Weight Lifting and the Young Athlete

Many parents are apprehensive about their children beginning weight lifting. The old adage is that you will stunt your growth by lifting weights. Current research into this shows that this is a fallacy. Children that routinely run and jump as they play bring forces upon their bodies that are much greater than weight lifting. A child that jumps or runs full speed through their yard sometimes bring forces to bear on their bodies that are up to 5 or 6 times greater than their own body weight. The good news is that in weight lifting we will never come close to bringing those types of forces to bear on the athletes. Weight training is beneficial to athletes and one of the biggest benefits of weight lifting is injury prevention. We lift primarily to prevent injuries to areas of the body that take much of the forces for football (shoulders and lower body). We want our parents at RCA to know that our children get the best instruction on proper technique and safety is our primary concern.