foundational movements and exercises to meet kids where they are at in their development. If you’d like to be among the first to know when these programs launch, I’d love to hear about your child’s situation. Take 30 seconds to share your athlete’s age, experience, and sport here. This will help me create programs to meet the needs of those interested.

P. P. S. I also offer 1-1 online coaching for athletes here.

If you’re interested in learning more about youth athletic development you can check out my podcast below!