[EKUAlum05]

My nephew is a really good football player and simply LOVES just being active. Currently he plays three sports.

My brother-in-law is an Athletic Trainer so he is very aware of the potential pitfalls that come from weight training or intensity training too early. My nephew was like the 7-year old in the OP. He has been wanting to work out from a very early age.

My brother-in-law started by letting him do cardio and simple exercises with him at that age (Age 8.5 is wehn he really started wanting to do this stuff). He would have him wake up when he did his own workouts early in the morning before work/school and do simple things like stretching, running, calf raises, push-ups, situps, and lunges. Basically workouts using his own body weight.

When he turned 9 he started doing some fast twitch training like sprint intervals and some resistance stuff using bands & kettle bells. Still no true weight lifting. He kept the morning rituals but now instead of doing lunges it became lunges with kettle bells and instead of situps it became situps with resistance.

When he turned 11 they started sending him to this athletic training center in the Summer, two days a week, that focuses on plyometrics, speed training, and agility training. He loved it and it had an immediate impact on his performance in both basketball and football.

Now that he has turned 12 he has started letting him do weight training as well. He limits it to one lift per muscle group and never does max reps or max weight. The core of his training still revolves mostly around his own body weight and simple resistance with large number of reps.

He is in 6th Grade right now and has better measurables in the agility drills and certain lifts than a few Freshman on the High School team.