Women, teens, bones and GLP-1

Is it safe for teenagers to lift weights?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20263 sources

Yes, with good coaching and sensible loads. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports strength training for kids and teens, athletes or not. The injuries that do happen come from poor technique, weights that are too heavy and nobody watching, and a coach fixes all three. We don’t set weights or standards for anyone under 18.

Most parents have heard that lifting weights stunts a kid’s growth. The worry has a real starting point. The growth plates near the ends of a teenager’s bones, where the bone gets longer, can be three to five times weaker than the tissue around them. It sounds like a heavy bar should crush them. When researchers went looking for that damage in supervised programs, they didn’t find it.

What the doctors say

The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its policy on resistance training for children and teens in 2020. It supports training for athletes and nonathletes alike, partly because kids’ muscular fitness has been falling for years. The US activity guidelines ask everyone aged 6 to 17 for activities that make their muscles and bones strong, like climbing on playground equipment, basketball and jumping rope.

Where the injuries come from

A 2010 review by Avery Faigenbaum and Gregory Myer looked at the evidence on young lifters, from case reports to school injury records.

In kids aged 8 to 13, about two thirds of lifting injuries were to the hands and feet, mostly from dropping weights and pinching fingers. Those are accidents, and a coach and a tidy weight room prevent most of them.

Think of it like driving lessons

You’d want a 15-year-old to learn to drive with an instructor beside them, in an empty parking lot, before the highway. Lifting works the same way. Weeks of light weights and good form come first, and the heavier loads come once the moves are automatic.

The review’s advice for coaches puts the focus on learning good technique instead of the amount of weight lifted. We’d start with push-ups, bodyweight squats, lunges and rows before anything goes on a bar, with a coach who changes the plan when a kid is struggling.

What this site does for teens

Our bands and tools are made for adults, so they stop at 18 and send teens here. The rest of the site still explains how strength works, and lifting weights stunts a kid’s growth goes deeper on the growth question. Jumping, sports and lifting all build bone, which is on how to build stronger bones.