Just like they need teachers and coaches in school and sports, the same is required for the weight room.
“We tell kids to ‘get in the weight room’ without remembering they have no idea what they are doing in there.
Do we just tell them to get behind the wheel, give them a wave and tell them to go?
Of course not.
We teach them to drive.
The same is required for the weight room.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
One of the craziest concepts in the world to me is dumping kids off at a local fitness center.
It’s not because I don’t value the concept of youth physical fitness, of course I do, but I also understand how dangerous and wasteful the weight room/gym can be when kids are left to their own vices.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the draw and I understand the quick thought of cheap + gym = fitness.
But is there real value in things that are cheap? There usually isn’t.
When speaking to parents about the notion, I explain my reasoning very simply with a car analogy and the importance of maximizing the largest return on our time investments, which I’ll share below.
Let’s say your kid is 16, he wants a car.
You tell him there is a shop in town with a bunch of junk cars, but also cars with potential, they will just need some quality wrenching done on them to get them up and going.
The shop has a full array of tools for your kid to use, too, from car lifts, to wrenches, to air guns.
If we were to tell most of our kids (I know there are a few youngins out there who are wrenching fools) to “go in there and have at it” after a few hours they’d be in the same place they were when they walked in, clueless.
Sure, maybe after a few days of tinkering they find something out to get a car to turn over, hell maybe after a few weeks they get something (temporarily) running, but as a parent, would you want the car your (unknowing) kid wrenched on to be his daily driver?
Of course not.
Now, what if you hired a professional mechanic to teach him some ends and outs of simple mechanics? What if you hired him an actual Pro to streamline processes and speed his learning curve?
There would be an investment required, but think of the return on not only the time your child would get back from not having to spin his wheels, but the confidence to do things safely and correctly.
The exact same concept applies to kids in the gym.
They need (real) teachers.
