Orcs start level 1 with their weapon skills not at 1%. For races that have both an int below 17 and a wis under 18 simply figuring out when you will be able to practice core skills is a challenge. a challenge that generally means using several of your early trains to get practices just to get the skills to a point you can develop them.

this is especially true of non warrior giants (I don't think a frost shaman can practice most of their stuff and ever max their stats with trains for instance)

Maybe just raise their initial rolling stats so they can dedicate more trains to practicing? You still got the major gap in how fast those skills will raise (and for casters your mana pool/regen) you just let them get to working on them a bit earlier.