Father and son 2-on-1 · SE Portland
Train with your son. You build the next thirty years. He gets a head start on his.
One hour a week. You and your son in the same room with the same coach, each running your own program. You train for strength you can still use at 80. He learns to squat, hinge, push and pull the right way, years before he would otherwise pick it up from a YouTube video and a buddy who's pretty sure that's how you do it.
From Trainer Steve, owner of Stick-To-It Fit and a personal trainer in SE Portland for 13+ years.
The offer
- $85 each
- per session, $170 for both of you
- Ages 10 to 15
- any experience level
- 60 minutes
- one coach, two programs
- Free first step
- 30-minute strategy session for both
No contract or package. You pay per session.
What he learns from watching you
I was the chubby, picked-on kid who needed someone to show up and never quite had one. When I picture a dad and his son in the studio, the squats are the smaller part.
Your son gets to watch his dad do something hard on purpose. He sees you miss a rep, mutter something, then come back the next week and make it. Then he watches you take a coaching cue from me without arguing. You can't lecture that into a twelve-year-old. He has to watch it happen.
You also get an hour a week where neither of you is on a phone and both of you are a little out of breath. Between 10 and 15, that hour gets harder to find every year.
You: strength for the next thirty years
A 2022 analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine pooled 16 studies and found muscle-strengthening activity linked to a 10 to 17 percent lower risk of early death, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The biggest drop showed up at 30 to 60 minutes of strength work a week. That's about one session.
Nobody can promise you more years. The research is clear about which way strength pushes the odds, and strength is what lets you spend those years getting off the floor without a production and picking up your grandkids.
Him: a head start
He builds the skeleton he will have at 60, right now
According to the NIH, physically active kids gain more bone mass than less active kids, and that bone mass typically stays high into adulthood. Bone mass peaks in the mid-to-late twenties, so the loading he does now goes into the bone he carries for the rest of his life.
His nervous system learns the movement first
The American Academy of Pediatrics explains that most of a kid's early strength gains come from the nervous system learning to recruit muscle, more than from bigger muscles. So this is the age to learn the pattern. Good lifting looks calm before it looks strong, and he gets the calm part first.
A body that holds up in his sport
The AAP's 2020 report lists better resistance to injury among the documented benefits of youth strength training. For a kid who plays a sport, that means strength around the joints his sport keeps testing.
He'll know what he's doing in any gym, for life
He walks into every gym for the rest of his life already knowing how to hinge, squat, press and brace. That puts him in a small group. At 40 he won't need to "get back into it." He never left.
How the hour works
Free 30-minute strategy session, both of you
At the studio. I talk with each of you about goals and history and run a few movement screens. You both know whether this fits before anyone pays anything.
Two programs, one hour
You each get a program built around your own body: yours around the back that flares up or the shoulder from college ball, his around where his training age actually is. Every now and then it's the same movement at very different weights. The dumbbell doesn't know which one of you is the dad.
The weight goes up when the form earns it
For both of you, a set should be a challenge with form holding at a seven out of ten or better. Below that, we back off and clean it up. Modification is not failure.
A standing hour
Sessions run six days a week, 6am to 9pm. Send me a few windows that work for both of you, and we set the same hour every week.
Questions dads ask
General information, not medical advice. If you or your son has a diagnosed condition, talk to a doctor before starting. Sources:
- American Academy of Pediatrics, "Resistance Training for Children and Adolescents," Pediatrics, 2020
- NIH, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, "Kids and Their Bones"
- Momma et al., "Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality...," British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2022
64+ five-star reviews · 13+ years in SE Portland
Somebody's going to teach him to lift. Make it the hour he spends next to you.
Bring him to the free strategy session. It's 30 minutes, both of you, no charge. I'll ask each of you what you want, watch you both move, and tell you plainly whether this is a fit. The studio is at 5609 SE Milwaukie Ave on the Sellwood/Westmoreland border.
No contract or package. You pay per session.