What are you teaching your kids about strength?

What you tell your kids about the gym, or the world in general, has more to do with your beliefs than real world outcomes.

Telling them to be skeptical of lifting weights? They may grow up to never enjoy training or skip lifting altogether. What we tell them is what is internalised as the truth. Down the line, it might affect their long-term health and confidence.

Kids are going to get hurt. Accidents happen, be it a play fight or on the sports field  Our job is to help build strength, resilient and trust in their bodies. Strength may not prevent injuries, but it sure as hell helps you bounce back from one faster.

Take Dhruv who is training around an injury that requires surgery. His recovery is likely to be a lot faster than a kid who’s never trained before.

There’s Karun. He’s had a temperamental knee for a while now, but he keeps showing up. That kind of consistency carries over into everything else he does.

Vedant trains like a pro - he films his sets, times his sprints and does shadow work even when no one is watching. It isn’t a stretch to say that that kind of accountability is learned in the gym.

What ties them together is this: their parents train with us too. They showed up seeing their parents get stronger and fitter. They wanted it too. So instead of teaching kids to be guarded in a weight room, allow them to be curious. Show them around and explain how things work. Challenge them to a set of push ups. Kids love outdoing their parents. Or take them to a playground and see how they move? Can they climb, swing, jump, and solve physical challenges? That’s training too.

If your kid is old enough to take part in organised sport, he/she is old enough to take part in some form of resistance training. Remember, kids are always watching and listening. The question then is - what are you telling and showing them?