Excersises for 11 year old

[Lizard]

I have a brother who is 11 years old. He's very thin (VERY), I keep telling him he needs to eat more but he just won't listen. He skips breakfast too. So I made a diet plan for him to encourage him to eat more and I've also started getting him to do some excersises before he goes to bed (but with a day of rest in between). His protein intake is OK because he eats quite a bit of tuna.

I get him to do push ups, crunches, side crunches, leg raises, sit ups, squats, jogging and jumping on the spot and a few excersise using small bottles filled with water (don't have any proper dumbells and was worried about stunting his growth) that includes things like bicep curls.

Some questions:

Is this a good idea? does he need a day of rest or not? will it stunt his growth? will it make him more muscular? will it make any difference to how muscular he will be when he is an adult?

[Thai Bri]

Butt out. You'll give the little fellah some kind of body image problem. Find fun games to do with him. That way he'll exercise AND have fun. Save the military style routines for the military.

[RobertG]

Ummm, he's 11....he's probably not even started puberty yet. Which means what? He's got low levels of androgenic hormones. He is not going to put on substantial muscle until he starts producing lots of testoterone in puberty. Trying to make him eat more, besides causing resentment towards you, is just likely to make him fat. If he's really thin, so what. 11 year old boys should be thin. Just be happy he's not a lard ass. He'll fill out when he starts hitting his growth spurts. Give him a few years and lay off of him. Just make sure he gets some (FUN, not FORCED) exercise and doesn't sit in front of the XBOX playing GTA3 all day and drinking Cokes and he'll be fine.

[Biker]

Don't worry about him exercising. Just as long as he isn't spending more time in front of the tv or computer and he's getting outside and playing, he'll be okay. Wait a couple years before introducing him to weights.

If he skips breakfast, not much can be done there. If he won't eat, he won't eat. He'll eat what he needs through the day. Encourage healthy eating, don't try to be a nutrition nazi. He'll respond better that way.

[Roland]

Get off your butt, grab a ball and go out and PLAY with him.

Do this until he gets pooped. Then take him home and let him sleep. When he wakes up, he'll probably be hungry and will eat voluntarily.

[Lizard]

I'm not forcing him to do those excersises, he wants to do them, he enjoys it.

Well that's answered most of my questions. He already excersises a lot playing soccer and tennis, I was just worried because he's using up a lot of energy and not seeming to take much in and he doesn't have any fat to use for energy. His biceps are suprisingly large for his age and I was worried he would start to lose muscle if he didn't eat enough, which would have been a great shame.

OK I'll stop being a nutrition nazi and let him eat what he wants.

And I'll start telling him that it's better to be too thin than too fat.

[Biker]

We're not saying it's better to be too thin. That has it's bad points as well. We're saying encourage healthy eating habits, he'll eat what he needs/wants.

[Lizard]

Well I always praise him for eating tuna sandwiches and things like that. And he says he'll start eating breakfast.

He should turn out OK because I used to be the same. Well thanks for all your help.

[kh_s]

Hmmm, I thought young kids should only stick with body-weight type training (calisthenics, sp?)

If that is true, I would tell him to stop doing those bicep curls and any other weighted workouts. Also I stopped doing squats. I stopped because I was afraid I was doing something wrong, my knees started to hurt, same with lunges.

Damn I don't even really work out any more lol, all I do:

-Pushups
-three types of really weird ab exercises, one is flutter kicks and I don't know what the other 2 is called.

If I had a pull up bar, then i'd do some pull/chin ups.

[Lizard]

Originally posted by kh_s
Hmmm, I thought young kids should only stick with body-weight type training (calisthenics, sp?)

If that is true, I would tell him to stop doing those bicep curls and any other weighted workouts. Also I stopped doing squats. I stopped because I was afraid I was doing something wrong, my knees started to hurt, same with lunges.

Damn I don't even really work out any more lol, all I do:

-Pushups
-three types of really weird ab exercises, one is flutter kicks and I don't know what the other 2 is called.

If I had a pull up bar, then i'd do some pull/chin ups.

The weights are very light (he did 127 reps) and nobody else had said that he shouldn't do them.

[Paul Wilson]

You sound like a nice older brother.

Like someone said that he hasn't developed testosterone yet is true. So he ain’t going to have big muscle massage nor have lats.
You can get him to get ripped so you can see the definition in he’s muscles and get him a little six Pac going on.

But look at this kid. He started lifting at the age of 5.
He is definition going to be screwed up when he is older:

www.richardsandrak.com

[RobertG]

Originally posted by Paul Wilson
You sound like a nice older brother.

Like someone said that he hasn't developed testosterone yet is true. So he ain’t going to have big muscle massage nor have lats.
You can get him to get ripped so you can see the definition in he’s muscles and get him a little six Pac going on.

But look at this kid. He started lifting at the age of 5.
He is definition going to be screwed up when he is older:

www.richardsandrak.com

"big muscle massage nor have lats"! LMFAO

And while you're getting the six "Pac" going on, listen to some Tu Pac.