What Age

[shane]

What age should kids start in the gym lifting weights?? My son is 12 and in form one and weighs in at 41kgs he wants to put on some muscle for next years rugby season for some of the rep teams. He made reps this season but missed out on other teams as he was to light. Any ideas team??

[Genetics1992]

I remember doing wanting the same thing when i was about twelve. My dad was friends with a gym owner and he trained me for a little bit. The type of training was mainly just learning to be explosive, i.e. moving weight fast. At 12 i think your son is too young to be lifting any kind of serious weight because he's still growing an he's going to get bigger and stronger without having to do much at all.

If he's really keen to get doing something it should be something that he can sink his teeth into and have some fun with. So maybe something like crossfit / an activity that makes use of the bodyweight. The key is enjoying it, and ideally learning a bit of mongrel at the same time. being a smaller guy it's important to be fearless and play like you mean it, so learning to be a mongrel on the field is hugely important. Teach him to strike fear into the hearts of the bigger players on the field. Judo could be good, because that teaches you to use the other persons body-weight against them.

At the end of the day it depends on what he wants. does he want to be bigger, or be good at rugby? if he wants to be good at rugby, my advice would be the same as above. if he wants to be bigger, he'll probably have to wait a few years.

Weightlifting? not at his age. Maybe at about 15 or 16.

[shane]

Yeah that would be good or plyometric's I just need to find a program for him. And yes train and have fun at the same time

[cruxis]

12 is Fine, It might be hard to grow if the puberty hormones have not started. But he could get stronger.

I remember basic weight training for league. Although its was the 80s.

At that age I remember I could just do 40lbs bench. But my friend could do 165lbs. His nickname was HairyHorse. Early Pubs in the changing room :oops:

[Darkmanx]

This is one of those things that can be heavily debated but 12 in my opinion is still on the young side. Since your son still has to do a fair amount of growth without any help. I think from about 16 is more or less an age a child could start doing weights or whatever. Dont get me wrong, im not saying he should'nt do anything, sports at any age is good but weight training to bulk up, i dont know if thats the best idea.

Since your son is in the puperty bracket personally i would leave it and see what happens because puperty alone can have quite an impact on his growth. I used to be normal/average size at about 12-13 and boom turn into a monster.(LOL) Anyway there are far better experts out there (on this forum) that is most certainly going to disagree about what i just said so take it or leave it. Oh and FYI when i became a qualified coach this was in one of our assessments. What age should kids do certain things and what not so im not just sucking this out of my ass.

[shane]

Ok thanks Darkmanx what should he do for training if any at all??

[Dr Squat]

This is interesting. It details the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association's stance on resistance training for children and youth. Basically says that 6 is the youngest that a child should begin any resistance training. There is also some information on program design and it is backed by research.

http://www.strengthandconditioning.org/ ... Itemid=710

[Darkmanx]

This is interesting. It details the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association's stance on resistance training for children and youth. Basically says that 6 is the youngest that a child should begin any resistance training. There is also some information on program design and it is backed by research.

http://www.strengthandconditioning.org/ ... Itemid=710

I didnt read the article but resistance training in the form of bodyweight exercises and so on are absolutely fine in my opinion but as far resistive weight training goes for bulking up a 12 year old, i dont agree with it. Common sense in this regard prevails for me.

[Darkmanx]

Ok thanks Darkmanx what should he do for training if any at all??

Nothing wrong with good old fasion body weight and plyometric exercises at that age. To me it gets the body primed and ready to start weight training in a coupe of years.

[drizzt]

I started weight training when I was 12-13, closely supervised by my Dad (would only train without him when I was about 14). Bodybuilding-type stuff mainly, bench, some squatting, leg pressing, isolation work. Dad was quite against getting me to deadlift though, was adamant I should be 16 before I started that. He disagreed with people who said I was too young, but was of the opinion the Deadlift was too stressful for someone my age. The weights I did were never really maximal either, always 5 reps or more from what I recall.

If you can introduce kids that young, and teach good technique, it gives a great grounding IMHO. It really helped my rugby at the time too, as it hadn't even crossed the majority of the other kids' minds (was actively discouraged at that age for some of them), so I ended up with a bit more size and power than a lot of the kids in my group.

I'm 6ft, and I certainly wasn't that tall when I was 12, so it didn't "stunt my growth" (I ended up almost a foot taller than both of my parents). Also had a couple of mates who started training a year or two after I begun, and they're taller than I am. I think the growth stunting thing is a myth.

Unless I was meant to be a couple of inches taller

[soundsgood]

Agree with you Drizzt.

I started training at 13 too. Started off with plyometrics mainly to increase my vertical leap for basketball but it resulted in me having a set if kick ass legs from a young age. Moved onto bench pressing, squats, rows, chins etc, all compounds except deadlifts when I was 14. It built a really good base so by the time I left school I was already much bigger than most men would ever be.

And the stunting growth thing might have something in it. I'm only 5'8. I was 5'9 when I left school 10 years ago (measured 10+ times) but I think heavy squatting has compacted my spine a wee bit lol. It's possible I was supposed to be taller because all my younger brothers are 2-4" taller than me but they all weight train too so who knows :shrug:

So my advice would be get your son doing plyometric stuff (step ups, pitter patters, box jumps, squat leaps) and body weight stuff like pressups, chin ups and of course Bicep curls for the girls for the next 6 months but more importantly get him eating a decent amount of food at regular intervals throughout the day (maybe we shouldn't go there haha). Then once he has a base start introducing resistance stuff like barbell squats, rows, DB shoulder press, bench press etc. A Push/Press style workout 4 days a week would be a great start. If you can set him on this road early he will thank you for it later on