Does weightlifting for children actually harm natural height or is it an exaggeration?

There has been a long ongoing debate about the safety concerns of introducing children and growing adolescents to weightlifting. As we’ve advanced as a society with social media being pushed in our face anywhere we go, the typical idea that “Weightlifting” will conjure are short videos of people who push themselves to their absolute maximum. Whether that’s through bodybuilding, being shredded to the bone or pushing their strength to their absolute limit to achieve their strongest deadlift, it seems that children lifting weights has a far more deeply rooted negative perception. The more well known debate is how this activity could possibly affect the child’s natural height development through damage of their growth plates. However this fear is completely unsubstantiated and is most often rooted in misconceptions of the function and vulnerability of the children growth plates. We must take a stronger look into the relationship between child weightlifting and it’s non-existent effects on their growth plates, it’s vital we examine the growth plates and how they function in our children’s height development and weightlifting’s effect on bone density and risk of injury. This way we can come to a collective agreement that resistance training is outright a beneficiary activity to our children when done correctly.

We know them as growth plates but their medically correct name, epiphyseal plates are a cartilage located at the ends of bones of children and growing adolescents. As a child gets further into their development, this plate is typically the last part to fully and solidly harden. Prior to the hardening, the cartilage is a tangible, flexible, which may be more susceptible to injury. This process of a cartilage only hardening by the end of the natural height development or physical maturity is what’s responsible for the confusion that ensues from it. Understanding how this cartilage functions through the growing phases of a child will help ease the general idea that lifting is dangerous for children. This Article by LiveStrong also mentions that our epiphyseal plates may be susceptible to damage and in turn will damage growth. The most important takeaway from this is that ANY physical activity can do this. We go as far to take a look into high impact sports, such as gymnastics, football, etc. Any sport with high contact and spontaneous impact have a staggering difference to weightlifting. When weightlifting is properly managed, will never yield these type of sudden impacts. You can’t say the same for the other sports, no matter how well managed, these impacts will occur. Your growth plates actually benefit from resistance training, with the proper management of your sets and reps and controlled exercises, it is vastly superior to the other traditional children sports.

Some may be concerned that weightlifting will still have a negative effect on a childs bone health, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. There’ll be concern that “lifting such heavy weights will damage their bone and make them prone to fractures!” This article by Biotech will emphasize that it is actually vital for a boys bone development to have physical resistance training involved by the age of 12. Having strong bone density will only reduce risk of injury of fracture in the future. To further elaborate on how
weightlifting in of itself, with proper measurements and adjustments for age, personally tailored biomechanical exercises is a form of resistance training that will increase strength, endurance, etc. As explained by this brief article, weightlifting for children when under proper supervision is more than safe for children. This longstanding anecdotal belief that weightlifting is dangerous for children ultimately lies in the supervision and proper technique that’s being taught. What the main concern is how to mitigate risk of injury to growth plates which, like said before, can occur with any children’s sports. With this manageable training, it’s statistically less likely for injuries to occur as per this log from StrengthLog, there is only a 0.0055 injuries per 100 hours of training. This would equate to 18,000 hours of supervised training to result in injury. We should be actively pursue our children sought out this activity rather than the typical high impact sports we put them through.

There will of course always be others that oppose this argument with their own refutes, even if unsubstantiated, will say the risk is far too high. Other recommendations that are beneficial for children like swimming or running. But what you’ll notice past a surface level observation is that all of these sports that don’t have high impact contact will very typically be cardiovascular health activities. These of course have their merit for our health but do not even come close to replicating the benefits in muscle and bone development that weightlifting sets as a foundation for our children in the future.

In conclusion, weightlifting being a uniquely dangerous activity for our children is a notion that has, and will persist for years despite the completely contrary evidence. It becomes evident that as we further develop as a society that our minds almost always wander to the absolute maximum of human limits, so we combine that with applying that to children. So of course there would be a concern, but as we further fear monger this activity this will only make our understanding of physical health worse. The real goal we should strive for is to figure out the most optimal path to integrating physical resistance training as a regular activity for children. With our era discussing more and more about physical health while having so much screen time, encouragement with proper supervision of strength training only seems that it can benefit us.

References

Davis, Danny. “What Age Is Safe for Kids to Start Weight Lifting.” Check Biotech First, 13 June 2019, checkbiotech.org/age-safe-kids-start-weight-lifting

Myers, Allison M, et al. “Resistance Training for Children and Adolescents.” Translational Pediatrics, U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5532191

“Can Lifting Weights When Young Stunt Your Growth? | Livestrong.” LIVESTRONG.COM, Leaf Group, www.livestrong.com/article/430166-can-lifting-weights-when-young-stunt-your-growth