This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Your Child May Benefit from Athletic Training

Getting your child to exercise can often be a challenge. The key benefit is motivation when it comes through a third party, such as a personal trainer.

Age is an important factor to determine if your child should have a trainer.

Kids’ muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments are ready to be pushed to a certain limit as young as 15. These days, youngsters are more skilled in sports than they were 15 to 20 years ago. However, that can leave a child vulnerable to injuries.

Find out what's happening in Long Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Unfortunately their skill level exceeds their strength level, so we seeing a disproportionate number of injuries and it's because they need to get stronger. With proper personal training, kids are getting stronger, and are performing better.

Another way to achieve athletic improvement is our sports training program, which is primarily young athletes looking to maximize their skills. We also train several kids at a time. They work on agility using the ladder, plyometric sequences, band stretches for hips and thigh strengthening, some age-appropriate free weights and proper flexibility training to reduce risk of injury.

Find out what's happening in Long Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Working out in groups has its benefits. It's a good opportunity for youngsters to work out and see their friends. Then it becomes fun.

You can't train young athletes like little adults and that is what occurs in many other places. We take an adult program and apply it to young athletes. We perform a proper assessment and build a program around that.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?