Is Weight Lifting Good for Kids?
Frederick Hahn, the author of Strong Kids, Healthy Kids: The Revolutionary Program for Increasing Your Child’s Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week thinks so. Hahn is the author of the blockbuster book The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body in 30 Minutes a Week that advocates slow resistance training to increase your health and fitness for adults. He advocates weight training for kids to increase their lean body mass, improve flexibility, increase muscle strength and power and improve general fitness.
His book dispels the myth that weight lifting is bad for kids:
The common thought by people who don’t know better is fear of damage to the bone growth plates. Yet there has never been a single such case ever reported in medical literature. Others say it can delay a child’s musculoskeletal growth in kids–dramatically so. In an eight-week study on fifth graders, 20 boys and girls strength trained twice a week for 20 minutes and improved their body composition almost twice as much as their nontrained peers.
The book puts together an exercise and eating plan for kids and also teaches parents how to help their child set fitness goals. Hahn is not a big believer in those fitness tests the schools use where they measure kids by how far they can reach or how many push-ups they can do. For example the sit-and-reach test where a kid reaches forward on the floor to see how close he or she comes to touching their toes can be affected by how long or short a kid’s torso is or if they have short arms. If a heavy kids tries to do push-ups, it might be their high body weight, not lack of strength that is the issue. A better use of time, to the author, is to focus on strength training.
If you have an overweight kid or just one that needs a fitness tune-up, this book seems like a good one to help.
Why?
I started weight training at about 16. Stopped in my 50′s. Weight training is good, I just see no reason for children to do it. Too fat? There are better ways to lose weight.
I’m 70 now and am recovering from a heart attack. CHF, a week in the ICU.
I use a TRX suspension trainer. I do that because my medical issues left my left arm and leg much smaller then my right. Suspension training burns cals and it uses only my body weight. For aerobics I ride a multi speed mountain bike.
I have 3 sons. They are in their 30′s now. 2 work out. The oldest doesn’t, because his wife likes him a little pudgy. One is just finishing college and plans on going back into the Marine Corps. He already did 8 years (4 in recon) and wants to go back as an officer.
He works out because being strong can be a lifesaver in combat. The other is an Apache pilot and they work out because they need too. They pull G’s. Not like a fighter pilot but enough to value strength. I find it amusing because growing up the only one that showed interest in weights was the oldest. He played soccer well enough for a scholarship and tried the weight room for a while.
I never pushed my children, figuring society would do enough of that. If I had, it would have been toward sports. If your kid is too fat, stop the sugar, up the exercise.
Swimming is about the best exercise known to man. Unless you are one of the 14 people living in Bumfook, Nowhere, there is a swimming class you can get the brats to. If not Bicycling is almost as good as swimming. Tie a pork chop to their butt and let the dogs chase them around.
Why should kids strength train? There are several reasons I can think of, and not just for boys or for kids that are overweight or out of shape. My daughter, now 18, was offered the opportunity at the age of 15 to fulfill her high school PE requirement with weightlifting. She is not a fat kid, but she dislikes team sports and was somewhat uncomfortable with her post-puberty body. The only sport she ever stuck with was club fencing, and she had hit a plateau with that a couple of years earlier. The weightlifting class did wonders for her. She did become stronger, but it also improved her balance, her quickness, and her stamina.
I am currently recovering from knee surgery, and the debilitation prior to the surgery plus the recovery itself has left me way too flabby. I’ve just started lifting free weights to regain strength. I’m currently using Mark Rippetoe’s “Starting Strength” as a guide but I may get the Hahn “Slow Burn” book as well. Thanks for the review.
There’s really no need to lift weights until high school. My experience was lighter weight lifting in junior high, mostly to start practicing safe technique under a coach, and then going heavier starting freshman year. I did have a high school teammate who had serious back issues because he started heavy, power weight lifting too early, with poor technique. Weight lifting for tone (low weight, high repetition) is probably safe, but power lifting (high weight, little repetition) would be more dangerous for young people because of lack of experience and muscle memory; and lack of strength in all of those coordinating muscles which help with good technique.
Goateggs, 15 is not an early age to start weight lifting. Your daughter had already stopped growing. Also, she was probably just hitting her true athletic potential. I saw a lot of girls play basketball with my twin sister who were outstanding as freshman/sophomores, but were underwhelming as seniors/juniors. Men peak around their early twenties. Intense training and more experience are what allow athletes to extend this prime period. My sister continued to excel as an upperclassmen primarily because she had greater experience playing AAU basketball.
The trend for the past 20-30 years has been that kids enjoy much less physical activity (especially outdoors) than previous generations, and the rates of childhood onset obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing.
Since strength training helps prevent obesity and improves insulin sensitivity, it is probably a great idea. With the caveat that kids needs proper instruction to get the form right to prevent injury.
I got free weights for my 13th birthday and still have a set and a bowflex 44 years later. I’m not religious about training. Its mostly a winter activity when I’m more cooped up. With that experience behind me, I recommend play for kids over weight lifting. At least till they’re almost done growing which is different in different families.
Play is more social, its a more natural use of the body, it combines aerobic and strength exercise. Its self limiting. It takes no discipline to get the kids engaged in it. Its almost always a better way to develope the body core. Not by virtue of technique but by the nearly overactive use of the core in playtime, generally.
Tag, kick the can, keep away, races, wrestling, swimming, tree climbing, monkey bars, merry-go-round, playing catch (baseball or football) with football and runnig patterns better, hitting and shagging fly balls, tennis, golfing, hikes in the woods, tug-o-war, canoeing, kayaking,r ow boating, long jumping, high jumping, basketball, biking, hide and seek game called pile on the sardine, etc.
Which way is going to be easier to KEEP your kids doing? All these, every day at their own pace, usually till they drop. Or lifting weights.
If they make the ergonomic machines in kiddie size, maybe, as part of some kind of organized program, but it seems a bit tedious for most young minds. Free weights? I don’t think so, except for some light hand-weights. Just asking for trouble.
I started when I was fouteen. Have no plans to stop. Just try to be smart about scaling down with age and minimize injuries.
Am 67. Have been power lifting for 18 months. Lost 30# of desk jockey fat. Am stronger now than any time in my life. Son has a 10 year old coming to his Crossfit box. Kid lifts weights like a demon. Daughter was endurance athlete for 20 years. Transitioned to power lifting, has never been leaner. She weighs 112# and can pull 250# off the floor. Son is a Crossfitter but at 150# can deadlifted 345, snatch 200#[ and, well u get the picture. Powerlifting is for EVERYONE ! With proper coaching of course. But, it ain’t rocket science.