How Long Should a Kid Athlete Work Out?

Kid Workouts: Different from Adult Workouts?

• Kids tend to be more active than adults. By the teenage years, 46 million children, more than half of America̵7;s 74 million children, are engaged in a sport of some type, according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. In general, strenuous physical exercise benefits children in that it keeps them strong and healthy. But all kids, regardless of age, are still growing, which means that they need a sufficient amount of nutrients and calories to maintain their growth. Over-exercising could lead to a caloric deficit in children more easily than it could in adults because young children have lower caloric intake and teenagers have higher metabolisms. If children are expending too much energy on exercise and not replenishing their energy through proper nutrition, for example, they could negatively affect their physical development. Because time working out and energy spent are directly related, pay attention to how much time your teen works out, limiting over-exercise and supplementing nutritional needs.

Hitting All the Muscles: A Time-Consuming Task

• Many athletes work out to gain strength, and strength requires gaining muscle mass. When a kid works out, he either needs to hit all the important muscle groups each time or divide his workout throughout the week to hit all the muscle groups. Either way, it̵7;s not a quick process. You might feel concerned when you find your kid going for hour-long gym sessions multiple times per week. But a workout that involves only five exercises could easily take one hour. And those five exercises might only be hitting certain parts of the upper body, such as the arms, shoulders and chest in a routine involving bench presses, triceps extensions, cable flyes, overhead presses and delt raises. For an athlete such as a basketball player, only hitting the upper body is not enough, as sprinting across the basketball court requires explosive leg power, and technical moves such as fake-outs require good core work.

Ideal Workout Options that Won̵7;t Worry Mom

• An hour spent in the gym can burn off up to 500 calories, which is about the same amount of calories in a small meal, such as in a small portion of spaghetti and meatballs, according to Rutgers Fitness: Healthy Weight Gain Guidelines. If your kid insists on hitting the gym for an hour, by all means let him, but make sure he replenishes the calories spent with a post-workout meal. Prepare for him a meal that has carbohydrates and protein, the main macronutrients needed to repair the inevitable micro-tears in muscles during a workout. For example, a chicken sandwich or a couple beef tacos should be enough to counteract the calorie loss and help your kid̵7;s muscles recover from his workout.

Goal-Setting: More Important Than Clock-Setting

• Overall, the length of time spent working out is not as important as reaching the goals for the workout. A child sprinter, for example, probably works out to increase his speed so he can improve his sprint time. When he̵7;s working out, he should be focusing on activities that help him arrive at his goal, namely as leg exercises. If he̵7;s already engaging in strenuous workouts to improve his athletic performance, he should drop any needless exercises that waste his time and energy. For example, most sprinters shouldn̵7;t be working on their shoulder strength during a workout. Talk with your kid about his goals. Once you̵7;re clear on his goals and his workout, you might find some ways to reduce the time he spends working out. For example, an athlete whose main goal is to increase how much weight he can bench needs to rest his chest and triceps muscles so that they may recover strength; if he goes to the gym every day to practice his bench, he's wasting his time, as he's ignoring the need for his muscles to rest and rebuild. By talking things through with your child athlete, you could save him time and you worry.