When Should Youth Athletes Begin Strength Training?

Youth sports are becoming more competitive each year. Due to this increase in competition, many are looking for additional ways to get an edge or to prepare themselves for the rigor and demands of these sports. This is opening up avenues for physical development for these young athletes. Within physical development programs you see some combination of speed, agility, and strength training being introduced. One of the common questions I received from parents of youth athletes is, “What age is appropriate for Strength/Weight Training?”.

This is a great question, and one that I am always happy to answer. I feel that there is copious amounts of misinformation out there on this subject. Some of these myths have been created to benefit specific parties and some of the information was curated out of good intentions, but ultimately misinterpreted over time.

One of the most common arguments against resistance training is the risk of injury. To this I would say, it is the same risk you would incur if you went to someone other than an accredited dental hygienist for dental work. The key is finding someone educated and experienced in the area of working with youth athletes. In August of 2009 the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research printed a position statement for youth resistance training. In this statement they point out that the risk of injury due to resistance training is less than the risk of any team based sport.

So, if risk of injury is the basis for your child avoiding resistance training then you need to pull them out of all sports, as well, in order to avoid a potentially higher risk.

NOW, I believe it is important that I create a common language for this article. From this point forward I will refer to the subject as Resistance Training. This way there is less opportunity to misconstrue my message and thoughts on the ideas to follow.

It is important to understand that there are an endless number of ways to incorporate Resistance Training into a routine in order to benefit an athlete. Resistance Training refers to an effort, created by the body, to overcome an outside force or resistance. Many times this is thought to be limited to weights. A majority of the population believes that you can only become stronger, faster, or more explosive through weight training or doing things in the weight room. This is one avenue that you can use, however, it is not the only.

To look at this from another angle, let us observe sprinting. When we observe a grown, male athlete sprinting at top speed, they are generating enough force into the ground to maintain their body weight over the ground. This force can be upwards of 500% of their body weight. You can imagine, if you are applying this much force with every step that the body is undergoing some amount of strength development in order to repetitively create and apply this force.

Now, as it pertains to youth athletes, they will not apply this same amount of force. It is theorized that they apply 2-3x body weight in each of their strides. However, even at 2-3x body weight, they are creating more force than they ever could with any movement in the weight room. This alone is enough reason for me to instruct each of our athletes on proper sprint technique and drills.

Furthermore, we spend a great deal of time coaching athletes on plyometric/ jumping drills. These drills include jump rope, box jumps, broad jumps, skipping and bounding. Each of these exercises is a form of resistance training. In each example the athletes in moving their body weight against the resistance of gravity. They are also doing this at a high velocity. What is even more important about this form of training is the fact that the athletes are learning to absorb forces as well. Any time they land from a jump or bound they must organize their body in a way to land safely. This form of control, in landing, is resistance training.

As you can see, there are many ways to go about resistance training and improving the strength of our young athletes. So, with these examples, is it even worth entering a weight room for resistance training?

OF COURSE.

One of the most advantageous aspects of the weight room that other avenues don’t provide is the ability to be versatile and explore different patterns. In each of the two cases above, sprinting and jumping, both of these movement are done at a high velocity. In some circumstances this can increase the risk of injury with an untrained athlete. By incorporating the weight room we can learn specific patterns, such as the squat so that when we land from the box jump we understand how to organize the relationship between the ankle, knee and hip. As another example, we can use the lunge to help an athlete understand that the hamstring and glute musculature are prime movers in locomotion so that they better understand what they should feel when they are accelerating and why it is important to lift the knee in a flexed position throughout the acceleration phase.

So after hearing these different ways to implement resistance training, sprinting, jumping, weight room exercises, you can see that there are multiple ways to go about improving athletic performance and movement skill. Every athlete should have exposure to all of these modalities at every age in order to benefit.

The most important point I can create with this information is that it is never too early to begin resistance training. Our BSP athletes will start at 7/8 years old. However, it is the age, physical maturity, AND experience that will dictate the amount of time emphasized in each area. Be sure to enlist the help of a degreed, certified, and experienced professional prior to beginning these exercises and movements with your youth.