A Father Son Workout Plan That Works at Any Age
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There’s a specific window where a lad wants to train with his dad, and it’s shorter than you’d think.
Before about six, it’s play. After about seventeen, he’s got his own gym, his own mates and his own programme. In between is roughly a decade where “come and do this with me” is a genuinely appealing offer — and where the habits you build together tend to stick for life.
Most of the value here isn’t physical. It’s the twenty minutes of side-by-side time where conversations happen that wouldn’t happen across a dinner table. Anyone who’s had a proper chat with a teenager while doing something with their hands knows exactly what I mean.
But the physical side matters too, and there’s a lot of confusion about what’s actually safe at what age. So let’s cover both.
Is Strength Training Safe for Kids?
Short answer: yes, and the old worry is a myth.
The concern that lifting weights stunts growth by damaging growth plates has been examined thoroughly, and the position of major paediatric and sports medicine bodies is now consistent: supervised, technique-focused resistance training is safe and beneficial for children and adolescents.
Growth plate injuries in young people overwhelmingly come from sport — football tackles, gymnastics landings, falls — not from supervised strength training, which has a lower injury rate than almost any team sport.
The important caveats:
- Technique first, load second. Always.
- No maximal lifts — no testing a one-rep max — until skeletal maturity, roughly late teens.
- Supervision. Which is the whole point here anyway.
- It should be fun. A child who’s bored will quit, and the habit is worth more than the muscle.
Ages 6–9: Play, Not Programming
At this age, “workout” is the wrong frame entirely. What you want is movement competence and the association that exercise is something enjoyable you do with Dad.
What to do:
| Activity | Why |
|---|---|
| Animal walks (bear crawl, crab walk, frog jumps) | Coordination and full-body strength, and they’re funny |
| Obstacle courses in the garden | Agility, problem-solving, and endlessly repeatable |
| Races — sprints, hops, backwards running | Speed and coordination develop well at this age |
| Climbing (frames, trees, ropes) | Grip and upper body, entirely naturally |
| Copy-the-leader | Take turns picking a movement; he’ll pick ridiculous ones |
Session length: 15–20 minutes, and stop while he’s still enjoying it. Stopping early is the whole trick — end on a high and he’ll ask to do it again.
What to avoid: structured sets and reps, external weights, counting anything, and treating it like training. There’s plenty of time.
More ideas in fun ways to stay active with your kids.
Ages 10–13: Bodyweight Basics
Now you can introduce structure, because at this age kids often start enjoying the idea of getting better at something measurable.
The focus is bodyweight movement patterns done well. Still no significant external load.
The session (25 minutes):
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Bodyweight squat | 3 | 10 |
| Press-up (knees or incline as needed) | 3 | 5–10 |
| Inverted row under a table or low bar | 3 | 5–8 |
| Lunge | 2 | 8 each leg |
| Plank | 3 | 20–30 sec |
| Dead hang from a bar | 3 | as long as possible |
Do it together. He does his version, you do yours — you with weight, him without. Same exercise, same time, different loads. That side-by-side structure is what makes it feel like training together rather than being coached.
Make it a game. Dead hang competitions. Plank contests where he’ll eventually beat you — which is a good day, not a bad one. Press-up ladders where you alternate.
Two sessions a week is plenty. He’s got PE, football and running around at break. This is a supplement, not his main activity.
Ages 14–17: Real Training
This is where a proper programme becomes appropriate. Teenagers can train very productively, and it’s the age where the habit either forms permanently or doesn’t.
Light weights can be introduced now, with a heavy emphasis on technique. Rep ranges stay moderate — 8–12 — and nothing goes near a maximal effort.
Session A
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Goblet squat | 3 | 10 |
| Press-up or dumbbell floor press | 3 | 8–12 |
| Bent-over row | 3 | 10 |
| Romanian deadlift (light) | 3 | 10 |
| Plank | 3 | 45 sec |
Session B
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian split squat | 3 | 8 each |
| Pull-up or assisted pull-up | 3 | max |
| Overhead press | 3 | 10 |
| Single-arm row | 3 | 10 each |
| Farmer’s carry | 3 | 30 m |
Two or three sessions a week, alternating.
Things worth doing at this age:
Let him log his own numbers. Ownership matters enormously here. It’s his notebook, his progress, his decision when to add weight.
Be genuinely honest about your own training. Tell him when you’re struggling with a session, when your numbers went backwards, when you couldn’t be bothered and went anyway. The lesson that consistency beats motivation lands far better as an observed reality than as advice.
Don’t compete with him. He will overtake you, probably around 16 or 17, and how you handle that is the most important coaching moment in the whole decade. Be pleased. Say so.
Don’t let it become another thing you’re on at him about. The moment training becomes a nagging point, it joins homework and tidying his room in the category of things done resentfully.
Making It Stick
Some things that matter more than the programme.
Fixed slot, low stakes. Saturday morning before anything else, or Tuesday and Thursday after school. Predictable beats optimal. If it moves around, it stops happening.
Same session, different loads. The strongest version of this is genuinely training together, not you supervising him. He should see you working hard, not standing over him counting.
Let him pick sometimes. Even if it’s an entirely daft session. Autonomy is what keeps a teenager engaged.
Music, his choice. Yes, even that.
Talk about something other than training. The best conversations I’ve had with my lad have happened during the 90 seconds between sets. That’s the actual product here. The muscle is a side effect.
Praise effort, not outcome. “You didn’t want to come today and you came anyway” is the sentence that builds a lifelong trainer. “Well done, you’re getting strong” is fine but does less work.
What Not to Do
Don’t turn it into performance coaching for his sport. If he plays football, there’s a coach for that. This is time together, and the moment it becomes about improving his sprint time for a match, it changes character.
Don’t push through when he’s not into it. Some weeks he won’t want to. Let it go. Forcing a session costs you three future ones.
Don’t compare him to other kids. Puberty timing varies wildly and a 14-year-old who’s not grown yet does not need to hear about his mate who’s benching 60kg.
Don’t let him max out. No one-rep maxes before he’s finished growing, no matter how much he wants to. This is the one place to be immovable.
Don’t stop when he gets better than you. That’s the point.
Frequently Asked Questions
At what age can a child start strength training? Bodyweight movements from around 7 or 8 with supervision, structured bodyweight programmes from 10–12, and light external weights from around 13–14. The determining factor is whether they can follow instructions and maintain technique, not a birthday.
Will lifting weights stunt my son’s growth? No. This has been examined extensively and supervised resistance training does not damage growth plates or stunt growth. Growth plate injuries come overwhelmingly from sport and falls. Unsupervised maximal lifting with bad technique is the genuine risk — which is exactly what training together prevents.
How often should a teenager train? Two or three sessions a week alongside their sport. More than that competes with school sport, recovery and growth. Teenagers need more sleep than adults and get less of it.
What if my son isn’t interested? Don’t push it. Try a different activity — climbing, boxing, cycling, swimming — or park it entirely for a year. The goal is a lifelong relationship with being active, not compliance this month. Teaching your kids healthy habits by example covers the passive version, which often works better anyway.
Can I do this with my daughter too? Every word applies identically. The physiology of strength training in young people isn’t sex-specific, and the case for girls building strength and confidence with weights is if anything stronger, given how many drop out of sport in their teens.
Should he take protein powder? No. A growing teenager eating normal food gets plenty of protein. Supplements aren’t harmful in themselves but they introduce an unhelpful frame — that results come from products rather than consistency — at exactly the age when that idea does the most damage.
He’ll remember about four of these sessions in twenty years. But he’ll remember that his dad trained, that it was normal, and that it was something you did together on a Saturday morning.
That’s the actual programme. The squats are just what your hands are doing while it happens.
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