When I began strength training at a young age I had a coach tell me, “Boy that weight lifting ain’t gonna do you any good until you have enough hair on your butt to weave a Navajo blanket.” This raises an interesting question. Can pre-adolescents benefit from weight training, or will it just stunt their growth? The short answer is yes and no, respectively. I’ll turn the long answer over to Dr. Lon Kilgore.
It’s a good thing that we live in the “age of information” so that young people won’t have to suffer from old wives tales and misinformation. That same old coach told me when I was trying to pack on weight for football that, “all I needed to do was eat more Blue Bell and drink more Lone Star”.