I’ve been working with more younger lifters lately, so I figured I’d share my process for working with youth athletes, specifically in the 13 and under age group.

The first thing to understand is that they are typically limited on time as they are often playing other sports, so throw out the idea that you’ll be able to train them with the same level of frequency that others will train. Because of this, their technique retention will be somewhat slower and they may need to re-learn things every week for the first couple of weeks. Knowing this really forces you to trim the fat in order to be as efficient as possible and focus on the absolute basics.

Athletes in this age range will need development in four main areas:

1. Technique

2. Strength

3. Muscle

4. General Athleticism

I recommend prioritizing the first three as they will likely be able to develop athleticism through the other sports they play, however they likely won’t develop any of the first three outside of the gym. If you happen to have an athlete not doing other sports, you can decide whether to incorporate more things like sprinting, jumping, and change of direction if they have additional days of training available.

Structure Of Training

Most young lifters I work with can only do two sessions per week, so one session is snatch focused and one session is clean and jerk focused. In that session we’ll usually do 2-3 lifts, one olympic lift, one lower body strength exercise and one upper body strength exercise. I always dedicate 30 mins to the olympic lift, then 15 mins to each of the two strength exercises.

I structure the workout this way to give me time for teaching the olympic lifts as there is a lot more focus needed for these compared to the strength lifts. And, because younger athletes are not very strong, it does not take much time at all to build to a meaningful weight that will develop strength, so while it may not seem like enough time for a serious lifter (because it isn’t), it works perfectly for younger lifters.

Olympic Lift Focus

When it comes to the olympic lifting portion of the workout, I have found that there should not be much structure/plan going into it. Instead I think of it simply as 30 mins of snatch practice rather than something like 5x3 at 73%. Each day I have them warm up the same way and I assess how their lifts are looking and where their head is at. Some days we’ll work up to a weight that looks good but is somewhat challenging, and may have small things to work on each rep and have them perform as many reps in the time slot we have left. If they are looking really good and want to go heavier, I will have them continue building in weight until they miss a lift or their technique breaks down and they cannot fix it. This may be a PR, or this may just be 2-3 reps at a weight they have not tried for that many sets.

I also recommend avoiding variations of the olympic lifts in training. Because they only have two days to train, and one day per lift, keeping things simple is my biggest goal. I may do variations very rarely, but if I do, I try to make the variation something that they are used to in their warm up. This is usually either a snatch or clean from the power position, or a slow pull snatch or clean from the ground. With jerks, the only variations I’ll use is a pause in the dip or a jerk from the rack.

Strength Focus

As far as strength exercises go, I use one lower body exercise and one upper body exercise per session. On Snatch focused days I’ll do back squats and strict presses, and on clean and jerk focused days I’ll do front squats and push presses. While I absolutely see a benefit in doing pulls as well, I personally find that squats have a little more bang for their buck when it comes to building muscle, so for that reason I rarely implement them in the program, though If I had the extra time with an athlete, that would the next thing I would prioritize.

I almost always have younger athletes perform sets of five as it has the highest carryover to increasing strength while also still building muscle. Most of the time we’ll either do 5x5, or a 5RM, though every now and then if an athlete is looking good and wants to push the weights, I’ll let them try a new 1RM before having them back down and perform at least one or two drop sets of five.

I recommend avoiding high rep lifts as they both don’t have the top end strength to use a meaningful weight OR the ability to fight for those last few reps without their technique breaking down significantly. Stick with five or less reps on strength exercises and you should see tons of progress.

Accessory Work

On the rare occasion where we have enough time for anything else in our session, I typically program some sort of upper body bodybuilding, core, or gymnastics exercises. The upper body is often neglected among weightlifters, so my go-to is anything that develops the back. Pullups/pulldowns, rows, and pullovers are some of my favorites.

I don’t often incorporate core work, but if I do I’ll usually choose between back extensions, hanging leg raises, ab wheels, or carries of some kind such as farmers, sandbags, or overhead.

Wrapping Up

If you are working with youth lifters, then the biggest takeaway I hope you get from this is to keep things simple. The magic is in the teaching, not in the programming, but the guidelines I outlined here should give you a good foundation. If you ever have any questions about working with youth lifters, feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram @bigbendstrength or an email at info@bigbendsc.com.