5 Excellent Reasons to get your Kids Lifting Weights in 2014

Got a plan to keep your children fit and healthy this year? imove’s David Parker explains why you should consider introducing your kids to weightlifting.

As we transition into the New Year you’re probably thinking about getting into shape for 2014. Setting personal fitness goals is important of course; however, have you considered your children’s fitness needs for this year?

If so, great; if not, now’s the time! Getting kids active and engaged in a regular fitness programme helps make exercise a habitual part of adulthood. It also prepares children for the challenges of every-day life, from tough and tiring days at school to successful participation in sport, not to mention helping to avoid injury. Stamina, strength, balance and coordination are all important to your children’s growth and development and each requires a specific means of training. When it comes to developing your children’s strength and power, the benefits of weightlifting extend far beyond just getting stronger.

Forget the Weightlifting Stereotype

Weightlifting is an excellent method of developing strength and power. Unfortunately, it is often misunderstood – it’s cloaked in dogma, fallacy and myth (I’ll save this for another post) which have no bearing on the science behind weightlifting and strength development in children. In the past, this has caused many parents, teachers and coaches to perceive weightlifting as unsafe and, therefore, as an unsuitable exercise choice for their growing child. In fact, the scientific evidence suggests otherwise. Lifting weights can be a safe, effective and enjoyable way to exercise and offers multiple benefits. In my eight years’ experience of training children in gyms, not one child hasn’t enjoyed lifting weights or being in the gym environment, whatever their level of fitness.

Here are my top 5 reasons why your kids should lift weights in 2014.

1.  Better Health and a Longer Life

Weightlifting to increase strength offers children as young as six multiple health-related benefits. Unless you have just landed on planet earth from outer space, you can’t fail to hear about the prevalence of childhood obesity and the risks of being overweight; indeed, overweight and obese boys and girls are at a high risk of becoming overweight and obese adults. Alongside other sensible lifestyle choices, such as a healthy diet and regular physical activity, lifting weights favourably influences:

• Metabolism
• Insulin sensitivity
• Body fat levels
• Motor skills
• Muscle and bone health
• Psychosocial well-being

It is often thought that aerobic exercise should be prescribed to overweight and obese children. However, many children perceive it as boring, discomforting and, thus, hard to keep up. Weightlifting, on the other hand, matches the start-stop tendency of how children play by incorporating short periods of activity interspersed with brief rest periods between sets.

2. Greater Self-Esteem and Confidence

Strength training can have a strong influence on a child’s emotional and psychological well-being. A properly supervised and progressed strength training programme is enjoyable and, importantly, tangible (you can easily see measurable results), which gives a sense of achievement. The results are a better self-image, self-esteem, increased confidence in one’s own ability and, generally, an overall better outlook on life. Weightlifting also gives overweight and obese children the chance to experience success and gain confidence in their ability to be physically active.

3. Sports Performance

Success in sport requires strength, power, speed, agility, quickness and stamina to deliver a great performance. Developing strength and power through lifting weights can be the difference between achieving gold and silver, scoring a goal or being tackled, serving an ace or losing the point, or setting off from the block first. It’s that extra burst of energy when the opponent is tiring, that powerful turn to fool the opposition or that sudden speed that leaves the others standing. Weightlifting provides the extra power in reserve that young athletes can employ when the pressure is on. Strength and power is absolutely essential to peak performance – I would go so far as to say that your child cannot reach their performance potential without it!

4.  Injury Prevention

Lifting weights has, in the past, been thought to be injurious to the growing child. In fact, it’s completely the opposite. With declining levels of physical activity in children, bones, muscles and levels of coordination are not being fully developed for activities that put the body under increased levels of stress, especially during sports practice and competition, thus increasing the risk of injury. This is where lifting weights can help. Although there is no one combination of strength exercises that has been proven to optimally prevent injury, a multi-faceted approach to strengthening muscles, tendons, bones and improving coordination is key to injury reduction.

5. A skill for Life

Jumping, landing and lifting are all key skills, not just for the gym or in sport, but for life. Many aspects of strength training are applicable to life, such as goal setting, time keeping and environment etiquette, plus being able to follow instruction, help others when needed and be responsible for your own actions. Exposure to a supervised and properly progressed strength training programme develops discipline which can be carried over into adulthood. If a child regularly participates in physical activity, they will be more likely to remain active as an adult and continue to reap the benefits of exercise and enjoy a better quality of life.

Weightlifting is Safe, Fun and Effective

Lifting weights is good for kids. The world’s three largest strength and conditioning associations, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association (ASCA) and the United Kingdom Strength and Conditioning Association (UKSCA), have released position statements highlighting that properly supervised and progressed weight training programmes benefit children’s strength development, health and sporting potential. Each organisation states that the overriding factor as to whether a child should start to lift weights depends on their ability to follow instruction and learn the basics of good lifting technique from a professional.

Weightlifting may once have been a controversial choice for parents looking for ways to increase their children’s strength and power, but now it is recognised as a safe and fun way to ensure children are leading a healthy lifestyle and preparing properly for the rigours of sport.