Gym for 16 year olds.

[Shawn Baker]

My kids 6,8,10 are already well on their way with strength training- all can do KB swings and med ball throws as well as various jumps- 8 year old daughter starting to learn basics of barbell stuff- the fallacy of growth plate injury is unfortunate- kids generate far more forces on growth plates etc.. Playing sports, running jumping, cutting or crashing their bikes than they ever will in a well supervised strength training program

[left coaster]

I have growth plate injuries in my elbows and lower back (spurs etc). I think they are from early labor work that involved working on a steel cutting sheer which had a high impact nature to it and being exposed to hundreds of repetitions of this every day. That, and all the full days of lifting I did as an ironworker from the age of 14 every summer.

I lifted weights heavy from 15 years on but honestly I don't think this is where the damage came from. By then I was already experiencing problems.

I had a neighbor growing up who lifted heavy from an early age (14 or so), and by heavy I mean full-on power lifting with the dream of being a professional football player. He never grew very tall compared to his brother (could be genetics) but also ended up with really thick joints in his elbows and knees. I think he may have actually injured his growth plates by going too heavy, too young. I also have very thick wrists, elbow and knee joints (above 95th percentile when I measured them in a physical anthropology class). Although an anecdotal N=2, I do wonder if we both came to be this way from over exposure to joint stress at an early age.

[Shawn Baker]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 334215.pdf

[G-dub]

See if this link works. It's of a 17 year old squatting 596#

http://es.pn/2baVFph

[Pie Man]

I'm not sure the gym I go to has that many weights

Thanks everyone for the advice it certainly helps clear up a few concerns and lets me understand what I should be careful of.

[left coaster]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 334215.pdf

Exactly Shawn, adult supervision is needed. Hopefully it's sane, non-hyper-competitive, win at any cost adult supervision by someone who has perhaps taken a physiology course or two. Those types of individuals, even among my coaches as a kid, were very rare.

[chrisl]

It sounds like he's already active and enjoying sports which is great. Perhaps a slightly different approach is for him to try out all the equipment at the gym and, for each one, endeavour to learn about how it works on the body, the best way to use it, and so on. His induction will cover how the kit works but probably not form, and there may be staff there who can delve deeper on certain equipment. There are youtube videos on how to use any of the kit there properly which he can spend hours on delving into as much detail as interests him.

To give an example, when I'm on the rower I see people hop onto the ones beside me and start pulling the handle. The drag is on max, the monitor is displaying whatever the last person left it on and the technique is all over the place. I'm certainly no expert but I took the time to learn about the correct technique and how to get the most from the rower, and not only do I get a safer and more beneficial session, it's also much more interesting connecting with the machine and interacting with it, using the data and tools available, and then we have the C2 challenges and app challenges from the likes of LiveRowing. I really enjoy it, it adds a whole new dimension to just 'going to the gym'.

I also do long distance walking and that, with a combination of the rower and badminton, my legs are quite large and muscular which I'm happy with. I see a lot of lads doing the weights, and this seems to come down to the actual gym but many gyms are fine, others have lads sporting "all the gear and no idea". It's good to stay away from that mindset.

So in summary, I'd suggest him having a good play with all the kit available, find out more about it and how best to use it, and see what personal challenges and goals he might be interested in for any particular bit of kit. If he wants to do weights, there should be someone at the gym who can work with him to put together a tailored plan for weekly training, with his initial progress and the plan being reviewed after a month.

Regards,
Chris

[Pie Man]

thanks Chris for such a clear summation, really helps put my thoughts together on this.