TEEN BODYBUILDING

QUESTION: My question regards my 8 year old son. He is very athletically gifted. He loves football and wrestling. Now he has taken an interest into going to the gym with me. We focus on form and reps. I try not to let him go to failure, but sometimes he pushes himself too hard. I know what you and everybody is thinking: another psycho dad pushing their kid too hard too early, but that’s not the case. A lot of people tell me this is bad for his growth plates. I have no idea. What’s best for my kid? The last thing I want to do is ruin him before he gets started. Thanks.

ANSWER: First off, let me begin by commending you for seeking advice in this matter. It is an issue that has many myths surrounding it and I intend to clear this up for you. Secondly, I do not believe you are a psycho dad pushing his kid too early. I see you as someone who has the foresight to set their son on the right path to a healthy lifestyle.

Seeing as your son was already involved in two very physical sports, it’s only natural that he eventually gravitate towards weight training, albeit for him it happened relatively earlier than most. That’s not to be a concern though. Resistance training at a young age has countless benefits which include but are not limited to increased bone density, strengthening of the joints, increased muscular strength and endurance and controlled body fat levels. As far as damaging his growth plates by allowing him to participate in strength training, you can rest easy. The actual chance of that happening, assuming you are focusing on form and higher rep sets and you are closely monitoring him during the workout so that he is using the equipment the way it was designed to be used, is very low. He has more of a chance damaging his growth plates wrestling or playing football due to the nature of both sports in that they are very physical and involve a lot of contact.

My thoughts on this are firm, and I do believe in introducing resistance training at a young age as long as there is knowledgeable supervision present. I owned my first weight set when I was 10 and never had a problem with my growth plates or anything else for that matter. Finally, with the prevalence of childhood obesity and the ever growing instances of juvenile diabetes in our society you are certainly doing your son a favor here by allowing him to follow you to the gym. Train smart, take your time with him and continue to encourage his ambitions as weight training should be considered a life long endeavor.