Teaching Children To Exercise

As parents we are responsible for teaching our children the value of health and fitness and how to achieve and maintain a high level of both throughout their lives. We teach them to eat the appropriate types and amount of food to provide their bodies with the energy and nutrients they need to feel and perform well and maintain a healthy body composition. We teach them how to wash and bathe and care for their teeth and hair to maintain good hygiene and minimize their risk of diseases and infections. We teach them to get enough of both physical activity and sleep because of the contributions these make to health and fitness. When they don’t want to do these things we are responsible for making the decision for them because we know how important they are. No matter how many times your child might tell you they don’t want to brush their teeth or eat their vegetables if you are a responsible parent you make them do it anyway. Exercise should be no different.

Why? Because while all the other things I mentioned are important for building and maintaining a fit, healthy body, a proper exercise program is by far the most effective way to improve all of the the general*, trainable** factors of functional ability and is an absolute requirement for maintaining these in the long run:

1. muscular strength and endurance
2. cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning
3. flexibility
4. bone and connective tissue strength
5. body composition

If your children are already physically active aren’t they getting exercise? No. Contrary to popular belief general physical activity does not qualify as exercise. While sufficiently demanding physical activities can have beneficial physical effects, exercise is an activity specifically designed for the purpose of effectively, safely, and efficiently stimulating improvements in functional ability. For example, the primary purpose of running, jumping, climbing and swimming is locomotion not exercise, and unlike squats, chin-ups, and other proper exercises these activities do not efficiently work muscle groups against significant resistance in accordance with muscle and joint function for the primary purpose of stimulating improvements in functional ability and are relatively ineffective for that purpose by comparison.

Children need both exercise and physical recreation but it is important to make a distinction between the two. If people assume recreational activities provide effective exercise they are less likely to engage in an actual, proper exercise program and obtain the benefits thereof. Also, when people try to turn physical recreation into exercise they take some of the fun out of it defeating the primary purpose of those activities. When you combine the two you end up with something that is both less fun and less effective for improving functional ability. Don’t do it. Make time for both instead.

Whether your child is ready to begin an exercise program depends on their ability to understand and follow instructions and whether they are mature enough to take it seriously. Some children might be ready earlier, some later. If you’re not sure whether they’re ready, wait. If your child sees you working out they may try to emulate you, and this should not be discouraged, but if you don’t think they’re ready to work out on their own they should not be allowed to use real weights or machines unsupervised since these can seriously injure or kill a child if misused. In this case, I recommend telling them they can use the equipment but only when you are with them supervising (being in the same room is not enough, you have to pay attention to what they’re doing) and only if they use it correctly.

Children should be taught basic, compound bodyweight exercises first since these are the easiest to teach and learn and help develop good habits that will carry over to free weight and machine exercises if they choose to use them later. Most bodyweight exercises are safer than free weight exercises because although there is a slight falling risk there is no risk of dropping a weight on themselves, and bodyweight exercises are less likely to encourage “ego lifting” than exercises performed with weights. Bodyweight exercises are also a better option than machines for younger children since most machines are designed for adults and too large for them to use correctly.

The first few months of training should focus more on learning and practicing general exercise safety and proper exercise form than effort, and children should be taught that how well they perform each repetition of an exercise is far more important than how many repetitions they perform. Only a few exercises should be taught at a time, and the child should be allowed to become proficient in these before new ones are added. Children should only be encouraged to perform an exercise more intensely after they are able to consistently perform it with good form.

I recommend starting with a shorter version of the Kratos workout from the Project Kratos bodyweight training program handbook, with the exercises taught and performed in the following order:

1. Squat
2. Chin-up
3. Push-up
4. Hip Raise
5. Crunch
6. Heel Raise

Start with only the first three and gradually build from there. Normally you should only perform one set of each exercise, but in the beginning these three can be performed for three circuits as a 3×3 workout to provide more form practice and a greater cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning effect. If you do not have a chin-up bar or an adjustable suspension trainer there are isometric substitutes for these exercises which require no equipment at all covered in Project Kratos.

Consistency is important if you want your child to develop good exercise habits but it is neither necessary nor beneficial for your child to exercise more than three times a week on non-consecutive days once they develop the ability to train with a high level of intensity. Since a workout should take less than thirty minutes to complete it should not be difficult for most children to find time, but if yours has a particularly busy schedule even only one or two workouts per week can be highly effective if performed properly and with sufficient effort.

Some children make take to exercise enthusiastically while others may stubbornly refuse at first, but regardless, if you teach them to exercise properly and help them to make it a habit in the long run they will thank you for it.

*Improvements in general factors of functional ability affect your ability to perform any physical activity, while improvements in specific factors like skill do not transfer between activities.

**Some general factors of functional ability like musculoskeletal geometry and neurological efficiency are genetically dictated and not improvable through exercise.