Raw, Real Training Environments Are The Best Places For Kids To Learn & Grow.
Sitting inside all your life with people around your same birth year never was and never will be the way.
“I watched a D1 commit walk up to a middle school boy, unprompted, and help him with his form.
I saw a middle school girl cheering on a college baseball player before one of his lift attempts.
Regardless of age or gender, we are pulling the rope together.
Physical culture >.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Every day at our gym, we have a variety of different session options for our kids.
Generally speaking, a morning session, a noon session, and a late afternoon session.
The morning session is traditionally our “heavy hitter” class of high school and college athletes. The noon session is a mixed bag of athletes, and our late afternoon session is generally our younger crowd.
But as you can imagine with 100+ kids with 100 different sports, and 100 different schedules, the sessions obviously have demographic overlap. Every single day.
And while we could “block” sessions off for specific demographics like most do, I’ll never do that. Ever.
And the reason is two-fold.
For one, I am not going to create a friction point for our parents/kids who want to be a part of our program, who are busting their asses managing chaotic schedules.
Two, some of the best learning and growth in the world takes place when you are in a group with people far different from you in culture, age, and gender.
In America, we play make believe that the best way to learn is to spend all your time with people near your birth year, inside of rooms, learning from textbooks (that AI has obliterated).
And this, obviously, isn’t the best way to learn.
The best way to learn is by witnessing.
Seeing.
Immersing oneself in the culture.
Do you know how people “back in the day” (still to this day) actually learn?
They learn from their elders.
From being in the mix and watching them do it.
I’m sure the word “tribe” is probably offensive or something today, but that is what and where our kids especially need to be.
For as long as I’ve ran Zingler Strength with as many kids as we’ve coached (15+ years, closing in on 4,000 M&F athletes ranging from 4-30+yo) having this “ungoverned” approach to our training classes has been exceptionally beneficial for all involved.
It gives the young bucks a chance to see how their elders operate.
And it gives our older kids raw, real leadership opportunities.
And the coolest part of the whole thing?
I say nothing.
All the growth-oriented interaction is completely organic.
It’s almost like it’s the way it should be?