Am I at Risk for Injury?

Injuries are definitely a risk of participating in sport and exercise. This risk obviously changes depending on the activity you choose. For example, someone who participates in contact sports such as hockey or football has a greater chance of being injured than someone who plays tennis. Likewise, participating in an exercise program that may include anything from weight training to running to vigorous plyometrics or even simply walking could carry with it some inherent risk of injury.

One of the main risks you may hear about in taking part in a weight-training program in youth is the susceptibility of your bones to injury. While you grow there are areas on your bone called ‘growth plates’ which are basically spots where cartilage is located, which allows the bone to become bigger and stronger before it completely ossifies and stops growing. Repetitive overstressing (key here is OVER stressing) may injure this area of the bone and have painful consequences, which is why I will stress that if you experience ANY abnormal pains while participating in sports or exercise please consult a qualified health professional. But this was not meant to scare anyone away from resistance training! Benefits have been noted in children as young as SIX years old who have participated in a supervised resistance training program!

What Should I Remember Before Getting Started?

In order to enter into a program of physical exercise, one must first determine if they have the motor skills to do the exercises. They must have the cognitive capacity to understand the exercise and how to safely perform it, and they must be able to quickly develop proper motor patterns. Some young children cannot focus on highly structured programs, thus a more dynamically changing program with more aspects of ‘play’ must be used.

Before anyone engages in a program of physical fitness, certain things should be screened by a health professional including: family history of cardiac abnormalities, any congenital or developmental disorders, a survey of nutritional habits, any past injuries, flexibility, strength, speed, agility, balance and proprioceptive abilities. By ensuring there are no inherent health issues, a professional can confidently help in prescribing a program of fitness for any beginner.

What Are Some Good Things That Could Occur?

It is important to remember the natural physiological responses that occur during puberty including changes in body composition, height, balance, speed, power, and strength. These will all affect a young person’s response to an exercise program.

Strength training in youth was once thought to be a waste of time due to the lower amount of circulating testosterone levels. This myth has been dispelled through many studies that have found children participating in structured resistance training programs have made gains in terms of muscular strength. Interestingly enough this increase in strength was not accompanied by an increase in muscle size. They propose therefore that the increase in strength has a lot to do with improved neural adaptation to the motor patterns.

It was also once thought that participating in sport and exercise beginning at a young age would stunt growth and alter normal development. This has also been pushed aside as it has been found that young athletes have similar growth and development as their less active counterparts. Any size difference that may be noted might just be a reflection of different height requirements for a certain sport. Weight though can be altered through participation in sport. Continuously strenuous activities can have an affect on the body fat of the participant.

Another benefit that has been well established is the effect of exercise on bone density. Especially in weight bearing activities, bone mineral content has been shown to increase through the stresses that are put through the body during exercise. This level of bone mineral content has also been shown to be an important predictor of bone strength into adulthood. Yet there is a down side associated here, and that is with the female athlete. With excessive training at a young age, females can either delay or become irregular in their menstrual cycle, attain disordered eating habits, and subsequently their bone density becomes decreased; this is a disorder known as the “female triad” and must be brought to the attention of the family physician. On the topic of puberty, it must also be noted that many changes will occur during this transitional period (much too lengthy to discuss here), so if any abnormalities are noted, whether in males or females, you should consult a health professional as soon as possible
.