The Front Row

I was always told to start after you hit puberty.

I would say it depends on the level of the kid's flexibility and balance. The greater their flexibility and balance the more they can be expected to do/handle. Something I heard a while back stuck with me...if something doesn't look quite right that a kid is doing, they shouldn't be doing it. If a kid is lacking flexibility and balance (coordination) most of what they do won't look right. They'll move their bodies in ways that put stress on muscle groups away from the muscle groups the movement is intended to work. An example would be leaning forward when trying to squat, arching the back on the bench, knees coming together on dead lifts. Those kinds of things lead to bigger deficiencies in flexibility and eventually injury. So, that means exercises that don't include weight need to be done to strengthen stabilizers and build balance and flexibility before any 'heavy' lifting should be done.

Good advice....

I never let mine touch my weights until they could do 20 push-ups....3 pull ups... wall squats for a minute without legs shaking...arm circles forward and back for 30 seconds each without stopping...

Then they had to demonstrate proper form/technique with bar before lifting any weights...

Guess it is because I grew up in the late 60's and 70's and watching my Dad and Uncle's put a bench and weights in the basement and getting hurt trying to lift to much weight and no form or technique...

The National Strength and Conditioning Association is the foremost authority on these types of issues. Www.nsca.org

Family practice docs go to personal trainers because they don't know what they're doing when it comes to this stuff. CSCS certification is the only accredited fitness certification that exists.

As someone who is doing a PhD in Kinesiology, most of the literature out there states that children can start doing resistance training as early as 7-8 years old as long as they are using correct technique, appropriate training loads, and have a knowledgeable person supervising them at all times. There seems to be no more adverse risk in resistance training in children than there is with lifting in adults.

Proper technique is key to eliminate injury. A proper progression of training program is needed to ease the child into the program and maintaining a training program that does not overreach or overtrain the child is advised and qualified supervision. If you follow those guidelines, the only real risk a child would have would be burn out from being involved in training/sports.

TO be honest, most of the evidence shows that resistance training has increased benefits in children/adolescents such as bone health, increased strength (obviously), and improved health related to chronic disease risk.

If you want to read more on this or find more guidelines, you can always go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed and search for pediatric/children resistance training and read some of the research articles.

Hope this helps.

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