The "why" behind FYSTS
My motivation for FYSTS is driven by a single person, my son, but the drive goes beyond that as I also want to help other parents like myself.
I am a baseball dad. My son started playing competitive baseball this spring, and it has been a pleasure to see him grow into an athlete. Watching him play over these past months, I realized he is ready to start strength training.
I have learned from interacting with other parents that many are in the same position. We can see when our kids are ready and could benefit from a strength program, but there is so much content to sort through, and it needs to be more straightforward about where to start and what to do next. Programming is more complicated than watching a few videos on YouTube.
After realizing this, my initial reaction was to reach out to a trainer I had worked with in the past who also happened to play college baseball, so he might be in an excellent position to help. The next day, I received an email from the gym I worked out at, asking if I was ready for my next gig and that I should sign up for a training program in a month or so. At that moment, I realized that I should go out and do this myself—I should become my son’s trainer.
As an aside, I love strength training, have been lifting weights for over eight years, and have worked with several trainers. I particularly enjoy Olympic lifting, with the power snatch being my favorite lift. Learning to train others was a natural fit for the skills I have learned and applied over these years.
I have since completed the training program and am now an NCEP-certified personal trainer. I also did a deep dive into more specific training programs and received certification from Driveline Baseball for their “Youth Baseball Development” and “Foundations of Strength” programs. I have read through Michael Boyle’s book, New Functional Training for Sports (#ad), and have begun to apply the different concepts as I develop a training program for my son.
This blog intends to bring forward the concepts I come across and make sense of them all under the context of training a youth athlete. I will organize the materials to make it easier for parents to consume and apply the concepts and programs for youth across different sports and disciplines.
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