My son is interested in getting stronger and has been asking me about working out over the Winter. He’s mostly a soccer player and was the leading scorer through junior high and after a big growth spurt, just finished a very dominant 8th grade season. He’s interested in trying to get bigger and stronger to try and have an impact as early as possible in high school next Fall. His big issue is a complete lack of flexibility. He was a very pronounced toe walker as a kid and we did serial casting over the course of about a year to get a pretty big improvement in his hip, lower back, and hamstring flexibility. I had been keeping tabs on it for the most part and he hasn’t had any issues playing soccer or basketball etc. But he’s grown 5 inches over the past year and this week when I tried to introduce him to the basic compound lifts, squat, deadlift, etc. I think we were both shocked at how incapable he was of performing, even without weights, the basic movements.
He can do about a quarter squat without rocking forward onto his toes and he can’t reach down past his knees without completely rounding his back over. Finding beginner streching/mobility programs seems really simple. What I am wondering though is, as he’s working on improving mobility, what would be the best exercises for him until he can get into some of the basic compound movements? Just wondering if there are other weight lifting alternatives we could look into. Or if we should seek physical therapy or some kind of professional evaluation for his lack of mobility.