Case Study Part 1- 13 Year Old Male Athlete

Three weeks ago I began working with a 13 year old young man who was starting his middle school football season this upcoming week. Here are some key highlights of his history:

• 13 years old


• 6'2 ft tall


• size 15 shoe


• No formal training history


• History of knee and ankle pain due to excessive amounts of playing/practicing on his basketball team


• Could hardly complete ten pushups in a row

Two days before we were able to get together, a personal trainer in our local area met with him and his family and said that he needed to be weight training six days per week! Are you kidding me?

The Athlete By Design Approach
Below is a descriptive list of the approach and goals set to prepare him during the limited three weeks we had until his football season started:

1. Stop playing basketball- all this was doing was contributing to more pain in his knees and ankles
2. Evaluate and teach basic movement skills
3. Implement an individualized bodyweight strength program with the purpose to help prepare his tendons to handle more load as his body continues to rapidly grow over the next few years
4. Implement a daily core stability and lower extremity mobility program
5. Introduce selected modes of external loading to include medicine balls, tubing, and dumbells

The following are a few pictures taken from the first training session. Here he goes through a short lateral movement screen:

In part two I will post a sample workout as well as a few pictures of his present movement skills now only two weeks later.