Kids in Grade 3 can do strength and conditioning safely, and it doesn’t need to look much different from what high schoolers do. This hands-on session is built on that claim.

Participants rotate through six stations three times. In round one, they do each station as I run it with high school students. In round two, they do the same stations as I run them with Grade 3, with the modifications that make them work. In round three, each group builds a version for a specific case, such as a class of 30, no fitness equipment, or a kid who is scared of the ball, and then demos it for the room.

Between rounds I cover three things. First, the safety system that lets one teacher run a weight room with 25 eight-year-olds: circuits, numbered station cards, and one rotation direction. Second, what the research says about strength training and injury in children. Third, the two mistakes most schools make: assuming young kids can’t train, and training high schoolers like adults.

Teachers leave having run the same circuit at three levels, with every other group’s version to steal.