Ways To Get Your Child To Exercise

Are you a parent that wants to get your kid into resistance training? Listen to this. Our next caller is Gonzalo from Alabama. Gonzalo, what's going on? How can we help you? Hey, hello team. First of all, incredible to actually meet the four of you. So thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time for the question. So real quick, I'm hoping to get some advice since the three of you are experts and you're parents. So hopefully you can help me out here. So long story short, recently in the last couple of years, I transformed myself, lost 85 pounds, got in shape, figured out some fitness stuff. I've been working with my wife and we have three children. My two boys, they are athletic and they've become even more so after the transformation. So I'm very comfortable with what to do with them and so forth. They're a little bit older. My wife recently just got match resistance for her. She's joining the bandwagon. So we're basically, we're turning into a mind pump family. But my daughter, who is 11, has been asking how can she get in better shape? How can she, like me when I was younger, she has a bit of a, she's starting to develop perhaps a little bit of a weight issue. She's concerned she wants to improve her health. Let's put it there. And she's a cheerleader. So from what I've learned from you guys, of course, nutrition, that is pretty clear. It seems to me like the advice holds, even for an 11-year-old, water, whole foods, et cetera, sleep, rest. But how do you, is resistance training something an 11-year-old girl should do? And if so, what does that look like? And that's where I wanted to get your advice. Yeah. I think we should start with, one, I would definitely make sure that I help shift her mindset to being strong, right? Like what I don't want to do with her is I don't want to make it about anything to do with her weight. Even if you believe that we need to bring her weight down a little bit, like I don't want to, I mean, make sure we don't communicate that and it's around her being strong and healthy and a strong woman and empowering her like that. I definitely would want to say that, but there's a lot of, I mean, Maps Anywhere, Map Suspension, Map Starter, all three great programs that she could potentially do. I also would look for things, I think about this stuff as a dad now, right? Like I know that there's potential that I could be in a very similar situation. And what if my son isn't really into lifting weights or exercising? Like I'd also find ways just to be active with her and to have fun. Does she like to swim? Does she like to ride her bike? And now that you've made this transition into a much healthier lifestyle, is finding ways to just have fun with activity and keeping her moving more so than really trying to force her into a weightlifting routine if she's not really into it. Now, if she's really into it, if you teach her one of those three programs and she's all about it, then by all means, have fun with it and train her on those routines. But I think I would be more about just being active with her and doing stuff. That would be the way I would introduce her into fitness. That's my opinion. Yeah, I really like Map Suspension only because the main things initially with kids that age and what I experienced too with my son who's 11 is just body control, body awareness, and strength stability. So in terms of adding resistance with dumbbells, I think that that's great. But I think a good first starting step would be body weight training. And with the suspension, it just really helps to kind of guide that in a very succinct way. So I think it's something that's not too much in terms of overwhelming her with exercises and things that might be not that familiar. It kind of simplifies the whole process a bit. And so I just like to kind of start there and see what kind of response you get and just try as much as you can to have fun with her in that process. Yeah, Gonzalo, resistance training is appropriate for anybody. It's just how it's applied. It's really about how it's being applied. So if you've got a real young kid, resistance training looks like gymnastics, looks like body weight exercises or even games. Yeah, play. As they get older, it could be more like traditional resistance training. The things to focus on with your 11-year-old are stability and balance. So if she can push, let's say she could lift a five-pound dumbbell above her head, but you notice at the top, and it's very common for a kid, they'll lift something, they have the strength to lift, but they don't have the stability. And you'll see it kind of wobble and move all over the place. Go way lighter. You want to go way lighter and focus more on can they do this without wobbling and without being unstable. But other than that, all exercises, so long as they're applied appropriately, are fine. They're not only fine, but she'll benefit tremendously from them. And I want to go back to what Adam said. I would focus entirely on performance. How many reps you did? How strong do you feel? How's your energy? I would not focus on anything that has to do with appearance, especially for an 11-year-old girl, because she's going to get to the age where she's going to become more self-conscious anyway. And if the focus is placed on appearance, then there's a higher chance that there could be a dysfunctional relationship with exercise and that. But it sounds like you're doing a great job. You've already led by example. Sounds like the whole family is following along. So I'll tell you what, this is great. And I wish my kids let me do this. I tried doing this, so it doesn't always work. But if your kids are into it, a family workout day, man, what a dream. Everybody goes out in the garage and we all have a good time. We play music and we do exercises. And it's not really about you training yourself too hard, but it's more about everybody enjoying themselves and creating a good environment. But resistance training for 11-year-old two days a week is plenty. Really, two days a week is plenty, so long as she's active otherwise. Pushing a sled would be cool too, if you had access to something like that. Kids love that. Do you have MAPS suspension? I know Justin was talking about that. I think that's a good program. Do you have that? We do not. Our first product is MAPS resistance for the wives. So we do not. So yeah, that would be great. We'll send that over to you. So you'll have access to that. And then all you need to do is get suspension trainers. You can get them relatively inexpensive. I know you can go on our site and we sell them for a pretty good price. I think it's at mindpumpstore.com if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, we'll give you the program for free and then let us know what happens. Well, thank you so much. You were talking about the family. What is the family workout day? So my middle son is a competitive rock climber. So we do have access. We usually all go to the gym and that is one activity that she does enjoy also. There you go. Perfect. That's perfect. That's it Well, thank you so much for the advice. No problem. Thank you. All right. Great show, guys. Keep it going. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. The whole thing with kids is what a great story. It is. And you know, it's funny with kids. It's like when you when you talk to people that are like experts in what they call it, child led learning. When you have you see this as a parent, when your child is into something, they will learn everything about it. They'll become obsessed. They'll just eagerly, eagerly learn and absorb information when they're not into something. You try to force it. Yeah, actually, it's worse. That's why that's why I was kind of alluding to that. Right. Like find out if she likes to bike. Does she like to swim? Is she into gymnastic? Like you find something that she's physically into already and just have fun with it. Keep her active and encourage it and incorporate it into your guys's training days versus like because I do get questions like this a lot, like, you know, what should I train my kid on? It's like, well, if you have an 11 year old that is like wanting to lift weights, well, that's exciting, you know, like, but I know it's rare. Yeah, it was very rare. Like most kids are not into it the same way. And instead of trying to force it and make them train that way, it's find ways to to to keep them active and to play and enjoy just movement. I think that's the play at that age. And he's already doing the most important thing. He's leading by example. That's the biggest thing in the whole family. That's right. And there's going to come a day where she's going to remember that, that my dad had all this weight and got down to this weight and he's healthier and he's more fun to be around. She's going to connect those dots. And there's a very good chance that she'll come to him when she wants to do resistance training and do those things. For now, I'm just... But it is rare for a kid to want to do resistance training. Very rare. I'd say the average age of a kid getting into it is late teens, early 20s, you know, when they're when they really are like want to change how they look. Otherwise, it's more self-conscious. Yeah, I've trained a lot of kids. It's boring for kids like reps. What the hell am I? I'd want to go. Let me go throw something or do something more. That's why the sled's kind of cool, right? Like kids love the sled. Like, yeah, I would totally take a sled out and, you know, challenge how far we could push it and make a game out of it. Yeah. Well, medicine ball stuff is always great. I'm all about climbing, any kind of thing they can climb on. Like the trampoline's amazing. So there's lots of options. It just makes it more of a fun environment. Hey, if you enjoyed that clip, you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe.