Children are impressionable. They want to do the things that their parents and other people they admire do.  As a personal trainer, I get many questions about the safety of exercise from my clients with regards to their young children.  While it is common knowledge that exercise is very healthy, they have concerns about their kids lifting weights. So, at what age is it appropriate for someone to start lifting weights?

While there is no universal standard, it is widely agreed upon from many health professionals that age 12 or 13 is a reasonable age to begin weight training. This is of course provided that the individual has been taught proper exercise technique and uses appropriate weight. 

On a personal level it’s easy for me to recommend that age because that is when I started working out myself. I’m always grateful that I started at that time because it set the foundation of my physique for years to come. I always felt that I was ahead of the game because I started so early; most people start in college or their early twenties.

Common Myths

The number one concern when it comes to starting a training routine at a young age is that it would supposedly stunt a kid’s growth.  This myth has been debunked time and time again. Lifting weights has no negative impact on an individual’s height, nor would it affect their potential height as a full grown adult.

Safety is the next topic that comes up with regards to resistance training and children. But children are no more susceptible to injury provided that they are using proper form and light weight. Looking at it from a logical perspective; think about how active kids are in multiple sports. It’s not uncommon for a young adult to play more than one sport at a time during certain parts of the year. Think about all the jumping, cutting, and running that goes on. Yet, they seemingly recover from it without issue.

When you were a kid you felt indestructible. You could fall and get hit and tumble on the ground then pop up like it was no problem. As you get older, that becomes less and less the case. So why is it that training with weights is taboo when young kids have this uncanny ability to recover? It’s a stigma that still exists to this day for no apparent reason.  In fact, a properly programmed training routine can help prevent injuries in children.

Guidelines

When playing a sport, it’s important to remember that strength and conditioning is used to complement the sport. Skill training for that specific sport should come first (i.e. practice, drilling, technique). Therefore an athlete, no matter how old, should probably only perform strength-and-conditioning workouts one to two times per week.

Kids looking to begin resistance training that do not play a sport are afforded a little more leeway. They could weight train three to four days per week.

It’s important to get off on the right foot when beginning a resistance training routine. These principles apply to both children and adults. You want to make sure your routine has balance so that you develop a well-rounded physique. All too often you see individuals with muscle imbalances that have to correct the mistakes they made as a novice in their later years.

In most cases, this just means a body part lacks from an aesthetic and muscle mass perspective compared to another body part.  For example, a guy may focus too much on benching and chest exercises and neglect his legs. Typically this just leads to a little embarrassment and he may have to deal with the moniker of chicken legs. But in some cases a muscle imbalance can leave an individual more susceptible to injury or bad posture. A simple rule of thumb is to treat every body part with respect and give it all adequate attention.

When I first started working out I had limited equipment. It was literally a set of dumbbells in my bedroom. Since I didn’t have a bench until much later when I joined the gym, my arms and shoulders were always developed ahead of my chest. This didn’t lead to any major injury or anything like that, but it is an example of how a training routine can disproportionately affect body parts. In a perfect scenario, you would either have access to a gym or enough equipment at home to stimulate each body part equally.

Developing Good Habits

As a personal trainer, I’ve always said that I’d rather work with someone brand new than someone who has been training for years but has developed bad habits. It is incredibly difficult to take a person with bad lifting form and change it for the better, especially if they have been lifting for a very long time. This is why it’s very important to get off on the right foot with your training as a young adult.

When I started working out at 13 I was lucky enough to have the foresight to develop good form and not use weight that I couldn’t handle. I never got injured as a kid due to improper weight training. Nowadays there are tons of resources to make sure you’re doing things properly. If you can’t afford a personal trainer, you could simply go on YouTube and learn from a professional there.

Choosing a Routine

If you ask a personal trainer what kind of routine a beginner should get themselves into, typically they would advise them to stick with fundamental compound exercises. Compound exercises use multiple muscle groups as opposed to isolation exercises which use only one. Examples of compound exercises include bench presses, squats, pull-ups, military presses among many others. They also recommend that you stick with free weights rather than machines.

In general, this is sound advice. Compound exercises not only engage multiple muscle groups but in many cases also activate the core. Many injuries can be attributed to a weak core.   This is another reason to not get too machine happy as they rarely engage the core.

The funny thing about these recommendations is that they apply to nearly everybody at every level of training. It is not as if you grow out of these compound exercises and move on to other things. Just because these are the basics doesn’t mean they stop working as you become more advanced. In fact, most would agree that these exercises are harder than machines or isolation movements. There’s a reason people don’t like to do them, they’re challenging. But, they work.

Conclusion

If you are an older adolescent or young teenager reading this, I would encourage you to begin a weight training routine at some level. You have your whole life ahead of you, but I can confidently say that you will be so happy that you started when you did. You’ll not only begin building strength and muscle, but you will start to learn the importance of structure and discipline.  These skills can translate throughout all aspects of your life and can lead to success in many fields.

Note: This article is not designed to provide medical advice. Please speak with your doctor before starting a training routine.