HST for youngsters?

Lol

Lol

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My 11 year old lad has expressed an interest in doing some training "like dad." He could do with adding a few pounds to his frame but I'm just pleased he wants to do some training. I'm sure it'll help him with his sporting activities now and later in life.

Any of you have, or know, youngsters who are training with HST? If so, how have they got on?

My guess is that eating enough to make gains is going to be tough for very active youngsters? And, I expect it is not advisable for them to go heavy until they have a really good feel for an exercise?

Any advice please?
 
In general, light weight training with proper form should be okay. The heavier the load the greater the stress on the little guys epiphyseal plates (growth plates) which MAY stunt growth or cause abnormalities such as having one leg longer than the other. It's not so common, but who wants to be that 1:100 guy. Plyometric training (high intenstiy) may be the riskiest form or resistance training considering the force created in some of the movements. All in all, a light HST program which stays in the 10 reps or higher category should be okay (i.e. less than 80% of IRM). If you want your son to pack on a few pounds, then letting him take in extra calories in any form (protein, carbs, or fat) would help. Higher carb intake tends to help quite a bit when someone who is very active needs to bulk up a bit, and even though he is young and can get away with eating junk food now, it is probably a good idea to increase his calories with healthy food choices considering arterial plaque build up starts so early in life.
 
LOL

I am with Biz and the others on this, get a routine set up with all the basic 5 or 6 compound exercises and keep to a maximum of 80% RM until he is older, he is sure to pack on some muscle and it'll help with school sports, discipline, and posture!

Do not dwell too much onto 5's and heavy weights due to stunting growth, but challenge the guy once he gets the movements right, keep your increments slow and the rep range on 10 or so, you can't go wrong.

I have three sons, and with exception of the 15 year old who has a propensity for extreme sports, the two little ones (7 and 9) want to do what dada is doing so I teach them with light weights to get the form right, once that is OK, one can think of future endeavours within reason!
 
personaly i think he would be better of with a sport like boxing,wrestling,gymnastics,etc..but if he is determined to do weights i would suggest some sort of circuit training with light weights.. :D
 
Thanks guys. Lots of good advice. What a great forum this is. :)

Hey Faz, he's got rugby this term and next term so a bit of weight training will be a good supplement to that. No time to really get involved in other sports. But he can do a quick w/o at home or at the school gym.

Interesting article Jester. I was surprised that they got the youngsters to do 5 rep sets. Think I'll leave that for a few years and get the little guy to stick in the 15-8 rep range for the time being and get him to work on good form as much as possible.

It'll get him to do a few months of basic training before applying some of the HST principles (eg. progressive loading to maxes) as I would like him to get familiar with a range of exercises before trying for any maximums. But I will get him to start really light, add a few pounds every few workouts and see how it goes.

I'll get him to do basic compounds (and maybe an isolation or two) 3 x weekly, followed by lots of good eats and sleep.

I can remember when I was a nipper and my dad took me to the gym and taught me how to bench. After a few months I benched as much as one of his work mates which was, apparently, milked to death at office functions for years afterwards! Blimey, thinking about it now, his mate must have been weak! And the poor guy's not around anymore to try HST either
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Thanks again. I'll let you know how he gets on.
 
Yep, the rugby requires some weight I know!

My eldest is crazy about rugby and it ia a big deal here in South Africa!

The main builders are in demand there:

Squats/Deadlifts/Chins ups/Bench/Dips/Military press/Abs

If you keep him in the 15 - 8 range you can definitely start using HST soon, can't see why not!

good luck!
 
Of course, actually applying the load progression would be tricky. 11 year old kids, especially those you want to pack a little more weight, probably can't lift as much to begin with.

Anyhoo, after the bloody task of getting the weight ranges he'll lift, and figuring out an increment (I suppose even just 2.5 pounds would do), go for it.

I remember when I was just around grade 3, even the 7.5 pound dumbbells felt very "un-light" (not that I couldn't lift it, it just didn't feel light at all) :D  But I was a really small and skinny kid, I suppose a normal girl back then could have curled twice that  
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Anyhoo, good luck! :)
-JV
 
I don't understand why high rep sets >> low rep sets for minors. The load is what matters. 15 or 8 or 5 won't make a difference, so long as they aren't using excessive load.
 
I believe that may be because that it isn't really just an "excessive" load that is needed to affect the growth plates (or epiphyseal plates, or epiphyseal cartilages, whatever you want to call it) negatively. The heavier, the higher the chances. So they recommended to err on the side of caution and let the kid only do high rep sets so as not to risk any permanent negative side effect.
 
High rep or low rep is irrelevant.

The load is what matters.

Doing 5 reps or 8 reps or 15 reps makes no different if it's all with the same ("safe") load.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]The load is what matters. 15 or 8 or 5 won't make a difference, so long as they aren't using excessive load.
Click to expand...

Just responding to LoL
 
Strength training for children is fine. I agree with Biz on using moderate weight and rep/set schemes. The epiphysial plate worry, as Biz mentions, is a rarity and properly instructed strength training may help with this anyway, decreased shear susceptibility and increased bone density.

Injury reports with resistance training and children are a rarity but care must be taken not to overdo it. If I remember right 2X weekly resistance training with one or even 2 sets of 8 whole body movements has shown to increase strength and strength endurance safely in 7-12 yr olds. Granted hypertrophy gains won't be all that great until puberty. Therefore working within a HST outline might not be any better than a simple 2X10-12RM routine where children are concerned.

In 2003 Child Soccer participants had far more injuries (combining emergency room visits and doctor visits) comparatively than resistance training. (BY FAR)
 
Jester, it's true what you say, but I think that keeping the reps higher will tend to keep the loads at a 'safe' level even if little laddy is trying quite hard (as kids like to do once they have 'gotten into something' ). Hopefully, I'll always be there to supervise so this will all be rendered moot.

I also think dkm is right about not worrying too much about following an HST program at this point. I will, however, get across to him that he should learn good form and stop any exercise at the point where he feels he can still do another rep or two.

As a primer to lifting weights, I'm going to get him to do some dumbell/bodyweight based stuff at home for a few months. (eg. press-ups, dips between chairs, dumbell rows, under-hand pull-ups [probably too hard to begin with], squats with a couple of small dumbells, one-leg calf raises, sit-ups etc.). I'll work out a balanced program that he can go through in about 30 mins. That should do to get him started.

Again, thanks for all your comments.
 
You're still missing what I'm saying.

Lets say your load is 60% of 1RM (well below BIZ's recommended 80% 1RM being max).

It doesn't matter if you do 5 or 8 or 15 reps.

He will want to increase the load no matter how many reps he's doing - so as you say, supervise and make sure he doesn't try anything beyond his abilities/anything unsafe.
 
Jester, apologies for being a bit thick, but as we can't know what his 1RM is, cos he ain't gonna attempt to find that out, we can't know what 80% or 60% of his 1RM is.

However, we can estimate that, if he tried really hard with a load he could just handle for 10 reps then that would be approximately 75% of his 1RM. On the other hand, if he tried really hard with a weight that only allowed him to complete 5 reps then he would be closer to 90% of his 1RM.

So starting with a very light weight for 10 reps and progressively loading from there, whilst maintaining the number of reps, should keep him working towards 75% of his 1RM.

I don't really think it's worth worrying about too much but that's how I see it anyway. :)
 
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