Why 12-Year-Olds Should Lift Weights

IS IT SAFE for young athletes to lift weights? And if so, at what age should they start and what should they do? These are questions that are debated regularly and opinion seems to differ considerably.

Certainly, it’s a hugely controversial topic and yet several international review papers written by world-leading paediatricians, professors, and coaches have been published over the last five years (Lloyd et al, 2014; Bergeron et al, 2015), provide a clear understanding about good practice.

Importantly these papers have been endorsed by the International Olympic Committee, the American Academy of Paediatrics, and numerous sports medicine associations. Despite a consensus in the scientific community, education concerning appropriate strength training for young athletes is still lacking. Within the athletics coaching community, there are many misconceptions about strength training and my view is they may be doing the sport more harm than good in terms of the long-term development of young athletes.

So, what are the myths, and what does scientific evidence tell us is the correct way to introduce strength training exercises with young athletes?

Myth 1: Lifting weights before full maturation damages bones

There is no scientific evidence that shows lifting weights at any age causes growth to be adversely affected, damage to growth plates, or young athletes to be at an increased risk of skeletal injury. In fact, the opposite is true. During childhood, skeletal development follows a fairly linear pattern until the growth spurt, which occurs between 10-15 years old in girls and 12-16 years old in boys.

During rapid periods of growth bones become weaker, therefore a training stimulus that increases bone mineral density, such as weight training or plyometrics, provides huge benefits. Gains in bone strength are also much greater during adolescence than adulthood. Therefore, a failure to maximise bone mineral accrual during younger years has been shown to leave individuals more vulnerable to bone health-related conditions such as stress fractures and osteoporosis.