Forget The Myth. The Truth About Youth Training!
Is Youth Training Bad?
“Lifting weights is unsafe for children and will stunt their growth.” This is one of the biggest myths I have heard since getting into training and specializing in youth development and performance. Yes, I said myth. One very common fear is that they will damage their growth plates. I have probably heard this the most, but the fact is people actually run a bigger risk of doing this on the playground or athletic field. Parents have prevented their kids from getting into the gym because they see others such as powerlifters, body builders, and professional athletes with muscles coming out of their ears, and they’re afraid their son or daughter will get hurt trying to lift like them. On one hand, yes, their pre-pubescent child will almost certainly get hurt if they try to lift like those people. On the other hand, when I, or other fitness professionals, talk about training youth athletes, we are not talking about doing the same stuff as those the stereotypical body builders, often referred to as meatheads. In this post, I’m going to break down what we do with our youth athletes at Incontrera Strength and Conditioning (ISC) and how it’s actually very important to start training as early as possible.
Are Your Kids Already Getting a Training Effect?
How many backpacks does your child carry? Have you ever picked one of these backpacks up? Whether your child is carrying one or ten backpacks, the weight of some of these packs could put a hole in a floor if dropped from six feet. Without you even realizing it, your child is lifting 10-50 lbs on a daily basis, and multiple times a day. How about things your child does to stay active—do they play sports? Or maybe they prefer to go to the playground, or play tag, or any one of the hundreds of games kids make up that require them to run, jump, and change direction frequently. When your child does any activity that involves sprinting, they encounter ground reaction forces that are several times greater than their own bodyweight. Yes, that means that sprinting puts more stress on their bodies than doing squats with a 15lb dumbbell. If that alone doesn’t give you enough perspective, add a competitive element to the mix, where someone else is pushing/pulling/tugging at them — the risk of a misstep and injury goes up that much more. Considering all of this—getting them in the gym, and getting them trained and conditioned properly, will better prepare them for these other daily activities that truly test the limits of their bodies.
How Will The Gym Help?
A Couple of the 7th graders showing great form in their TRX and Dumbbell Rows
When I talk about getting kids into the gym, it doesn’t mean they are going to lift weights like our high school athletes—in fact, they may not lift weights at all. When we have kids in the gym, we focus on three main things:
Technique
Mobility
Having FUN
What does it mean to focus on technique? It means teaching them how to perform the major movements like lunging, squatting, and push ups, with little to no added resistance. With any resistance training, even bodyweight, they will increase their bone density, further helping them to prevent injury to bones or growth plates. With added stress to the joints during this type of training, they will also be strengthening the tendons/ligaments which are very common sources of injuries in youth athletes. We want them to be comfortable and learn that the quality of a movement is more important than how much they are lifting. We teach the basics of lifting but we spend a lot more time teaching them how to run correctly, accelerate, decelerate, jump and land. We focus on their coordination. Most non-contact injuries can be avoided if they learn how to do the basics properly.
As kids get older, they start to lose some of their coordination as they grow into their bodies. Their muscles also start to tighten up and they lose their mobility. Infants can get into a full squat with their butt to their ankles, but that ability doesn’t last long, clearly! Children sit all day at school, then they come home and sit some more in order to do homework, or play video games, etc. They spend less and less time standing up and moving around. This, along with growing, makes their muscles tighten up and they lose their range of motion. Coming to the gym helps keep them stay active and helps maintain their full range of motion.
The 5/6th graders love to compete in handball at the end of the session!
Last and most important—we want them to have fun! We want to show them that the gym is not a scary place where only 200 pound powerlifters are allowed. As they grow up and start to play more serious sports or take their health more seriously, we want them to think of the gym as a safe place and somewhere they want to spend their time. With our youth athletes and in an effort to keep things fun, we always finish our sessions with a game. This allows them to apply things that they have learned throughout their sessions. For example, red light/green light is a great way to reinforce acceleration and deceleration techniques while getting competitive. With our lacrosse athletes we play a lot of handball which reinforces teamwork and finding space without the ball.
Throughout their time here at ISC, we see kids really break out of their shell. They gain confidence and make connections with other kids they wouldn’t normally see outside of the gym—which is more important than ever right considering the times! It’s these days, where we see the younger kids making progress and having fun doing it, that makes our jobs as coaches extremely rewarding. It is 100% a myth that kids going to the gym is not safe. Under proper guidance from an experienced coach, children really can start training at a young age!