ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 covers how the age of an athlete affects strength and conditioning. The chapter is divided into discussing youth and masters athletes. The section on youth addresses the literature dealing with the safety and potential effectiveness of strength and conditioning and then provides recommendations on program design. The section on masters athletes addresses the effects of aging on both the non-athletic population and on the masters athlete as well as how training impacts both groups.
Most strength and conditioning research, guidelines, and publications are geared towards an 18–30-year-old population. This should make sense as this population represents the bulk of elite athletes and college students, which are the primary focus of most research and coaching publications. Unfortunately, most individuals do not fall into either group. This makes applying strength and conditioning research and recommendations challenging as people that are older or younger will respond differently to training and will have different needs. This chapter will address two different age groups (youth and masters) and discuss how strength and conditioning is different for each age group.
