Youth Fitness & Development Programs
Empower Your Young Athlete
Give your child, middle-schooler, or teenager the confidence to tackle whatever the world throws at them through fitness and development.
Our Empower Youth Fitness Programs in Vancouver are designed to develop strong, adaptable, resilient athletes with superior physical literacy. These programs are designed to meet the neurological and physiological needs of the each respective age group. Because these functional fitness movements are scalable, the athletes can safely train at their level.
Whether your child is just starting their fitness journey, is playing sports at a recreational level or is an experienced elite athlete, our programs will help them excel.
In the gym your young athlete will develop self-awareness, discipline, focus and perseverance that will help them overcome obstacles outside the gym. We want to help create a passion for fitness that your child will carry with them throughout their lives.
Group Classes, Small Group Training, and 1:1 Coaching for Youth
Choose from any of the following programs or call for a custom option
For athletes aged 8-12
Junior Varsity
Ages: 8-12
Prerequisites: None
Start date: September 2
The Junior Varsity group learns all the foundational movements of CrossFit. This includes weight lifting, gymnastics and metabolic conditioning. The PVC pipe is an excellent tool for teaching complex movements like clean and jerks without load until the athlete is ready to handle a barbell. If you stop by during class time you might see us playing games like shoulder tap cone grab or tabata hot potato hollow holds. These games help develop the smaller stabilizing muscles as well as make it fun so the kids work hard without realizing it!
Prerequisites: none at this time. All youth athletes welcome. Athletes who have participated in Junior Varsity can graduate to Varsity level when they age up.
For athletes aged 13-17
Varsity
Ages: 13-17
Prerequisites: Prior assessment
Start date: September 2025
Our Varsity program includes all weight lifting movements, gymnastics and metabolic conditioning. All weights are scaled appropriately to the correct stimulus and intensity for the athlete. We work on injury prevention and strong core conditioning in addition to providing a positive, confidence-building environment.
Prerequisites: Coach assessment and approval to ensure you can transition to Varsity classes safely and easily. One-to-one coaching sessions are available if needed to set you up for success in this program.
Register now, and we'll arrange for an assessment at a time convenient for you prior to joining class.
This program is currently full.
For young athletes on an alternative education path
Homeschool PE
Ages: 9-17
Prerequisites: None
Start date: September 10
Homeschool PE is a CrossFit-based program that incorporates cardio, strength training, and gymnastics movements for complete body conditioning. All weights are scaled appropriately to the correct stimulus and intensity for the athlete.
We work on injury prevention and strong core conditioning in addition to providing a positive confidence-building environment. Best of all, we have fun doing it, by incorporating partner workouts and games.
Early bird pricing ends August 25.
For teams between seasons
Team Training
Ages: 9-18
Prerequisites: None
Start date: Let's talk!
Empower offers dryland training for teams that are coming off the ice, out of the pool or are in between seasons. Bring your team in for strength and conditioning sessions and set them up for success when they return to sport.
Talk to us to set up a training program for your team.
For all athletes aged 8-17
Youth Personal Training
Ages: 8-17
Prerequisites: None
Start date: Let's talk!
Our Youth Personal Training program is custom built to support the needs of your athlete. These custom programmed sessions can be built to support youth athletes in specific sports with a focus on strengthening, injury prevention, and injury recovery.
Personal training can be done 1:1 or in small groups (1:2, 1:3, 1:4, etc.) so kids can train with their friends.
Whether the group class time doesn’t fit your schedule, your athlete works better one-on-one, or your elite athlete is looking for more specific training, we are here to help meet those needs.
Our Coaches Talk About How We Empower Youth Athletes
Not HeroWOD Shawn
As we go back through the 2015 CrossFit programming, the attentive among you will notice that we have made some changes to workouts to better accommodate the fitness levels of our athletes, the space/equipment available to us and the time allotted to each class. Often the tweaks are minor or offered alongside the original programming when possible but some of the workouts require a few more modifications.
Remember HeroWOD Shawn?
Do you remember HeroWOD Shawn? It is a 5-mile run which requires you to stop every 5 minutes to perform 50 squats and 50 push ups. The first time I did this was on Dunbar Street on a rainy day. I recall doing push ups in puddles full of worms. This workout punishes slow runners like me, and I believe I ended up performing over 450 push ups. I remember because during my final set, someone pulled up alongside the curb, rolled down his window and suggested that if I wanted to make the push ups harder, I should try doing them on one leg only. Believe me, as strong as my push ups are, by that time, they were plenty hard enough!
Next time, HeeHee and I did this as a trail run in the autumn. I performed my last set of push ups on the side of the trail in some leaves and when I rose to finish the run discovered that one glove had been planted firmly in some freshly laid dog droppings that someone had considerately buried under a blanket of leaves. I returned home with only one glove.
40 minutes is more than enough time
Running, squats and push ups are about as basic and fundamental as you can get but the heroWOD version is too long for group classes. We want you want to master these skills, but 40 minutes is more than enough time. Each round will begin with an 800m run which most people can complete in about 5 minutes. 50 air squats should be easy for everyone, but 50 push ups is a lot so to keep you moving, we have reduced the rep count to 30.
It is easy to get sloppy on the push ups when you are tired. The key is to keep your sets short. Always take a break when you have one or two good push ups in reserve. Do not do struggle reps as these will drain you and expose you to increased risk of injury. Short, crisp, efficient sets is your key to push up mastery.
And remember, no matter how slow you go, unlike with the original version, you will be finished in 40 minutes!
The workout for Monday, July 7
Warm Up
5 min AMRAP:
10 Judo Push Up Rocks
15 Ring Row Squats
2x Agility Ladder
Tech
WOD
40 min AMRAP
800m Run
50 Squats
30 Push Ups
Accomplish Personal Bests
"Empower has provided our son with a safe and supportive environment in which to test himself, accomplish personal bests and celebrate the results among peers."
-Chris H.
Incredibly Supportive Environment
"Empower has become a gym for our family. The coaches are so knowledgeable and can also scale weights/movements to your fitness level. Smaller group classes allow coaches to ensure all movements are performed safely. It is an incredibly supportive environment which makes Empower Youth unique."
-Carmine L.
Empower
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