Starting a youth on lifting

[Ragsbo]

[QUOTE=Dorkface;1975665]Am I the only one that remembers farm kids being strong from chores? Even the ones that weren't teens yet.[/QUOTE

On the farm you do what you need to do. I pitch a ton of hay in my time, not to mention carrying feed etc etc etc etc.

[BillyOblivion]

Am I the only one that remembers farm kids being strong from chores? Even the ones that weren't teens yet.

There's three sides to "stength". One of them is just sucking up the suffering that happens when you get near your limit.

Farm kids live with this suffering regularly, they're used to it.

Consider the feeling of "setting a pr" for a 5RM deadlift.

This is why "Squats make you a man. Deadlifts make you a monster". Squats suck, but deadlifts--at or near your max--they're pure suffering, and YOU STEP UP AND DO THEM. You put YOURSELF in that place,

For the other two things, see my (coming) response to Anthony.

[BillyOblivion]

I've seen all the science about pre-pubescent kids not having the hormone load to be able to build muscle and everything, but in 20-something years of coaching high-level gymnastics, I can tell you with certainty that kids (especially girls, but boys to a slightly lesser extent) who are training actual competitive gymnastics--not the ones going an hour or two per week for fun--build muscle. Enough that they don't even look like the same SPECIES of "general population" kids their age, by 8 or 9 years old.

There's a bunch of stuff going on here. Building and maintaining muscle is much more complex than just two hormones (Growth Hormone and T). Estrogen has some impact, but for pre-pubesecent kids I suspect a major player is going to be myostatin production. As you probably know, myostatin *inhibits* muscle growth and (IIRC) controls the teardown rate. Some pictures here https://muscularhypertrophysyndrome....-disorder.html

There is some normal human variability in both myostatin production and sensitivity, so you have people who don't cross a line into a deficiency, but will develop--absent a strong GH/Androgen signal--more refined musculature.

The other aspect (again, as you know) is "neuro-musclar adaption". Someone can, on given tasks, become much stronger without putting on significant muscle mass by (as I understand it) growing new nerve connections, learning to recruit more muscle in different ways. This is (largely) what is responsible for the "newbie gainz". For people new to resistance exercise (or really any exercise) MUCH of the early performance gain is neurological more than actually adding new muscle.

Gymnastics is *hard fookin work*, it requires a lot of physical strength and stamina. It requires mental toughness, and it requires you to be willing to fail and *fix the problem*.

The question is, what is the rewards? For kids who build the requisite neurological connections, and get stronger faster, they perform The Thing, and they get wins/praise/satisfaction. The kids who don't...they don't get the dopamine hit, they just get pain. And they don't want to play any more.

In many ways these kinds of sports are a sorting algorithm for certain traits, and it's going to only sort "in" a small fraction of the population.

Girls start STACKING on muscle as soon as they hit puberty, if they've been training previously and continue to do so.
Boys who are training pre-puberty start getting insanely strong as they hit puberty, usually a couple of years after the girls do. They don't really start to pile on muscle until maybe 15-18, though.

Yeah, look at highschool footballer players. Freshmen are (mostly) relatively scrawny looking. Seniors...not so much.

And there aren't studies on this, that I've seen (no money to be made in it, and probably would run into ethical issues), but boys especially who are training hard pre-puberty and continue to train through puberty become strong FOR LIFE. Even if they do pretty much nothing for years after they're done with the sport. It changes their development at a fundamental level.

Are you kidding? There's a TONNE of money to be made if you could prove it. Every single parent who dreams of hteir kid being a pro footballer (of either kind), or even their kid getting some sort of sports scholarship (I'm trying to get my daughter to go out for highschool cross country or ANY sport so she has a chance at a college scholarship (it's WAY easier for girls to get them than boys) would spend thousands of dollars on gym memberships, training, etc.

Even the ERB wouldn't be much of a problem if you just do some sort of survey. The problem is that the longer a study takes the less interesting it is *for the researchers*. Masters students aren't interested in anything that runs longer than 90 days because they need to set up the study, run it, collect and crunch the numbers, then generate their Masters Thesis, write it and graduate.

Ph.D. candidates might extend that to a year, or MAYBE 18 months if they're on the slow track. Again for "I need to graduate" reasons.

Given the signal you want to look for, you're talking at *minimum* a 10 year study, if you want some rigor. That's not just a lot of money, that's a big chunk of someone's life to set up, run, and follow. Especially when they could be chasing other things that would get them published more. Which is how they get "graded".

There would be other ways of doing it, but the quality of your proof would degrade.

So my observationally-developed advice is to have kids doing training (lifting, in the case of the thread) before puberty, and then really start getting after it as they go through puberty.

I think it's reasonable to make kids to *some* strength training per-puberty. But look at what you wrote above about "not the ones going an hour or two per week for fun". How much time are you going to take out of school (ok, if you want to argue for getting rid of some of the stupid shit they're being forced to sit through, but now you're into politics etc.) or out of their other lives v.s. how much gain are they going to get?

The thing is that kids...getting them to actually *apply* themselves to something that is "boring" AND uncomfortable AND won't pay off for months and years? You'll get a few kids--usually out of the same set that does some other sport--who will apply themselves, but rest will just screw off, do the minimum required, and probably do something stupid and wind up getting hurt.

I think the best time to introduce *most* kids to this is when they can make obvious, consistent gains. When high time preference types can *see* results, they get the feedback they need to keep doing it.

And any teenage boy who isn't lifting is wasting so much potential it isn't even funny. Lifting should be mandatory for teenage boys.

Probably.

There's so much good at so many levels that exercise gives you. Not just lifting, but zone two cardio, HIIT etc.

[Brent Yamamoto]

I am sure there are a ton of great youtube strength training videos, but I don’t have time to search them all out.

But one that I have found is Athleanx. I know my way around a weight room, but nonetheless have learned a ton from this guy after just watching a short time. Most important is that he shows great technique to avoid injury. That is if course worthwhile for any age, but I think especially important for the young to learn good technique from the beginning to help avoid injury in the first place. He also shows a lot of options...body weight, barbells, dumbbells, cables, etc., so it’s good material whether you have a stocked gym or just a small home gym.

I have also learned a few useful things from a martial arts perspective. He doesn’t teach that, but I can see a lot of connections to what I already do. I know why some things work from a fighting perspective, but it’s also interesting to hear the same technique ideas from a bodybuilding, physiological perspective. Yeah, humans only move so many ways, we all get that. But details on why certain movements done in particular ways make the movement either more efficient or more productive (which are not necessarily the same thing).

From a fighting perspective, I want to produce the most power from the least effort...it needs to be both efficient and productive. It not only needs to be mechanically sound but also tactically sound. The better you are, the less work you do.

Weights on the other hand, you often WANT the body to work harder...so in many ways you want the movement LESS efficient, but more effective for the specific purpose of building muscle.

As you progress in a martial discipline, the practice of that discipline becomes more efficient for fighting, and less efficient for a workout.

I think there are parallels with strong farm kids. They can do a lot of work and become very strong in particular ways, even if they might be less strong at particular lifts done by gym rats.

I always find it interesting working with people that are clearly stronger than me when it comes to picking up iron, but aren’t able to as effectively and efficiently adapt that strength to doing violent work. I know that partly it is over tensing the muscles in general and the wrong muscles in particular, which is simply a matter of skill/experience (lack of), but nonetheless it always fascinates me.

probably a better topic for its own thread.

[twinboysdad]

My son is a middle school wrestler, 7th grade, and does club wrestling year round. He turned 13 late Feb. We have him doing an altered version of 5/3/1 Boring But Big. I like the flexibility and take for instance tonight- he does club high school wrestling M, T, and Th and often Sunday. He will only lift Wednesday, Friday or Saturday as practice is demanding. Out of nowhere the coach demanded 30 pull ups per wrestler. That happens a lot with burpees or push ups. We have to work around wrestling as skill building is more important than weight room right now, but my son goes live with up to 16 year old kids within 15 lbs. We do floor press and overhead press in rotation with inverted rows, and sumo deadlift and Bulgarian squats with sit ups. Upper body would be floor press escalating up to a challenging 5 reps. We cap the weight and get 2-4 sets of 5 at that weight. Then superset inverted rows and overhead press at reps in the 10 range 3 to 4 sets. Next upper body day overhead press would be the strength focus and superset floor press and inverted rows. Same with sumo deads and Bulgarian squats. Never higher than 5 reps and those five should have enough in the tank for 7 or 8 and quality is paramount. I supervise all reps, if form sucks- weight gets dropped. If effort sucks, we drop weight and do high reps. If he says he needs a day off, I usually comply provided he’s practiced hard at wrestling. I really believe 5/3/1 is the easiest program to follow and like the BBB for the volume on accessories. Last thing- don’t be afraid to outsource the coaching. If we had the funds for club wrestling and a strength coach I would outsource. We do not. My kid works harder for coaches than dad and in a group of peers will outperform his own expectations