Do Strength or Resistance Training impairs Children Growth?

Are children and adolescents allowed to go to the gym and do strength training? or, does it impairs their growth?

I've commonly had clients and also parents being worried and concerned about the fact that the child is thinking about doing strength exercises like resistance training in the gym.

The biggest concern is that it will not impair growth of the adolescent.

And first of all, we have a brilliant position statement on youth resistance training established in 2014 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Their key highlights include fears that resistance training would injure the growth plates of youths are not supported by scientific reports or clinical observations. In fact, they go on to say that the mechanical stresses that get placed on the growth plates of individuals who are engaging in strength training or high strain enlisting sports, such as gymnastics or weightlifting may actually be beneficial for bone formation and growth.

The statement goes on to say no scientific evidence indicates that resistance training will have an adverse effect on linear growth during childhood or reduce eventual height in children. In fact, these kind of exercises are widely encouraged, particularly in the World Health Organization guidelines in 2020, which established some really key points. First of all, they established that children and adolescents should do at least an average of 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise across the week.

There was a strong recommendation in these guidelines that vigorous intensity aerobic exercises, as well as those that strengthen muscle and bone, should be incorporated at least three days a week. And also that children should do muscle strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, as these provide additional health benefits. Plenty of indications that strength training is a good thing.

And from those guidelines and other pieces of research, we know that there are loads of benefits to adolescents for doing such strength training, including improved bone density, improved metabolic and cardiovascular health, reducing the risk of injury by up to 68 percent, improving physical literacy and the understanding of their own bodies and improving psychological well-being as well. Plenty to support the use of these exercises in practice. Furthermore, here is a brilliant infographic by Feigenbaum et al. published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2022, highlighting some of the myths that exist around youth resistance training, including that you should wait until age 12, that girls shouldn't be bulking up. Some really important things that are even more supportive of the use of these exercises in practice. A really good read if you want more information.

And lastly, what are some top tips for how we incorporate this into practice when working with children wanting to do strength training? Well, ultimately is really similar to the same things we would say for adults. For example, children and adolescents should engage in resistance training two to three times a week. We should give them advice and education on technique, form, whatever you want to call it, to improve their physical literacy.

And we should choose exercises which involve all major muscle groups and with a variety of different type of exercises, such as free weights, body weight exercises, machine exercises, all of the above. And finally, simple stuff surrounding reps and sets. For example, start with an exercise of just one to two sets, perhaps between six and 15 repetitions to allow that individual to work their way into the exercise.

We would start by choosing an exercise which after about 10 to 15 repetitions might cause some fatigue for the individual, but doesn't cause any failure of the exercise so that it goes all wrong and causes an injury. Simple stuff that works for children and adolescents alike.