Personal Training for Children and Young Adults

There are of course, differences when training children and young people to adults both physiologically and psychologically.

Psychologically children will be less engaged with goals such as weight loss or number of reps achieved. Therefore, adopting a fun approach will be more beneficial with the focus on children enjoying themselves while being physically active. It is vital to know the boundaries and pushing a child to their limits as you would an adult can be more detrimental with a risk of causing them unnecessary stress and potentially deterring them from exercise in the future.

Physiologically, children and young adults have not fully developed and therefore a risk of injury is increased. Tendons and ligaments aren’t fully formed and therefore any weighted activity and resistance training should be adapted to ensure they are done correctly and safely for children and young adults. Muscles and bones are still developing and therefore injuries caused from poor technique can have long lasting effects.

So does this put a personal trainer at higher risk of a claim for injury? And does their personal trainer insurance cover them for this?

At Protectivity Insurance if a personal trainer has undergone the right training and hold a qualification for teaching children and young adults then this would be covered under our Personal Trainer Insurance. Trainers would need to have carried out all the usual risk assessments such as getting the parents to fill in a PAR-Q.

Tips for personal trainers to keep safe whilst training children:

– Ensure that any child under the age of 18 has parental sign off

– You have par-q or similar and are aware of any medical conditions

– Ensuring correct posture and form is extremely important when training children/teens

– Adapt exercises to ensure safe technique is used

– Adjust goals as necessary, know their limits and do not push too hard