Strength Training in Young/Pre-Teens...Is it Safe?

Whether or not strength training is safe in children and teens has been a highly debated topic in recent years. Parents, coaches, and peers often play a pivotal role in pressuring the children into taking up some form of strength training. Is it because their coach wants them to train to be bigger, faster and stronger? Maybe it is because a teen’s parents think they are too skinny. The adolescent may have a friend who is naturally bigger than he is which makes him want to compete. Any of these reasons could be factors that may influence a teen to take up some form of strength training. Whether it is weight training or just general resistance training the real question is whether the methods have been proven to be healthy for a young teenager. Research shows that strength training in young teens is highly effective and when done correctly, should have minimal effects on the teens growing body.

There are four main reasons why a growing teenager may want to incorporate strength training into their daily life. The first and probably most common reason is that the teens coach wants them to be a better overall athlete. Over the years, sports in general have become more and more competitive, because of this trend, many coaches have developed the “win at all costs” mentality. This means exactly what it says, coaches will do whatever is necessary to win, which most of the time includes increasing the athlete’s physical potential by using strength training to help them become bigger, faster and stronger.

Another significant reason a teen, especially one going through puberty, may want to lift weights is to gain more attention from the opposite sex. It has been a proven fact that dates all the way back to Ancient Greece, more muscular means more manly. The slim but well-muscled torso and the elegant symmetry of form are all things that the Greeks have contributed to the present day image of the perfect male body. Most males, no matter what age, try to portray these characteristics as well as they can so that they can attract female attention.

The entertainment industry may play a part in influencing your teen to start strength training at too young of an age. Different forms of entertainment such as NFL and WWE Wrestling are all filled with unbelievably talented and extremely muscular athletes. To the spectator or the athlete, the increased competitiveness in sports becomes readily accessible through 24 hr television coverage and inviting arenas. Often the enthusiasm to become the model athlete forces teens to attempt to build their own bodies to man sized proportions.

The final main reason that a young teenager or adolescent may want to start strength training is to be able to compete with someone that is bigger and stronger. If a friend or rival is naturally more athletic, an adolescent is going to feel obligated to get bigger and stronger due to peer pressure or more competitive drivers.

Each of these motivations for strength training, whether positive or negative, can drive the physically and mentally immature youth to train in an incorrect way. Typically, the trainee does not stop to think about the fact that the role models discussed are most often full-grown men, unlike the adolescent who is still maturing into his body. Furthermore, these same role models often learn and train with professionals, who are experienced and can produce the results safely. In contrast, the inexperienced adolescent is usually working on a “do it yourself” basis, with little knowledge or experience, or with confidence that his errant knowledge or understanding is sufficient. The adolescent may end up working himself way too hard, trying to produce results that their bodies are physically incapable of producing in such a young stage of life.
According to The American Academy of Pediatrics, “strength training for kids- not to be confused with weightlifting, bodybuilding or powerlifting- is a carefully designed program of exercises to increase muscle strength and endurance.” Weightlifting, bodybuilding and powerlifting are all driven by competition. The goal for these forms of training is to push your body to its physical limits in order to produce the best results possible. Adolescents should not attempt to use these methods, because it puts too much strain on their still developing muscles, tendons and growth plates. This is especially true when proper technique is sacrificed in favor of lifting larger amounts of weight. Strength training for kids is not about lifting large amounts of weight. Instead, it is focused on using lighter weights with controlled movements, while paying particular attention to good technique and safety in order to create good habits for later on in life.

“Strength Training for Young Athletes- 2nd Edition” suggests that the best way for a teen to develop muscular strength is to use mainly light free weights, weight machines, resistance bands or his or her own body weight. Most trainers and weightlifting coaches will agree that resistance bands are the most effective way to develop muscular strength in young teens. The generally accepted reasons are because there is greater emphasis on range of motion and the muscle can be successfully stimulated without putting too much strain on the tendons, ligaments and joints. The mechanical advantage in resistance bands is that resistance is maintained through every part of the motion. In contrast, many similar free weight exercises do not actually work certain parts of the muscle, when movement is not against gravity at a large enough angle. With resistance band training, every part of both the concentric and eccentric part of the exercise has resistance, resulting in overall stimulation of the muscle.

In the past, many misconceptions and criticisms surrounded the topic of weight training for growing teens. However, most of them have been resolved in recent years. These misconceptions usually resulted from a lack of understanding by the community when it comes to moderate strength training. For example, a very common misconception is the fact that weight training has been portrayed as inefficient in improving strength in the young teen, as hormonal response is largely absent. This has been proven to be an incorrect theory because if this were true females would not be able to gain significant amounts of strength seeing as how their bodies only produce 1/10 the amount of testosterone as an adult male.

Within the clinical community, there has also been a general recommendation that all physical activity be prescribed only a moderate level for young teens. If one applies this to weightlifting, the recommendation excludes powerlifting, weightlifting, bodybuilding, and general training with maximal weights until the completion of puberty. This recommendation is also an example of inexperience, and a lack of understanding of weight lifting. By specifically referring to these forms of training, the clinical community would propose to eliminate high volume- low intensity weight training (bodybuilding), low volume- high intensity weight training (powerlifting), and moderate volume- moderate to high intensity training (weight lifting) from youth training. So according to this idea any coach that tries to follow these overly restrictive guidelines will be ineffective in producing a bigger, stronger, and faster athlete. If you apply this logic then you also have to argue against sprinting (high intensity- low volume training), against distance running (high volume-low intensity training), and against middle distance running (moderate to high speed- moderate volume training) in the young adolescent. Producing even a decent track athlete would be nearly impossible without your training methods meeting at least one of if not all of these criteria.

There are infinite benefits to following a proper, safe, and supervised strength-training program. One of the benefits of participating in a good strength-training program is that you will have significant increases in strength and power. This can be seen just by comparing the strength norms of an average teen to one that participates in weightlifting competitions, high school powerlifting events. Using scientific data measuring the increase in vertical jump, it shows more improved jumping ability in those following a weight training program.

Another benefit is neuromuscular coordination improvement in children. This has been linked to performing a specific skill repeatedly regardless of what skill it is. Data suggests that there is no valid reason to assume that children cannot effectively learn and develop their motor skills by executing weight lifting skills repeatedly if taught and supervised properly.

Other benefits of following a strength-training program include protecting the muscles and joints from injury, helps improve performance in a particular sport, better heart and lung function, a healthier body composition, stronger bones, lower blood cholesterol levels, boosts confidence.

Not too long ago, The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement to its members stating that “unless good data becomes available that shows safety, preadolescents should avoid the practice of weight lifting, power lifting, and body building, and the repetitive use of maximal amounts of weight in strength training programs, until they have reached full sexual maturity.” Because of this, most physicians, doctors, and physical instructors were opposed to the idea of young children participating in strength training. Most of the evidence against kids participating in such programs came from scientific reports that young children were unable to gain strength before they had completed puberty. Many of the doctors felt that the potential risks of injury and stunting growth were far too great. In addition, it was believed that preadolescents lacked a certain amount of male hormone called androgen, which had to present in the blood stream before strength training would improve strength. Seeing as how an elevated level is only present after puberty, strength training would be assumed to be ineffective until this time. However, in recent years, a growing body of medical research now suggests that teens training pre-puberty can be very effective. These studies showed that preadolescents can respond to a strength-training program with an increase in muscle mass that is roughly half of that seen in adults undergoing an identical program. Besides the obvious improvement in physical strength, there is also a decreased risk in musculoskeletal overuse injuries that occur while participating in sports. Furthermore, there are also psychological benefits such as improvement in self-esteem and self-confidence. Because of these recent discoveries and new understandings about strength training, coaches and trainers everywhere are now building their young athletes around strength training programs in order to increase their maximal output on the field and create a healthier athlete for the future of sports.