Experts say weight training is good for children

My dad, God rest his soul, was a great story teller.

We looked forward to evenings when he would captivate us with tales about people he had met and places he had been.

What we loved most, however, was the undisguised padding he wrapped his stories with every time he told them again. We were usually in stitches.

We listened to his stories with anticipation even when he had told the same story only the day before because we knew we would laugh, a lot.

We laughed because we could detect a detour, a sweet detail that wasn’t there the last time.

When the peals of laughter ebbed a little he would continue with his embellishment and now we would all laugh, he included, because he knew we knew his game.

Well, I have just broken a cardinal rule that shouldn’t be broken; dads, especially lovable cheats like my dad don’t lie.

They simply don’t tell the truth all the time, and there is a difference.

Some of his stories were of course myths into which he would weave his own details and interpretation.

Like the myth that has been peddled in the physical fitness circles for years that children should never do weight training because it would retard their growth.

According to this enduring myth, allowing children to train with weights is not advisable because it would damage the composition of growth plates from which bone continues to emanate until optimum skeletal growth is reached, effectively turning them into dwarfs, oops! little people.

You won’t find evidence of that in any scientific journal so most likely it was a tale once told around a campfire and then picked up by a person with a rich repertoire of lovable non-lies like my dad, to eventually become an urban myth.

The truth is actually the very opposite of what you may have heard.

Done properly, with moderation and for a noble purpose strength training is good for children, not least because it gives them greater strength than their peers who don’t strength train.

You don’t want to hear the scientific explanation I read the other day on how this happens, do you?

I got muddled in the maze of neuromuscular learning and things myself, so let’s just say it is pure common sense; when you exercise and lift weights you get stronger.

Secondly, strength training improves bone mass density of children and adolescents which in turn helps keep at bay a condition known as osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is a progressive disease which makes bones brittle and spongy— your arms and legs snap like twigs at a mere touch-and it results from lack of calcium in the body.

If you don’t take enough calcium your body raids the bones to get the calcium already stored there weakening them, but osteoporosis can be aggravated by insufficient bone mass which is brought about by inactivity.

Weight-bearing exercise leads to a build of calcium in the bones, assuming of course that your calcium intake is sufficient.

Your child can begin weight training at six, so the experts say, but I wouldn’t advise you to take him to the gym that early unless the prophet in your church or your personal witchdoctor has already received divine communication that he or she will become an Olympic weight lifter or a champion body builder.

Ideally, your child should begin weight training when they are emotionally mature to follow instructions and understand the benefits and risks involved in weight training.

When you are convinced that your child can start to weight train and that he or she will have a ball doing it, your first port of call should be the doctor’s then hook them up with a trainer who will make an appropriate programme for them.

Proper execution

Your child should never train alone,; they should be supervised all the time. Accidents happen sometimes.

For children and adolescents, weight training should focus on the proper execution of the exercise rather than the amount of the weight lifted, at least initially.

Exercising two or three days a week should suffice and each session should begin with a cardio warm up.

Get the child to perform one exercise for each muscle group then wrap it up by cooling down and stretching.