Teens in an Exam Year

September of an exam year, and something has to go to make room for revision. Sport is usually near the top of that list — two hours a week plus travel, for something that isn't on any syllabus.

Cutting it isn't smart. Here's why.

Exercise is one of the strongest inputs into the things revision depends on. Sleep quality improves, which is when memory consolidation happens — the material learned on Tuesday gets filed on Tuesday night or it doesn't get filed at all. Mood and anxiety improve, measurably and fairly quickly. And the capacity to sit still and concentrate for ninety minutes is trained by having somewhere to put the restlessness. A sixteen-year-old who has done nothing physical since Sunday is not going to be better at revising.

There's a second thing training does in an exam year that's harder to put in a study. It's the one hour in their week where nobody is assessing them. It's an hour of mental clarity. They lift something they couldn't lift in July and they get some positive feedback.

The practical version, for parents:

Two sessions a week, locked in. Put them in the family calendar in September and treat them like a fixed point that revision is built around.

Protect the sleep harder than the training. Teenagers need eight to ten hours and their circadian rhythm naturally runs late through adolescence, so they're not being difficult when they can't sleep at ten. Phones out of the bedroom does more for exam results than an extra hour of revision at 11pm.

Coached strength is safe and it's appropriate. Youth lifting has been studied at length and, under coaching, it has a lower injury rate than most team sports. If you've been told teenagers shouldn't lift until they've stopped growing, that came from well-meaning so-called experts rather than from evidence. Please, please, please stop believing a crappy study that's been disproved hundreds of times.

Our Kids and Teens classes run through term time, and coaches who do this for a living take them and love seeing how they build confidence and resilience in all who attend.

Book your child a free trial class at crossfitchiltern.com. One hour, no commitment, and they'll tell you afterwards whether it's for them.