Add in the confidence and performance enhancing benefits and you’ve got a no brainer.
“Parents:
I understand ‘speed & agility’ sounds ‘safe’ & you question ‘strength training’.
But in sports, the most dangerous quality to be without is (relative) strength.
There is no safer, more beneficial modality, than sound, developmentally appropriate strength training.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
It’s all misguided perceptions and wives tails.
And I get it, but what I don’t get is not being “open minded” (hell isn’t that like a rule you must live by in order to not be canceled by the modern world, anyway) to learning the truths associated with developmental performance enhancement.
I mean what if we came up with some way to increase the speed in which we could deliverer messages to our friends and family? Would you be resistant to it and clamor to how the government ran postal service was “all that you trusted” and you were positive that hand written letters we’re “the best way”?
Or would you buy an iPhone and send text messages across the globe in seconds?
Exactly.
It’s like we desire to be so progressive and cutting edge in every single area of our lives, but when it comes to this “strength training” thing for kids, we are still hesitant or worse yet making horribly misguided outright untruthful statements about its “dangers”.
Guess two things that are wildly more dangerous than strength training?
Sprinting and playing sports.
I bet you didn’t see those two coming, but the data is there.
When athletes are sprinting they have the ability to create ground reaction forces that exceed up to 9x their bodyweight.
Let’s say a 165-pound kid creates 5x his bw with ground reaction force while sprinting. That 825 pounds of force.
Is there anything in the weight room he could do with 825 pounds? Of course not.
I don’t have to paint the picture for sports as we know they are littered with injuries ranging from non-contact to collision-based injuries.
Now where am I going with this?
Imagine me telling you not to sprint or play sports because they are dangerous. How stupid would that be?
Of course I’m not aiming to scare anyone out of sprinting or playing sports. Like everything in life, there are risks associated.
Just far fewer risks in youth strength training.
We have to get past the perceptions.
We have to open ourselves up to believing the abundantly proven truth that it doesn’t stunt their growth or slow them down.
Strength Training is precisely the jet fuel their bodies are craving.
