Parents and coaches want the best for young athletes; this includes both safety and performance. Adults get concerned about young children 10-12 years old or younger getting hurt or stunting growth with strength training. The concern is that overloading an open growth plate will cause damage that will effect over all growth. This has been disproved in many journal articles. Injuries results from the same causes that affect adults such as overuse and accidents. A logical way to start a strength training program for any age population would aim to avoid these injuries. A proper assessment that includes a functional screen will discover areas of weakness to be addressed. This should be followed by mostly body weight exercises done with proper form. With this age group it is a safe way to start and convenient to implement. Most youth sports are practiced at fields with no access to exercise facilities. This limits access to weight equipment leaving body weight as a more viable option. Youth athletes can be taught exercise like:
- Push-ups
- Planks
- Squats
- Lunges
Supervisors of these activities need to ensure proper technique and value quality of quantity. Lack of proper guidance is usually how these athletes get injured, not the actual training. Once they advance playground equipment can be used if available. The monkey bars in themselves are great training tool or used for chin ups. The concern for injury seems to stem from the idea of children squatting and dead lifting heavy weights incorrectly. In reality this should not be done by anyone till mechanics are mastered. Starting young with body weight will set a solid base for high school weight lifting. This will decrease the injuries seen in high school lifting and increase performance in the long run. There are many safe ways to make workouts challenging for kids with out even setting foot in a weight room. When put in perspective kids play much harder than most adults train, so imagine the improvement with proper guidance.
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