Why we train Juniors and Teens, the way we do
- dorianmatts
- Sep 9
- 7 min read
I’m often moaned at by some Juniors and Teens about the make-up of the sessions! They obviously want to do what they’re good at and enjoy, and don’t see much value in some of the activities we get them doing, e.g. doing sprinting when you like cross country. This is because they don’t understand the principles of training, and sometimes this may also be because they see or participate in what mum or dad do, and mum and dad don’t do what we get the children to do.
The first point I would make is that children are not “mini adults”, although there are some principles that equally apply to adults and children, because we’re the same species (indeed it applies to all mammals); the practicalities do differ. The main reason is that adults are 'fully formed', whereas children are constantly developing.
There are four stages of development : pre-puberty, puberty, post puberty and adulthood, and they require different strategies for athletic development.
The first part of the figure deals with energy systems. The alactic system doesn’t really develop much and that’s because it’s all about using the energy that is already in the muscles. It only lasts about 8 to 10 seconds and is pretty difficult to develop, although not impossible. Why’s it important? It’s your sprint finish. It’s also the main energy system used for throwing and jumping.
The lactic system, also know as the anaerobic system, takes a while to develop fully, usually not until post-puberty. It can supply energy for about 20 seconds, so combined with the alactic will provide about 30 seconds of energy before it needs replenishment. It’s pretty important for sprinters up to about 400m, and for sessions involving intervals or repetitions of about 30s duration. Lastly, there’s the aerobic system which is the predominant system for children before puberty. It’s why sometimes we are fooled into believing children should do endurance training. Puberty tends to change the balance of where children get their energy from. So what’s the best form of training for children prior to puberty : basically what we used to do on break when we were at primary school, i.e. many short bursts of activity (Prof Mark De Ste Croix, Gloucester Univ. quoted in Runners World, )— so repeat alactic system use (it recovers 80% of its energy in 30 seconds).
Puberty obviously impacts both boys and girls in different ways and the graph shows this in the biomechanics sections and indeed mobility. Boys go through puberty and come out stronger and slightly broader, especially across the upper body. Girls tend to change shape, particularly in the hips which can cause coordination and hence mobility issues until they adapt to their new body shape. PHV is mentioned and this is a useful way parents can monitor their child’s progress through puberty. PHV is peak height velocity, and is simply the point at which your child’s rate of change in height peaks, not stops. It’s useful for coaches to know this as it enables them to provide suitable challenges, e.g. resistance training loads, without causing harm.
So there’s quite a lot going on, and the graph paints a picture that may be misleading as all children develop at different times and rates. Puberty can start earlier, e.g. at 9, or later 14 or 15. In our groups we do have some ‘early developers’ and some ‘late developers’. It’s one of the reasons we try to instil the ethos of "becoming the best version of you that you can be", rather than comparing children against each other. NB They’ll do that unprompted!
We also have to manage that with a group (based on school years, we’ll have some children over 9 months older than others). They have an advantage in sports (as seen in English Schools Championship results) that persist beyond mid-Teens! They also have the disadvantage that “winning”can be too easy and so need to learn that success will come from talent (or being born in September/October) and graft.
We have been training two similar age boys, one who is already 6ft, the other just over 5ft. The challenge for each of them is different:
for the slightly older tall boy, an early developer, it’s about ensuring he always tries his best, because he’s already quicker than most other boys in the group, so that when he competes at higher level events, he will have had experience of being at the limit of what his body can do.
for the younger late developer, the focus is on fitness and good movement patterns, so that when he does get his growth surge, he comes out with the foundations to enable him to be the best athlete he wants to be. Also, we need him to not be disheartened that the’s not as quick as some of his similar age group members, hence the focus on how he’s improving, not who he’s beating!
To tackle these issues could seem difficult, but there are some principles that can be applied and we focus on them. Firstly, physical preparation in the form of correct movement patterns, strength and fitness.
No matter how old you are as an athlete, ensuring you move correctly is key to:
1) avoiding injury and
2) performance.
I was intrigued to see that the great Dutch athlete, Femke Bol, has changed her stride pattern for her first three hurdles so that she can go a little bit faster and beat Sydney McLaughlin over 400m hurdles.
Britain’s 800m “Golden Girl”, Keely Hodgkinson, is coached by Jenny Meadows, who was an Olympic 800m runner herself. Jenny tells the story of getting home late from work (athletes could not afford to full-time in those days) and having a choice of the two things she had planned to do: a five mile run or some mobility work. Jenny, being a top athlete, chose to the mobility work, as she knew that would give her the best returns to her ability to continue training for the 800m and indeed her performances. She understood the importance of how an athlete moves. Poor technique will eventually lead to injury as the body compensates by overloading somewhere else.
So we do focus on correct movement patterns through use of drills, etc..
Now drills are not very exciting so we try to do them with some other fun mobility challenges, e.g. cups and domes, prone sprint starts, running over agility hurdles and jumping on and off boxes, or into sand.
The goal is to assist the child’s development through dynamic strength development without causing injury. This can be done with bodyweight activities or with some load, e.g. med balls. There are also mental benefits of doing this.
So how do the children know they’re improving? Obviously we, the coaches, can see improvements in their movement, fitness and speed, but it’s difficult to remember all the performance measures for over a hundred children! And yes, I have been asked by a Teen how did her performance compare to her pervious one!
We have been recording the children’s performances at a range of activities, some of which are events used in Quadkids competitions, some are in the English Schools Athletics Associations, and England Athletics PB awards’ standards, so we can calculate what their performances mean against those standards.
We now have some A2 laminated sheets where this can be displayed. It does run the risk of looking like league tables, but with some careful messaging to the children, that can be managed.
There are non-physical aspects to the children’s development when they come to do athletics. We all have heard about how athletes, and practically other sports people, use visualisation, and psyche themselves up before an event - just watch the competitors at the start of a 100m. What all top athletes possess is the ability to keep going when it gets tough. We encourage this by raising the bar, through progression in the loadings in the training sessions. Yes, there’s a physical development outcome as the body adapts to the training stimuli (when the training session stops), but there’s also a mental development to try again, when one’s first attempt has not got the result desired. This is a useful life trait.
Other Evie just leading Aria in a sprint race at Blackridge track meeting
That’s one of the reasons why sometimes the challenge looks "too big". It probably is. As an example, we use jump boxes and we have some with different heights. We encourage the children to try and jump onto boxes that they think they 'can’t do’, so we can change that to “not yet” or better “until now”. We create the environment where the other children support their efforts in addition to the coaches and parent helpers. As a result we have a surprisingly number of Juniors who can jump onto a 30” box, and many Teens who can jump quite a bit higher.
In the Juniors we want the children to have fun, enjoying athletics, supporting others, so they make doing sport a habit for life, as the benefits to them from that are enormous. To help create that environment, we have one “rule” : have fun, be kind.
The mindset required in the Teens to create the desire to improve is supported by us having two rules :
RESPECT - “when the coach talks, I will listen”
ENDEAVOUR - “I will try my best to do the activity as the coach requires”
Back in mid-April 2025, three representatives of England Athletics came to a Juniors and Teens session to see what we do. Thankfully it was a warm sunny evening and the children enjoyed themselves.
We got some useful feedback about how pleased they were that we were focusing on Run, Jump & Throw foundation of athletics and that we were compliant with the EA Governance requirements. They were also impressed by how friendly the children were and their engagement is the sessions. We recognise that we need to continue to develop the Juniors and Teens, not just as individual athletes but also as groups. So we’re also on a development path to keep the sessions fun, challenging but ultimately rewarding for the children, whatever sporting activities they do in the future.
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