Resistance Training for Adolescents: Strength and Safety
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While learning about resistance training in my adolescent years, I often heard a warning from my parents and others: “stop lifting weights, or you’ll stunt your growth!” For a young person who wants to get stronger, that is alarming. Yet well-designed and supervised resistance training has not been shown to stunt growth.
Young people can benefit from learning to use resistance safely. That may mean improving strength for sport, working toward a rehabilitation goal or becoming more comfortable with everyday movement. The starting point is instruction that fits the individual, rather than an adult workout handed to a child.
What does youth strength training involve?
The National Strength and Conditioning Association describes a progressive approach to youth resistance training. It uses varied loads and methods to improve health, fitness and sport performance. It can include body-weight movements, bands, machines and free weights.
A beginner does not have to train like a bodybuilder or chase a maximum lift to benefit. Learning how to control a movement is itself an important step. Strength can improve through better coordination and recruitment of muscles, without requiring a large increase in muscle size.
McKinlay and colleagues studied young male soccer players aged 11–13 in 2018. The players completed eight weeks of resistance or plyometric training. The work showed improvements in strength and aspects of explosive performance, with differences between the training approaches. Plyometric training produced the greater improvement in jump performance compared with the control group. Different methods have different strengths; the athlete’s goal should help determine the choice.
Harries and colleagues looked across studies in a 2012 systematic review. They found that resistance training could improve muscular power in adolescent athletes. Evidence of a direct improvement in sport performance was more limited. Becoming stronger is useful, but skill practice still has its own place.
Does greater strength always improve mobility?
Resistance training also appears in rehabilitation. For young people with cerebral palsy, strength work may be part of a plan built around their mobility and individual needs.
A 2013 randomized trial followed 48 adolescents and young adults with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy. Participants in the training group completed a physiotherapist-supervised progressive resistance program twice a week for 12 weeks. Targeted muscle strength improved by 27% compared with the control group.
The result was more specific than a general improvement in mobility. Objective measures, including walking tests, did not differ significantly between groups. Participants did report improvements in aspects of mobility at the end of training. The distinction helps clinicians and families set goals. Building strength can be worthwhile, while everyday movement may need additional work.
How does the core connect the upper and lower body?
In sport, the trunk helps transfer and control forces between the upper and lower body. Core training is therefore more than working toward visible abdominal muscles. It includes learning to stabilize and move the trunk in relation to the task.
Physical therapist Dawn-Marie Ickes described a baseball player named Brian in a 2014 clinical article. He had shoulder pain. Her assessment examined how his trunk and shoulder worked together. She reported about a 40% drop in resting symptoms that evening. After two follow-up visits over two weeks, he returned to baseball without pain.
This is one clinician’s account of one patient. Its useful lesson is to examine the whole movement, including how the trunk and shoulder work together. A case account cannot establish how one program will affect other athletes.
Can adolescents lift weights without stunting growth?
The American Academy of Pediatrics addressed growth in its 2020 clinical report. It states that well-designed resistance training programs have “no apparent negative effect on linear growth, physeal health, or the cardiovascular system.” Physeal health refers to the growth plates.
Safe training still requires care. Qualified instruction, suitable equipment and loads that match the athlete’s ability matter. A young person should learn an exercise before increasing its difficulty. The program also needs to account for sport practice and other activity. Our companion article on higher loads and supervision considers how coaches can make those choices.
Mentoring matters, too. Young athletes need room to ask questions and build confidence without pressure to match an older teammate’s weight on the bar. When we teach them how to train, recover and recognize progress, strength training can become a skill they carry beyond a single season.
References
Ickes, D.-M. (2014, November). The “Chain Gain”: Redefining Core Strength for athletes. Physical Therapy Products. Retrieved December 2, 2021, Additional source