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Old 03-23-2006, 11:16 PM   #3 (permalink)
shirase
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simply put, there has been no controlled, scientifically sound study that has produced results which have found that weightlifting was bad for growing adolescents. The only study that was negative was an unscientific study in postwar japan which put sedentary middle class kids with good nutrition against manual labouring poor kids and alas: the kids with bad nutrition happened to be shorter. Somehow they decided it was from the manual labour, but its basically dismissable. Other than that, the only case Ive heard are very rare cases of growth plates being shattered, but all those cases were the results of the lifters using terrible technique. So id say its fine to lift at any age, but whenever you are first starting lifting weights I personally would suggest to start off really light(maybe even using just the barbell at first) to work on perfecting your technique, especially if you are going to do compound lifts(youll want to practice deadlifting with light weight for awhile before you start doing work sets). Especially if you are young though because you probably wont have well conditioned joints and tendons etc. But yeah liftings fine for adolescents and even kids just be careful and do your research!
edit: btw dont worry about people telling you that it stunts your growth, im 16 and I get it all the time especially because im 5'6.5 :P. These people are basically just going along with a popular myth. youll probably hear some other stuff along the way like that weightlifting makes you slow, or th at weightlifting makes you unflexible. None of them hold true in the real world so dont sweat about it
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