How much is too much for training (U9-12)

[Anonymous]

It's too much training if your kid regularly gets overuse pains/injuries and isn't progressing in comparison to the amount of training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A general rule of thumb is one hour per week per year of age, so a 10 year old should train 10 hours a week, 12-12, etc. This is not a hard and fast but a general rule from some fitness and therapists.

https://activedgefit.com/proper-training-frequency-for-youth/

That’s an insane amount of soccer training. When are rest/recovery days for a 12 year old?! Are they expected to train Monday - Friday for 2.5 hours a day then play 2+ games a weekend and no days off?

We just had our meeting for our middle schoolers ECNL team this week and they came out very strongly against outside training because of training load. The kids have an app they use for drills at home plus 3 days of training plus 2-3 games a weekend.

If your kid loves soccer that much, a private session for skills once a week is fine, but hour to age is ridiculous bc of rest days and game days.

12 hours of soccer is actually not much for a 12-year-old in a week. Most European kids are hitting that mark over the weekend alone. And this is why Kobe Bryant said, "Most kids practice an hour and a half two or three times a week. That's not going to get it done." If you're wanting to just have fun with soccer, 12 hours or less is fine. But, save your money and go back to rec if that's the case.

I love how people make these claims about Europe without the slightest idea what they're talking about. No one in Europe trains that much. If anything, in top level European clubs at that age they train less than I've seen kids train in the US. The difference is in the quality of training.