My son is soon to be 10, a bigger boy, hes about 5 ft, and 105, and wants to start lifting. I took him to hte Y, and he's been doing a few machines, the pullup machine and press machine and pushdowns.
This ok or will hurt him?
If not, what should he be doing?
THANKS GUYS and GALS
Weightlifting amongst children and teenagers has never been shown to be harmful as far as I know. Before puberty, the ability to gain significant strength or muscle tissue may be limited. The goals should be a balanced program of cardio and lifting with attention to appropriate technique and appropriate supervision. There have been mostly theoretical concerns about the connective tissue in young lifters, so "going heavy" has been discouraged and this seems prudent because of their inability to respond in terms of significant strength gains.
Sounds like he's going to be an upper-body guy. Now's a good time to talk about a balanced, functional approach to lifting.
My son grabs my weights sometimes and does some lifts. They have him doing pushups, lunges, chins in school and he is 7, 4'6" and 70lbs . He has a 6 pack and eats healthy food, but also eats junk too. I don't think it will hurt him as long as he doesn't do too heavy a weight and keeps form.
The only downside I've seen is that some kids will become stronger than everyone else they compete against and stop using good technique in a sport such as wrestling or football. Eventually, the other kids who have had to rely on skills will catch up strength wise and be beat them regularly.
My son is soon to be 10, a bigger boy, hes about 5 ft, and 105, and wants to start lifting. I took him to hte Y, and he's been doing a few machines, the pullup machine and press machine and pushdowns.
This ok or will hurt him?
If not, what should he be doing?
THANKS GUYS and GALS
I think it's great that he's interested and that you're setting a good example for him. I like to see kids able to move their own bodies before they start bench pressing and doing pushdowns though. I'd want him doing pushup variations, bodyweight pullups (or maybe band assisted), lunging, bodyweight leg complexes, etc. GPP work like sled dragging is also a great choice.
Read some of the posts in Brian Grasso's forum in the Specialized Training Discussions section. You might even enjoy signing up for his newsletter. It has advertisements for his products, but it is also full of great information for kids. (Besides, you might just be interested in some of his products!) It will give you some great ideas for training activities for your son.
Listen to Lisa, and then download the latest fitcast for more on this.
It has been said (Bill I think?) that one has to earn the right to squat, but I think that goes for any weights. Design a nice bodyweight routine that they could go through instead. Split squats, push-ups, chin-ups, lunges, stepups, crunches, single leg rdls, are some off the top of my head. Also if you have access to MM there are some good excercises in there as well.
Full squats with just bodyweight! and everything that Lisa said. Before a young kid is ready to move on to weights I would say some good indicators would be 40 perfect pushups, 40 perfect full squats, 1 full squat with a youngster there weight on the back in firemans carry position and somewhere in the range of 10-15 pullups.
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"...this is the way it goes, sometimes you're flush, and sometimes you're bust... and when your up its never as good as it seems... and when your down you never think you can be up again, but life goes on, remember that..."
if you don't want to hurt him, get him off the machines and onto free weights. The machines force your joints to move in unnatural planes of motion. Let him learn proper form with bars, plates and dumbbells now, and he'll be lifting in a health and safe manner for years to come!
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I post was directed at a kid between 10-15. As the kids get older it could be good to introduce weight before such tasks are not obtained.
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"...this is the way it goes, sometimes you're flush, and sometimes you're bust... and when your up its never as good as it seems... and when your down you never think you can be up again, but life goes on, remember that..."
Great original question... some great responses and some responses I question...
My suggestions in recap:
- No machines whatsoever. Interrupts natural mobility/stability interplay and fixes force production into a pre-set pattern which detracts from a youngster’s ability to enhance motor skill (critical in pre-adolescence). Machines are only built for isolative sagittal strength production anyway and we live in a multi-planar world of integrative function.
- Bodyweight exercises are fine as are externally loaded strength training exercises. There is no such reality that children need to be able to perform certain numbers of bodyweight only exercises before they can move onto weight loaded work (and 40 of anything is far too many to use as a gage - technique development through skill sets is the key, and at 40 repetitions, technique would be compromised)
- The 'limited sets to high reps' notion of youth strength training is ‘horse pucky’. The indelible factor is teaching technique - someone needs to instruct your son on how to perform lifts well and them have him execute them in a limited fashion so as to develop quality motor awareness, summation of forces (etc). 6 - 8 sets of 3 - 5 reps with a stimulating movement game in between each set is the best way I have ever seen to develop quality technical/motor awareness.
- Don't underestimate the value of game playing when developing strength. The essence of developing quality strength with pre-adolescents come in the following ways:
> Run
> Jump
> Skip
> Throw
> Climb
> Technique development
Have fun creating obstacle courses (for instances) using the list from above.
I encourage youngsters and there parents to strength training (even in the gym) by the learning the technical relevance of various lifts. The key however is technical development, and that should not be taken lightly or left in the hands of an unsure trainer.
If you would like some specific examples of programming ideas, please let me know and I would be happy to post them here.
Sounds like he's going to be an upper-body guy. Now's a good time to talk about a balanced, functional approach to lifting.
I agree! What I would give to have had the resources available to young lifters today when I was that age. I could have avoided 4 shoulder surgeries and numerous months on the sidelines due to stupid (and I do mean stupid) injuries!
Holy crap, Brian posted and I didn't notice till just now. Glad to have you back in the states, bro.
Troy, to echo what Lisa said, Brian is THE MAN. He is the mastermind behind the IYCA (international youth conditioning association), which is a certification designed for trainers who specialize in training kids.
if he's interested in weightlifting, then i would get him onto free weights and teach the techniques. technique is key, as many have said already.
i know its winter, but when i was younger, i gained a lot of strength just from playing at the playground - in essence doing what Brian stated (run, jump, skip, climbing, etc.) - the monkey bars are great. so game and fun play are important in improving a kids strength. plus they get to have fun.
and on the 40 pushups...at the sports camp i work at during the summer (ages 7-14), i highly doubt any of the kids could perform 40 correct pushups. maybe 1 or 2 of the older kids, but that would be it. most of them have trouble even performing 10. then when i ask the football kids (pop warner) to do pushups, they have terrible form, but they say thats the way their coach taught them - so i try and correct them, but they just keep going back to the way the football coach taught them.
Great to be back! I actually sent you and email last week just to say 'hi'. My email has been giving me some difficulty recently so you may not have gotten it.
Lisa... Thanks for the kind words... I keep meaning to, but I really want to carve out some more time after the New Year to post here more often.
KIDS and WEIGHTLIFTING
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