A Change in Social Perception: Resistance Training for Our Youth

Subjecting your child to organized strength training was once social taboo. If you enrolled your 11 or 12-year-old in a program to teach them the fundamentals of weight lifting, you were obviously a crazy parent living vicariously through your child's athletic endeavors. Today the social perception of strength training for children and adolescents is changing, but there are still some residual effects of the old opinion that challenging your musculoskeletal system with resistance at too early an age will cause your growth plates to close early and you'll end up foot shorter than your non-weight lifting self otherwise would have. 

Because there is no evidence, at least to my knowledge, to support that resistance training forces epiphyseal plates to close early, the only reason I can think that the idea became public perception is a common error in cause and effect relationship. As powerlifting and Olympic lifting became more popularized more people started to flock to weight rooms and began spending considerably more time "under the bar." Over time, individuals with shorter long bones, understanding that their short levers provided them with an advantage over their taller counterparts most likely became drawn to these particular sports. As more short statured individuals became more successful in their respective lifting competitions, public perception turned to, "Oh, lifting weights must make you short." This is the equivalent of watching one NBA game and suggesting that basketball makes people tall.

According to Faigenbaum, Lloyd & Myer (2013) resistance training may actually be beneficial for bone growth and formation during childhood. Furthermore, the ability of youth to adapt to a resistance-training program is influenced by the physiological plasticity at each stage of development in addition to the design of the training program. (Faigenbaum et al., 2013) This suggests to me that under the guidance and watchful eye of a trained professional, strength gains can be made possible at any age. As mentioned in the Faigenbaum article (2013), a large difference in adult-child strength differences can be attributed to children's inability to recruit or fully use Type II motor units to the extent of typical adults. This provides further support to the importance of children learning how to properly generate force against resistance.

Before parents rush to sign their son or daughter up for CrossFit, there are still some things they need to understand. Prepubescent strength gains are accomplished largely without any changes in muscle size and likely involve improvements in neural mechanisms, including improved motor skill coordination, increased motor unit activation and other undetermined neurological adaptations. (Kenney, Wilmore, & Costill, 2015) So if you're expecting your 10 year old to pack on 15 pounds of muscle before next year's YMCA football season, you will be sorely disappointed. Also, variables such as exercise selection, training intensities and training technique should be monitored and adjusted by a trained professional. It doesn't matter what age the athlete is in regards to avoiding training injury if they are asked to perform exercises too advanced for their current ability or if erroneous progressions of training load are prescribed. Also, a certain level of social maturity is required for an athlete to not only reap the benefits of a resistance training program, but also to avoid injury. So even though getting stronger might be beneficial, you still may want to save your time and money you'd otherwise spend signing up a 6 year old. 

In conclusion, it is important that our youth learn the fundamentals of resistance training to ensure they can live long fulfilling lives.  According to Horn & Dorn (2013) the past 25 years have seen stagnant or declining real earnings and employment of low-skill occupations. A number of these occupations are ones that require hard manual labor. We can draw from this finding that the future will likely demand even less of us in regards to physical activity. As a kid, my dad picked rocks at his uncle's farm and walked to school. These activities are becoming more and more rare as society evolves, making it even more important that we teach our youth the importance of routine physical activity early in life. 

References:

Faigenbaum, A.D., Lloyd, R.S., Myer, G.D. (2013) Youth Resistance Training: Past Practices, New Perspectives, and Future Decisions. Pediatric Exercise Science, 25, 591-604.

Horn, D., Dorn, D. (2013) The Growth of Low-Skill Labor Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market. American Economic Review, 103(5), 1553-1597.

Kenney, L.W., Wilmore, J.H., Costill, D.L. (2015) Physiology of Sport and Exercise (6^th Edition). Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL.

Malina, R. (2006) Weight Training in Youth-Growth, Maturation, and Safety: An Evidence Based Review. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, 16(6), 478-487.