I saw this article in the paper today. It seems good timing for your kid.
Little lifters
Strength training for children gaining acceptance
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
BY MEG NUGENT
Fourth-grader Haley Milano does hip-hop dancing and plays softball. She also lifts weights.
"I notice I'm stronger," said Haley, 10, a student at Amsterdam Elementary School in Hillsborough. The weightlifting has helped strengthen her arms for her hip-hop moves, she said. And she sees one advantage of weightlifting, also known as strength training, compared to aerobic exercises that work the cardiovascular system. "That gets you out of breath. This is relaxing."
Phillip Barrood, 10, a fifth-grader at Hillsborough's Auten Road School, isn't really into any particular sports activities. But he recently went to his first weightlifting session. "I thought I would get bigger muscles and get stronger," he said when asked why he decided to try strength training.
"I love it," said fellow weightlifter Andrew Sheppard, 12, a soccer player and a sixth-grader at Auten Road School. "It helps condition you for other sports."
Once considered unsafe and therefore off limits to youngsters, strength training has been gaining acceptance as a suitable, safe way for kids to build their strength and fitness.
The nation's much-publicized childhood obesity epidemic is also fueling a growing interest in getting more kids involved in strength training. The American Council on Exercise recommends strength training as a safe, effective way to combat youth inactivity and obesity.
For a heavy child, strength training can spark an interest in exercise by helping to build the self-confidence he or she might not find through aerobic activities, such as running, said Avery Faigenbaum, a professor of exercise science at the College of New Jersey in Ewing who has conducted research studies on youth strength training for the past 15 years.
"They just don't like aerobics, nor can they do laps around the track. For a 10-year-old kid who's 20 to 40 pounds overweight, if you prescribe a traditional aerobic exercise program, the 10-year-old could say, 'This stinks, it's too hard, I'm coming in last place and I'm not having fun.'" And this attitude can prompt the child to give up on getting more active.
"Strength training is entirely different. The overweight child can be the strongest kid in class. They have a lot of fat, but they also have a lot of lean muscle mass. Their legs are strong; they're used to carrying around 200 pounds," said Faigenbaum, who co-authored "Youth Strength Training: A Guide for Fitness Professionals from the American Council on Exercise," published and recently released by ACE.
"Resistance training really gives the overweight child an opportunity to excel," said Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for ACE.
Strength training can also work for nonathletic kids who aren't overweight or obese, according to Dan Huff, a personal fitness coach who has worked with kids and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Metropolitan Campus (Teaneck-Hackensack). "The 98-pound weaklings -- give them a 3- or 4-pound dumbbell to work with, and their self-confidence is going to skyrocket."
Andrew, Phillip and Haley are enrolled in two after-school programs that include athletic and inactive kids and are designed to introduce strength training to children in elementary and middle school. Based at the Raider District Strength and Conditioning Center, a large, well-equipped weight room for students at Hillsborough High School, fourth-graders meet once a week for an hour-long session in the "Youth Fitness Program," a two-year-old pilot project developed and run by Fred Keiper, a physical education teacher with a specialty in strength and conditioning at Amsterdam School. The fifth- and sixth-graders meet twice weekly for their hour-long session in the "Youth Champions Program."
Under the tutelage last Tuesday of Keiper and Jim McFarland, physical education teacher and head strength and conditioning coach at Hillsborough High, each class of students moved from one exercise to the next, using free weights of 5 to 7 pounds, medicine balls, a weight machine that could accommodate their smaller sizes, their own body resistance and barbells. At one point, McFarland interrupted a member of the Youth Champions session for using improper form while doing a bench press with a weighted bar. "I know you want to toss it around, but you've got to go slow," McFarland cautioned the boy.
For years, strength training was considered to be harmful for kids out of a belief the activity would damage or prematurely close their bone growth plates. But, said Bryant, "there's no evidence that participating in a well-designed strength-training program is going to stunt a child's growth. The research over the last decade and a half has not supported this notion."
He added that kids already pound their bodies with other physical activities. "I have four boys and, with what they do, sometimes I wonder why we're not always in the emergency room. Those loads they place on their skeletal system are much higher than anything experienced in any kind of training environment. Kids just being kids exposes their muscles and skeletal system to very high levels of stress."
It's also untrue that children will develop outsized muscles from strength training, according to Faigenbaum and co-author Wayne Westcott in their book "Youth Strength Training." They wrote, "Children will not get 'big and bulky' from strength training but will become better at recruiting and coordinating muscle fibers when performing an exercise."
Youth strength training is getting support from the National Strength and Conditioning Association, which released position statements backing the use of "a properly designed and supervised resistance training program" for children. In addition, the American College of Sports Medicine said in a statement that "strength training in children and adolescents encourages a healthy lifestyle and builds confidence through successful completions of exercise, continued strength gains."
Still, misconceptions persist, and often the misunderstandings are passed along by parents and even athletic coaches. "We not only have to educate youths and parents," McFarland said, "we have to educate the coaching staff at all different levels."
Support for strength training by kids, however, does come with a few caveats from these organizations and fitness experts. For example, under no circumstances should youngsters be unsupervised while strength training. "In no way would I endorse a 10-year-old going on his or her own and trying to lift weights. Would a parent give a kid a pair of skis and say, 'Hey! The mountain's over there?'"
In addition, fitness experts say kids who want to train respond better to routines that use lighter weights and more repetitions (10 to 15 per set) than routines that focus more on heavier weights and fewer repetitions. "They'll respond in terms of seeing improvements in muscle strength and endurance while not experiencing injuries or problems associated with the training," Bryant said.
If you're looking for a trainer for your child, Faigenbaum said, YMCAs often run strength and conditioning classes geared to kids. Around the country, strength-training facilities are now based at many high schools, such as the one at Hillsborough High, and at some middle schools. Another option is personal trainers who are looking to gain more clients by tapping the "youth fitness market," he said.
But don't assume that any personal trainer will do. Look for one who has received proper certification from reputable organizations such as ACE, the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the American College of Sports Medicine. Make sure the trainer has experience working with kids.
Listen carefully to the types of questions the trainer is asking, said Bryant. "If it's a cookie-cutter approach and they're not asking a great deal about your kid in terms of their activity habits and prior training, I would seek a different trainer."
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Age 9...have you thought about enrolling him into any competitions? Typically most competitions will have kumite, kata, and weapons. It's a great place for kids to test their skill set and compare to others. The added bonus is that it offers a boost in self-confidence and reinforces the years of training.
