At What Age Should a Footballer Start Strength Training?
- James Donnelly
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 18 hours ago
One of the most common questions parents ask is:
“At what age should my child start strength training?”
It’s an understandable question. Strength training still carries a lot of myths in youth football, from fears about growth to concerns about injury.
But the most important insight from modern research is this:
Age is not the deciding factor. Readiness and training experience are.
When strength training is properly designed and coached, there is no fixed minimum age. What matters is whether a young footballer is physically, mentally, and coordinatively ready for structured training — and what type of training they are doing at that stage.
This article explains the stages a footballer should progress through, based on training age, movement skill, and development — not birthdays.
Why “training age” matters more than actual age
Training age refers to how long a player has been exposed to well-coached, progressive movement and strength development.
Two players can be the same age but sit at completely different stages physically:
One may have years of quality movement training behind them
Another may be stepping into structured strength work for the first time
Treating them the same is one of the biggest mistakes in youth football development.
Research shows that players who build training age earlier are better prepared for:
Rapid growth phases
Increased training loads
Higher match intensity
Long-term athletic development
This is why the question should never be “How old are they?” It should be “Which stage are they in?”
Stage 1: Readiness to train (the true starting point)
This is the entry point into structured strength and conditioning.
A player is ready for this stage when they can:
Follow coaching instructions
Focus for short, structured sessions
Control their bodyweight in basic movements
Move with some coordination and awareness
What strength training looks like here:
Squatting, lunging, hinging using bodyweight
Crawling, skipping, hopping, climbing
Jumping and landing with control
Simple core bracing and posture work
Challenges that develop coordination
The goal - to build confidence, coordination, and movement skill — not simply to “get strong” in a traditional sense.
This stage lays the foundation for everything that follows. Skipping it often leads to poor mechanics later on.
Stage 2: Movement mastery (owning the fundamentals)
At this stage, the player can already move reasonably well, here's what strength training looks like here:
Refining squat, hinge, lunge, push, and pull patterns
Single-leg balance and stability work
Controlled landing and deceleration mechanics
Light external resistance (bands, light dumbbells, medicine balls)
The goal - to make good movement repeatable and reliable.
This stage dramatically reduces injury risk as football demands increase and prepares the body for real strength development later.
Stage 3: Foundation strength (earning progression)
Now the player has enough movement skill to benefit from progressive overload.
This is where strength training starts to look more recognisable — but technique still leads everything.
What strength training looks like here:
Progressive resistance training
Emphasis on full range control
Posterior chain strength for sprinting and resilience
Gradual progression of plyometrics
Structured acceleration and change of direction work
This stage is where physical differences between players often start to appear — not because of age, but because of preparation.
Stage 4: Growth-phase management (a critical checkpoint)
This stage isn’t about moving forward — it’s about protecting what’s already been built.
During rapid growth phases, many players experience:
Temporary drops in coordination
Changes in running mechanics
Reduced mobility
Increased injury risk
What strength training looks like here:
Continued strength training with progressed exercise variations
More emphasis on control, stability, and deceleration
Slight reductions in intensity if movement quality slips
Increased focus on mobility and recovery
The goal - to maintain movement quality while the body changes.
The graph above from the Myer et al. paper shows a conceptual model comparing early vs late initiation of integrative neuromuscular training.
This visual perfectly reinforces why early exposure increases long-term potential and why gaps appear when training age is delayed.
Stage 5: Performance strength (turning strength into dominance)
At this stage, the player has:
Built a solid training age
Maintained movement quality through growth
Developed foundational strength
Earned the right to train using more advanced exercises
This is where physical preparation starts to separate players at higher levels.
The big takeaway for parents
A young footballer should start at the stage where they are ready to be guided, and then progress through each stage as their training age, movement skill, and physical maturity develop.
From my experience, around age 9 is often when young players naturally become ready to engage with this type of training in a non-group environment.
Not because they have to start then, but because this is usually the stage where they can understand coaching cues, concentrate for a full session, and take ownership of what they’re doing rather than simply being told to move.
It’s important that this isn’t forced by parents.
When training is pushed too early, sessions quickly become something the child is doing for someone else, not for themselves. That often leads to poor engagement, rushed technique, and, in some cases, resentment towards training altogether.
When a player chooses to engage at this stage, they tend to train with better focus, ask questions, and start connecting the work they’re doing off the pitch to how they feel and perform on it. That’s when training becomes a positive part of their development rather than a chore.
The goal isn’t simply to start as early as possible. It’s also to start when the player is ready to understand, commit, and benefit from it.
James
Matchfit Football
P.S. Want help implementing this properly, without guesswork?
This exact staged approach is built into the Elite Football Athlete Programme.
Strength, speed, stamina, and injury resilience are introduced and built in the right sequence, removing the common mistakes that come from copying social media workouts or guessing what a young body can handle.
For parents, this means clarity.
You know your child is training at an appropriate level, progressing safely, and developing the physical qualities that matter on the pitch — without rushing or holding them back.
Instead of uncertainty and mixed messages, the programme provides a clear pathway for physical development that supports confidence, performance, and long-term progress.
If you want to understand how this pathway could support your child’s development, you can find more details about the Elite Football Athlete Programme below:
