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Zak Zahner

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May 25, 2026

How Many Days a Week Should Your Youth Athlete Train?

Listen To this Podcast of Me talking about How Many Days a Week Should Your Youth Athlete Train

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Parents ask me this all the time.

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How many days a week should my kid be in the gym?

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How long should the sessions be?

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It's a fair question.

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And the honest answer is: it depends on your athlete.

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But here's a real rule of thumb you can use right now.

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Off-Season vs. In-Season

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Off-season, I tell parents: train as much as your schedule honestly allows.

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Two to four sessions per week is the sweet spot.

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More than four and you risk burning out the nervous system.

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You also risk burning out the love for the sport.

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Both matter.

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In-season is where most families make a big mistake.

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When the season starts, kids stop training altogether.

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I understand why.

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Practice is happening. Games are happening. Life is full.

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But here's what you need to know.

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Practice develops sports-specific skills.

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Your kid gets better at the game.

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But practice is not the same as intentional athletic development.

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You're focused on winning, not on getting faster.

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And when athletes stop all training during the season, they start losing their strength and power gains within three to four weeks.

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The work you put in during the off-season quietly disappears.

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My recommendation for in-season: one to two sessions per week.

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Even 30 minutes.

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Enough to maintain what they built.

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Enough to keep the edge.

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Training Frequency by Age

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Not every athlete is the same.

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Here's how I break it down.

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Ages 7 to 12: 2 to 3 sessions per week, 30 minutes each.

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At this age, we are building the foundation.

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Movement patterns, body awareness, basic strength.

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Thirty minutes is the right length. Young athletes have shorter attention spans, and we can get everything they need done in that window.

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The goal here is to keep it effective and keep it fun.

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Ages 12 to 15: 3 sessions per week, 30 to 60 minutes.

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The foundation is there. Now we build on it.

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These athletes are more focused, more driven, and more serious about their sport.

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We can start pushing for real strength, speed, and power gains.

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Ages 16 to 18: 3 to 4 sessions per week, 60 minutes.

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Older athletes can handle higher intensity.

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Their bodies are more developed.

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Their training age is older.

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We push harder here, and we produce bigger results.

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The Most Effective Off-Season Schedule

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For athletes 13 and older, here's what I recommend if you want to maximize development.

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Option one: Four 30-minute sessions per week.

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Option two: Three 60-minute sessions per week.

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Both give you roughly two to three hours of total training.

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Both work.

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The difference is in the structure.

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Four shorter sessions spread the work through the week and allow for more frequent movement practice.

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Three longer sessions mean fewer trips to the gym but more time for teaching, more reps, and more detailed coaching.

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The best schedule is the one your athlete actually shows up to.

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Work with your trainer to find what fits.

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Real Results on the Minimum Schedule

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Lily is 14 years old. She plays volleyball.

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She came in with a best vertical jump of 16 inches.

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We built her a custom training plan: two sessions per week, 30 minutes each.

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Four weeks later, her vertical is a consistent 16.9 inches.

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Her reactiveness, power output, strength, overhead strength, and injury resilience all improved.

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On two days a week.

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Thirty minutes a session.

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That's the lower end of what we recommend.

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Imagine what three sessions a week looks like.

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Or four.

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The gains compound when the program is built right.

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What Most Coaches Don't Talk About

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Here's something I believe that not every trainer focuses on.

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Athletic development is not just physical. It's mental.

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When I work with a young athlete, I'm not just building speed and strength.

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I'm teaching them why each movement matters.

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What this drill is doing for their body.

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How to push themselves when no one is watching.

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Coach John Perry at Nixa High School has built one of the most respected programs around on this exact idea.

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Mental performance is trainable.

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And it's our job as coaches to train it alongside the physical.

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When an athlete understands the why, they show up differently.

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They buy in.

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They push instead of waiting to be pushed.

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That's what we build at Well Street Fitness.

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The Bottom Line

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Your kid does not need to train every day to see real results.

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But they do need the right program.

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Practice alone is not enough.

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Every season they stop training intentionally, they lose ground they have to rebuild.

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And a 30-minute session with a coach who built the plan for your specific athlete does more than two hours of random gym time.

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If you want a custom training plan built for your kid's age, sport, and schedule, reach out to Well Street Fitness.

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We'll handle the rest.

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