Tips on motivating teenagers

[Go Away]

How have you had success motivating high schoolers to take their training and diet serious when involved in sports?

I have a kid in my neighborhood who has tons of potential and no male role models in his life and he wants to get huge - football/swimming - and his coaches are telling him terrible shit and he knows it.

I don't wanna overload him with info and bore him to death. Just give him a good path to start down.

Any cool and unique ways you have found to keep a kid a bit strict about his training regimen?

 

[PillarofBalance]

I think it's a bit like trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking. They have to want it.

Curious to see some responses here.

 

[Go Away]

I think it's a bit like trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking. They have to want it.

Curious to see some responses here.

I kinda figured that's the most likely scenario...

I recently used the "every elite athlete tracks their training and their food intake, so start tracking yours if you wanna be like them" comment the other day. Surprisingly, this surprised him - he didn't know that.

 

[blubbard]

Maybe put him onto some of the gyms that train athletes the right way, and show some of the videos so he can see how these guys really train. Maybe some vids of DeFranco's Training in NJ. Most of these kids think they need to train like a bodybuilder, so let them have some fun with that at the end of his workouts. Most of the coaches think they need to do cleans all day (aka reverse dynamic bicep curls) which is dumb as fuck too. He needs to train right but also not piss of his coaches. It's a difficult line to toe.

The other important point to make is that this is HIS time. You cant fuck around now and expect to make it to an elite level. The works starts NOW. Kids need to be built up, but at the same time broken down. Coaching isn't easy.

 

[RAIDEN]

Take him/her to the mall or where there are lots of people, sit and people watch. Look for the ones that are his/her age and that are fat,obese and out of shape then ask "is this what you want to be like?"

the fear tactic works good imo. Kinda like when i would see people sleeping in the streets and tell myself "i will do whatever it takes, work any kind of job, in any kind of element, any amount of hours so i dont end up like that"

 

[Tiny]

Shit. I can't even get my kids off the couch or to study for their classes. At times I want to shove their cell phone or video game controllers up their ass.

I would love to see my kids get back into sport.

 

[Go Away]

My attempts failed with trying to get the neighborhood kid into the gym. I don't even think he read the stuff I sent him, and hasn't been to the gym but once since we last spoke...

His mom got him a big ass tattoo for his birthday (and only turned 16, wtf?!), which is his reason for not lifting. Doesn't wanna mess the tattoo up.

Fuck it - I tried. I'm not chasing a teenager around to get him in shape - that shit is silly.

Hopefully I have better luck instilling a healthy mindstate in my kids. Show by example and all that good stuff.