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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Benefits of weight lifting for Adolescents

Please give this a read. It debunks a lot of the myths out there regarding children and weight training.


http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/phys-ed-the-benefits-of-weight-training-for-kids/


Here is an excerpt from the article.

Their [children's] strength gains seem generally to involve “neurological” changes, Dr. Faigenbaum said. Their nervous systems and muscles start interacting more efficiently. A few small studies have shown that children develop a significant increase in motor-unit activation within their muscles after weight training. A motor unit consists of a single neuron and all of the muscle cells that it controls. When more motor units fire, a muscle contracts more efficiently. So, in essence, strength training in children seems to liberate the innate strength of the muscle, to activate the power that has been in abeyance, unused.

And that fact, from both a physiological and philosophical standpoint, is perhaps why strength training for children is so important, a growing chorus of experts says. “We are urban dwellers stuck in hunter-gatherer bodies,” said Lyle Micheli, M.D., the director of sports medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston and professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard University, as well as a co-author, with Dr. Faigenbaum, of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s 2009 position paper about children and resistance training. “That’s true for children as well as adults. There was a time when children ‘weight trained’ by carrying milk pails and helping around the farm. Now few children, even young athletes, get sufficient activity” to fully strengthen their muscles, tendons and other tissues. “If a kid sits in class or in front of a screen for hours and then you throw them out onto the soccer field or basketball court, they don’t have the tissue strength to withstand the forces involved in their sports. That can contribute to injury.”

3 comments:

  1. People are ridiculous! A while ago I was talking to somebody about my kids working out in the basement and this person said something about kids lifting weights would stunt their growth. This was the first time I heard this but I really had to hold back from calling them a moron. I'm sure all the mommy monkeys tell their baby monkeys not to climb trees because it will stunt their growth!

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  2. I know! What I find the most ridiculous is that parents are willing to let their kids play soccer and football and get knocked around the field with a great deal of force but they shy away from lifting weights! What?

    There's a reason the farm kids growing up were so much stronger than the town kids without every "training."

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  3. You make a good point about the farm kids. They were always generally bigger when we went out to play them in hockey tournaments. Not only were they used to lifting heavier things, they also ate better than we did.

    One of my relatives had 7 sons on the farm and they used to joke about keeping an eye out on the cattle to make sure they didn't eat them. No problem with stunting growth either - they're all 6'2" to 6'7"

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