Episode 38 - Negative Effects Of Lifting Weights As a Youth Athlete

Darren Hansen [@CoachDHansen] answering your question about the negative effects of lifting weights as a youth athlete.

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Transcript

Now building stronger humans radio. So we've changed the name over a little bit of branding idea I had. So instead of  radio, we just changed it over to our slogan at Hanson analytics and that's building stronger humans that can include a lot of different aspects.
And I liked the name of that better. So that is now the name. Today I got a great question. So we're going to cover a question was asked about the negative effects of lifting weights as youth athlete.
So this is something that, I mean, this has been going around for a long time. This is questions that a question that has popped up floated around.
I've been asked growing up my quote, my parents asked this question when I was young, that I think there's some sore of tall tale that lifting weights as a young athlete youth athlete, or before a certain point in life is bad for you.
In terms of, it seems to always be stunts your growth or growth plate damage. That tends to be the most common in terms of where people are associating, it being bad.
Okay. And potentially even now I think about a more bad knees, bad back, which as I grew up, which isn't the case at all.
Okay. Obviously doing anything really poorly, too heavy all the time can be bad. Right? So we're going to dive into some things to look for slash answer this question.
So what's important with youth training is that it's appropriately structured. So the training needs to be created for a youth athlete.
Okay. You don't want to just go online and grab a program that from someone that a wrote it for a, usually it tends to be a high level athlete that's in their twenties and thirties and implement it with your kid.
You don't want to grab across your program off online that your gym uses. You don't want to grab anything random to give it to your kid.
Okay. Cause there's a couple of reasons why, but a main reason would be that your kid is, Hey, not a high level athlete and B depending on their, I mean, kids at different ages at 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, they all are so differently developed based on the individual.
So there's a lot of issues that can arise from that. So one thing you want to look for is a program that is designed for youth athletes.
So it's appropriately structured. If you don't have an idea of what that could look like or what it would would include and your shopping gyms reach out to me, reach to a coach you trust in your area, someone that has some experience in strength and conditioning.
Number two is, is the implementation of that program. So taking something on paper and then implementing it correctly in person with athletes that that's going to be hard, right?
For some people in terms of you might have that's, the problem is you might see a program online for an elite athlete.
And it's calling for, let's say you have a program with percentages in it, right? Most of you guys that have followed some sort of training program before they have percentages, okay.
That's an easy way for people to write things. It's not how I write things really ever anymore because it's, it's too subjective.
So if, if I tell you to lift 80% there's no way even an athlete in high school. Okay. High school athletes, middle school athletes, none of these kids slash adults are developed enough to actually run a program or to actually lift a barbell at a true one rep max.
A lot of them don't have the background with lifting. Okay, there's this maybe a select few kids that have been training in a good program since eighth grade.
And now they're a senior in high school, but for a majority of those younger athletes, percentages are totally not the case.
Okay. Because they can't hit a true one or at max, they don't have the skill. They haven't developed the ability to lift weights.
Well, okay. That's just like, if you were going to put them in a you're like, oh, I want my kid to play football.
I'm going to throw them in a high school, a varsity game, first thing. Okay. They don't have the prerequisites to, to step in that situation and be successful.
So they're never going to actually get a one, a true one rep max. Okay. Number two is these kids are growing and changing so often and they're not sleeping as well.
They're not eating as well as they should. It's going to be fluid. It's going to change based on the day really, or what time you're getting them at, are they, did they have practice earlier in the day?
Yada, yada, yada. So percentages are a lost, the, it is not effective unless you have either a highly trained elite athlete.
And that even goes with Olympic weightlifters or anybody, even strength, sports, the percentages don't work. You need to, unless you are very select few, they're not going to work for you.
You need to go off how you feel that day and maximize what you have each day as you come into the gym.
So rep ranges, I think, are more beneficial when you implement a program like that, a work to a challenging three for the day, work to a challenging five, a coach that's worth his salt will know a five and a three are going to put them somewhere.
If you really want to be stuck on percentages, it's going to put them in a certain range typically of, of a percentage of, of what they could do once based on whether it's a five or three rep.
Okay. There's pretty good ideas of where that leaves your athlete at. Okay. So don't throw a program at him with the percentages.
They're not ready for that. As you go more off fill every day and then number, and then we'll jump into the next part.
Is this saying of neck, the weight lifting weights, being bad for youth athletes? It's been, it's been studied so much.
It's like literally been debunked so many times, but nobody has looked into this studies and followed people actually scientifically getting a group of people and testing this on youth athletes and having, having the whole scientific theory practiced out, go through, look at different populations, get randomized populations and whatnot.
And there, it does not cause these, these things that people are are saying it is. Okay. So it studied. If you want to look it up, look it up please, because it's not, it's not true.
And one thing it can do for your athletes is it's going to increase their capability. Well, let's just put it this way.
So a phrase we use at the gym is accelerated adaptation. So what it's going to do is it's going to help these kids progress physically, obviously but also neuromuscular.
So their coordination, neuromuscular coordination, their ability for their brain to control. We'll just break it down to their ability for their brain to control their body.
Okay. When they think about doing something or they need to find stability through movement exploring ranges of motion those are all things that needed to be developed and it happens over time through puberty and through being exposed to different things in the, in the gym, we can, we can move that forward quicker.
So by using external forces, using weights, using different types of drills you can help accelerate the adaptation or the development of that for the athlete.
So there's a lot of different things that more than beyond just getting stronger, putting on muscle that having an appropriately structured program is going to help these athletes do.
It's pretty insane how much progress they can make so quickly. So now let's jump into what will actually hurt your athletes, potentially hurt their growth plates potentially cause an injury that would keep them from growing to have injury down the road, yada, yada, yada, I see this all the time playing too much sport and practicing.
Okay. It's pretty insane. I would say I have a handful of athletes young, like let's just say seventh grade through sophomore in high school that play over a hundred basketball games a season.
Okay. And that's not to count. The other two sports are playing. So let's just use that one sport, a hundred games.
That's insanity. Okay guys, it's crazy. Okay. The professional athletes, like they should not be playing as much as a professional athlete and you know, something you're not going to see at at the professional level when they are playing that many games is these, these, these kids are playing as many games and then at practice, their coaches are still running them.
Their coaches are running them, conditioning them, punishing them with exercise, yada yada yada. So they're playing full speed sport over a hundred games, a season in just basketball.
They're also being conditioned by the coach because they feel like they need to be in shape. Okay. You're at your youth athlete is running and playing sport more than a professional athlete.
If you went to a professional athlete practice, if you were to go even to a high level, even if you go to a college practice, a high-level college practice those coaches are very aware of the amount of work they're doing with, with their players when it comes to exercise, running and things that can beat their athletes up.
Okay, man, you're not going to show up to the golden state warriors practice and they're just running their athletes. Okay.
It's not, they're not gonna let, it's not how it works. Okay. So at this lower level, these coaches are just not aware of that.
And they're playing that many games. They're running their athletes. They're not aware of what their athletes been doing throughout the majority of the entire day.
Okay. There's some athletes that are doing extra training, like kids that come work with us, there's some athletes go into other spots.
Like by the time they get to practice, they could already had an hour or two an hour and a half of physical activity before practice.
Okay. That is where kids are getting hurt. Okay. That's where you're seeing the overuse injuries. So people are, kids are hurting their growth plates kids aren't prepared for that amount of volume.
They're not eased into it. So let's say they go and play. They're playing a different sport or football. They're not running as much.
Also they get thrown into basketball. The basketball coach, typically isn't ramping this up. They don't have an opportunity to get a bunch of what I would just call mini impacts in.
So like sport is full of small impacts. Like running is an impact. Each time you hit the ground it's, it's just full of it.
Okay. And if the athlete is not built up to that correctly, and that's where we start to see injuries, they run poorly that I haven't had coaching the heel strike.
They have shin splints. Now their knees hurt all kinds of stuff. Okay. And it's not because they maybe lift weights for an hour and a half a week.
Okay. The reason they have these injuries and these overuse injuries is because they're playing too much for, in their being ran too much in practice.
Okay? It's not, your kids will get in shape by playing the sport. That surprised the misconception is people want to just run their athletes, run their athletes, run their athletes.
You don't want your athletes to be in the best shape they can be in at the beginning of the season.
You want to peak them at the end and you can't just hold a high level of fitness for you. Can't get your kids all the way in shape and then have them hold that level of fitness for four or five months without running into injury.
You need to, they're going to be a little out of shape in the beginning of season. You need to build them up and they need to peak by the time that it matters.
Okay. That's that's the misconception is you can't hold them in the best shape. The entire part of the year. You can't do that.
There's ebbs and flows with an athlete. That leads right into a lot of these kids are not sleeping well. Okay.
They're not eating enough food. I would say I would say 95% are not eating enough. Okay? They're not overeating. Most of them are under eating.
So when you're under eating, you have poor sleep. You're practicing too much, or you're playing too much sport. That's way more dangerous for your athlete than lifting weights, way more dangerous.
And so many parents are putting their kid in that situation. So that hopefully answers your question on our opinions on the negative effects of, of lifting weights.
As a youth athlete, they're under a supervisor a coach and a supervised program pretty much zero negative effects of lifting weights.
Just make sure you're working with intelligent coach. Okay. Ask them questions, ask their background, ask their education, ask their own personal experience with training, with sport, whatnot.
Okay. Ask your friends, ask people that go to their gym. You need to do some digging before you just take your pro your kid into a program.
That's important because you need to actually understand the background of the people. You might have a coach that looks really good on Instagram, and they've only been coaching for five months and they're doing drills.
They see on Instagram and they're trying to train 12 year olds like they are elite athletes. And excuse me, that's a problem.
So you need to look into this, look into the background, ask the right questions. Okay. It's hard to tell sometimes up front with social media who, you know, who's been around the block.
You want to look for experience and people have worked with a lot of different athletes and really understand how to train an athlete versus just generally lifting weights.
Okay. There's a lot of different little nuances that go into it. And it's important to do that research. So if you guys have any further questions, send them over to check out.
The Instagram has athletics, my personal ones, coach D Hanson. I throw up question bubbles almost every day drop any questions you have in there.
And the good ones will make it to the podcast and I'll answer every one of them on my story. I appreciate the support.
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