Kid’s training

Triathlon Forum
1

Hello forum,

My 10 year old daughter has participated in two triathlons just for fun but now she tells me she wants to be competitive. I’d like to put together a program for her that is primarily fun but has a performance element (we are in this for the long haul – I’d rather she live a triathlete’s lifestyle than burn out trying to be a professional before puberty).

Her previous races were 100m/5k/1.5k and 150m/6k/2k. She currently swims once a week for about a mile with her swim club. She has ridden 30k at my run pace a couple of times and 20k many times but has never tried to ride quickly or trained on a regular basis. She has never done any regular run training.

I think I can work out the basics of a training program for her but am seeking some guidance on overall training volume. I don’t have any experience with child athletes.

2

I would advise against having a formal training plan for her. The thing that you guys have right now, where she bikes while you run and swims occasionally is fine for her to be able to handle the racing that she does. I would strongly advise against she doing any distance running.

At her age, she will profit more from doing sports that build motor coordination, since she is at a critical age for building those skills. Even swimming is a relatively simple sport for a kid that age to learn. Also kids until the age of 16-18 are “aerobic machines”, meaning that any activity they do engages primarily their aerobic system. So even playing catch in school, or soccer and basketball, they’re building aerobic capacity. Other good sports to consider are for example gymnastics and judo, sports that mantain flexibility and build strength.

She will have plenty of time to do dumb sports like swim, bike and run later in life :slight_smile:

3

I’ve got to agree with Paulo. Continue what you’re doing now and throw in a few other sports just for fun. Once she has a formal training plan, it’s going to take the fun out of it. Plus, I think some of what she loves about the training is that she’s spending time with you. Lots of time for her to specialize later in life. She should be soaking it all up now. I also have a 10 year old daughter. She hasn’t shown an interest in tris (yet!), but she has gone from gymnastics to basketball to volleyball in the past year and has been enjoying every bit of it.

Dawn

4

Of course, everything below is premised on the assumption that your daughter actually wants to do this but from your post it sounds like she is eager so here are my suggestions. based on my experience with my 3 kids.

Whatever you do, I’d suggest that you get her involved some organized activity. Ramping up her swimming would be the best since she already is doing some of it. Age group competetive swimming is great for a budding triathlete not just for the actual swimming but because it offers by far the best coaching for a kid your daughter’s age. She will learn more than you can teach her. Also, check and see if her school has a track or cross country team. My kid’s middle school had a track and cross country program and it was alot of fun. (It was started and coached by parents so maybe you could get one going . . . . )

While you can come up with a tri specific training program for her, having her train on her own has 2 big disadvantages. The solitary training of a triathlete is great for an adult juggling a tight schedule but it is not the best thing for a kid. The biggest thing she’ll be missing out on if she just does a kid sized tri program is the social aspects of getting involved in some sort of youth sports program. She’ll have fun placing well at a kids tri but she’ll have alot more fun at the swim team dance or soccer team sleep over. Second, while kids are willing to do a considerable amount of work, most kids (adults too!) lack the discipline to get themselves up and out the door day in and day out. You can be her “coach” but that can be a receipe for, if not disaster, at least some unpleasant feelings between the two of you. It’s really nice for a parent (and the kid too) to have a nonfamily member coach to play the heavy when necessary.

I have 3 kids and they all swim year round. I can’t say enough good things about what this offers to any kid who thinks they might want to spend a lifetime involved in endurance sports. Besides the basic conditioning they are getting, they are coached by a professional coaching staff and they are getting a great education in training techinique and basic sports physiology. For example, my 13 year old was telling me about the LT workout she did the other day and my 16 year old is becoming quite the expert on strength and weight training. This knowledge will put them lightyears ahead of most triathletes if they decide to take up the sport as adults.

As for doing tri now, my daughter how runs cross country and swims decided on a whim 24 hours before start time to do a kids tri last summer. With no bike training whatsoever and a 3 month layoff from running, she still got 3rd overall. The swimmers dominated the event but it was not because of the 100 yd swim, which for them was a joke. It was because they were by far the best conditioned kids there.

5

I second the idea of getting her into a swim program - find a good coach, and make sure the emphisis is on fun with long term development.

6

Welcome to the forum!

You’re going to get a lot of different answers, some from people who don’t even have children. My father was a pediatrician, sports-medicine physician and life-long athlete, so I was fortunate to have him as a resource, but in the end it comes down to a parenting decision.

I have a 9 and 11 year old, and their start in triathlons was similar to your daughter’s. They rode their bikes on my runs and played while I swam in the pool. As they got older and stronger they started to tell me to “run faster” because they couldn’t ride that slow and after a while started to run with me (I’m not very fast). They swam twice a week with a swim team and after a while the older and then the younger joined me in my lane during my workouts. We always ride our bikes on weekends together. That, essentially, was their swim, bike and run training. They did kids tris (IronKids and others) and had a blast.

As they got better and more competitive, they wanted to got more serious about the three disciplines. Competitive swimming can be very intense, and burnout is high, so I never really let them do it more than four days a week, and we only did maybe one or two meets a year. I wanted it to be fun. Our school district has a summer AAU track program during the month of June and it cost almost nothing and the kids loved it. If so inclined, they can even do field events like the shot-put or high-jump. Our state has a pretty active mountian biking series, with a kid-friendly “KidsKup” for youngsters who have never done it before, and they got involved in the spring racing series. Doing these three things didn’t really get them into better shape, per se, because they’re always doing one sport or another, but they bettered their skills and mechanics in each sport and ended up being very competitive in the kids triathlons.

I am a firm believer in team sports (for the social aspects) and trying as many sports as possible (for the developmental aspects) when you’re young. My children play soccer, basketball and baseball.

And I think it goes without saying that the most important thing is that it’s FUN!

I hope this helps, and if you want any more specific or clinical information on the “child athlete” PM me and I can help you out.

7

Being a father of a competitive swimmer/runner I would advise to keep it fun for now.

Reason being is that your daughter can suffer Growth Plate shift or damage at 10 if her running gets out of hand…usually does.

I’ve seen it happen before and continue to see it today with parents getting their kids out there too early.

Swimming is great ! Low impact, but still needs to be monitored.

I’m still researching all this myself as my 14yr old is now getting fairly serious about swimming. She got ranked this season in the 50 free !

The best thing to do is talk to your GP about it, and see if you can get a referral to a sports MD.

Good Luck

8

Good suggestions have been posted but I still wanted to throw in another, or two.

While many have had a good experience in year round swimming, I believe it depends on the program SHE will be using. As a mother, kids race director and strength & conditioning specilist, it is my opinion that year round swimming programs tend to burn kids out and some may contribute to overuse injuries. Make sure you pay attention to how much they are swimming (distance and days in a week). Year round usually means they cannot participate in any other sport which is something I would never recommend to a child at any age. However, swimming is very important to a triathlete and one discipline that scouts will look at when choosing triathletes for a youth development program. See if you can find a program that offers something in between your current once a week swim to maybe 3 swims a week, but give her a break now and then.

Running up to her race distance, or a bit over, 3 times a week is fine. Same with cycling. If she wants to get faster then make sure you ride with her, rather than run, so she can achieve faster speeds.

She still believes training is fun, which is good. It shoud stay that way. If she does not want to do it you can give her a gentle reminder of her goals, but I would never push her. Also, the recommendations to be in team sports is very important. One thing I tend to remind parents is how much we played when we were kids. We were constantly moving maybe 5 hours a day! The key word is PLAY.

My kids (9&11) are triathletes but are not competitive. They are mainly into team sports such as football, baseball (boy) and baseball (turning into softball this season to play with the girls), gymnastics and volleyball (girl). However, we usually get in a run and ride 1-2 times per week and swim on a summer team. They ride where I run and I let them go ahead of me (I can see them the whole time since it’s on a trail) for sprints and meet me back so their ride is faster with more distance than my run. Their runs are usually intervals of about 100 yds or so (with slow jog or quick walk recovery) since most of their activity is shorter distances, but their total distance is usually a bit more than their race distances.

Also, since kid tri courses vary, I would highly recommend her riding/running the course a couple times before so there are no surprises. I have seen tris in a parking lot with many twists and turns to courses that are hilly. Just like you would be prepared for your race, make sure she is, which in itself will make her a bit more competitive.

Good luck and feel free to email me if you need anything else.

9

Year round usually means they cannot participate in any other sport which is something I would never recommend to a child at any age.

Why not? If you were counseling a kids of 12 or 13 who loved a particular sport and had some talent for it would you really force them against their will not to go for it?

Pushy parents, deservedly, get a bad rap, but there is a flip side to that that deserves attention too. I think it is just as bad for a parent to put limits on their kids. I don’t think any parent should force their childern to participate in sports generally or a particular sport but I also am firmly against holding them back in any way if the child truly has a desire to see how far they can go.

That brings up another point this thread has not addressed yet. If we really want to give our kids the opportunity to get as committed to training and sport as most of us are, it will inevitably cut into our training time. It’s really nice to take our kids on a run with us but the real parent test comes when we have to consider skipping our workouts so we can drive them to practice.

10

Why not? If you were counseling a kids of 12 or 13 who loved a particular sport and had some talent for it would you really force them against their will not to go for it?

ABSOLUTELY! Many concerns arise when a child participates in only one sport. The main one is overuse injuries - Swimming can produce injury to the rotator cuff.

The only exception I am ever faced with is when there is a chance that a child is olympic caliber. Then you usually need to be specific at an early age. Some talent does not justify it. Also, if you look at some of the world’s best athletes, especially ones before the last decade, rarely did they participate in that one activity until they were an adult.

Your point that a child should not be stopped is one that is rarely faced. Normally a child is not so self-motivated that they drive themselves into un-safe waters. Their parent usually pushes them. Fortunately I have only come across one child in endurance sports, and surprisingly it was a boy, that was so self-motivated he actually ended up in the hospital with anorexic behaviors.

And any good parent knows how much their training is “sacrificed” for the goodwill of their children. Again, the emphasis is on “good”.

11

Welcome to the forum!

You’re going to get a lot of different answers, some from people who don’t even have children. My father was a pediatrician, sports-medicine physician and life-long athlete, so I was fortunate to have him as a resource, but in the end it comes down to a parenting decision.
That is funny, because parenting is the only human activity where you’re responsible for other people and you don’t have to have any kind of formal training or qualification to do it. Unfortunately.

12

ABSOLUTELY! Many concerns arise when a child participates in only one sport. The main one is overuse injuries - Swimming can produce injury to the rotator cuff.

Every time age group swimming gets mentioned on this board, someone brings up “overuse” injury. In fact, swimming is one of, if not the, least injury prone organized sports a kid can participate in. Yes, in my 35 years in the sport I have known 3 people who had to quit the sport do to shoulder injuries but they were national caliber swimmers who had pushed through pain for years and years. On the flip side, I know personally know 3 kids who broke bones playing hockey in the last 18 months (2 legs and a collar bone). My own daughter swam for 8 years without any problems but one season of cross country was enough to require a visit to an orthopod. If the orthodics and exercises don’t work her running career may be over before it really ever got started.

My 3 children swim on 3 different teams (high school, USS club and summer league) that between them have about 450 swimmers of all ages. The only kid I know of who missed any pool time last year from a swimming related injury requires a real stretch of that definition because the injury was a sprained ankle received while exiting the team bus at a meet. (There is a reason lots of swimmers only do one sport – its the only sport they can do :wink:

13

If we really want to give our kids the opportunity to get as committed to training and sport as most of us are, it will inevitably cut into our training time. It’s really nice to take our kids on a run with us but the real parent test comes when we have to consider skipping our workouts so we can drive them to practice.

People always say this but I don’t get it. My 9yo swims 1.5-2 hrs 3-4 days a week. On the two days I take him, I get a great 8mile hilly run in, plus a good stretch. My 15yo daughter rows from 530-730am 5-6x/wk in the summer - I take her and get great interval training or recovery rides in on my bike at that time. Point is, parents don’t have to sit in the stands critiquing the kids’ stroke, or in their cars smoking and listening to the radio. Use your kids’ practice times as your training time - win-win situation.

14

None of the injuries you have posted were due to overuse but accidents. I am very happy that you experienced few injuries in swimming.

My own daughter swam for 8 years without any problems but one season of cross country was enough to require a visit to an orthopod.

I hope she heals from her injuries. I wonder if your child spent more of her time in other sports, earlier on, if she would still have her running issues.

(There is a reason lots of swimmers only do one sport – its the only sport they can do :wink:
I don’t see your point and I stand by my argument. As with any parent, you can have your children do whatever you want to. However, you specifically asked for my advice.

15

However, you specifically asked for my advice.

Actually, I didn’t ask for your advice and, based on the free advice you’ve handed out, I wouldn’t trust you. I see the letters after your name and it could just be a case of forum jousting getting the better of you but, based on some of your comments here, you don’t sound to me like you know what you are talking about generally and you certainly don’t sound very knowledgable about swimming.

16

Paolo, rightly or wrongly, we have all been trained by our own parents on how to parent. Again, it might not be the right approach, but we all get informally trained this way. This is the way humanity works. Before you realize it, you become to some extent, the same person as your own father/mother (I can’t believe I said it…)

Dev

17

Why not? If you were counseling a kids of 12 or 13 who loved a particular sport and had some talent for it would you really force them against their will not to go for it?

Actually, you did. And again, I do not mind that certain people think me not trustworthy.

18

Dov,

We clearly don’t have the same sense of irony.

19

Coercion seems to work at my house.

I read this with some interest as I have 12 year old son who has participated in some kid’s triathlons. My son has often expressed that he wants to do better but has little disciple to train. I try to tell him that he can train little if he wants but to expect correspondingly little results. If he wants to get better results he needs to train. either way is fine with me.

*I have started “making” him run. He makes lots of excuses and argues with me about it but seems to have a good time doing it. The hard part is getting him away from the video games. We frequently run to the park about 3/4 mile from home, play hide-and-go-seek for 15 minutes and run home. Once he started to see improvement (which was very soon) he has become much more willing to run. *

20

…actually Maylene has a point. Many kids get injured running cross country, especially if they come from a swim background. They have lungs and hearts, but don’t have 5-8 years of weight bearing running oriented sports like soccer, volleyball, tennis, lacrosse, even baseball.

When we grew up, we played every sport under the sun for 2 hours a day after school. In football season, you grabbed your ball and went to the park and before you knew it, there was a pick up game, in winter to the rink to play hockey after school, in the spring and summer baseball or soccer. I also had to ride my bike everywhere for transportation. You rode to the beach, played volleyball and dove into the lake when it got too hot. When Wimbledon was on, we’d spend hours on the court hitting balls. We trained for triathlon without even knowing it.

I think this is the point being missed on this thread. Kids become good athletes by just playing a variety of sports. They don’t need to train for triathlons. This is how guys like Dave Scott, Molina, Allen and Tinley became world beating triathletes, and their times stand up today against the best we have to offer. Sadly, in North American society today, the parks are empty. The pick up game no longer exists as a right of passage from childhood to adult life. This is the battlefield where you got to learn all about what the real world is like…just you fending for yourself. No refs or adults to arbitrate who is correct :slight_smile: