STUNTING BY WEIGHTS
by Dr Mel C Siff
While the emphasis on correctness of technique and graduated progressive loading is correct, those university texts are seriously misleading to perpetuate the myth that heavy resistance training stunts growth by prematurely closing the epiphyses.
If heavy resistance training is to be discouraged among youngsters, then one also has to warn against the dangers of any form of activity that imposes similar loading on the skeleton. The catch here is that any running, jumping, kicking and throwing can impose loads that easily exceed the loads encountered in controlled heavy resistance training.
I have performed many force plate and muscle tension tests on subjects during jumping, running, weightlifting and powerlifting and have measured forces which are invariably significantly greater during jumping and running than weightlifting with loads greater than one's bodymass. In fact, the impact forces imposed on the legs during jumping and landing can easily be more than four times bodyweight. Very few youngsters would ever be able to handle heavy enough squats to achieve that sort of skeletal loading!
Just think how difficult it would be to advise youngsters about the biomechanical risks of running and jumping in particular! Their play is replete with that sort of activity - and it is done in much greater volume than is ever done in a weight training environment.
Have the authors of those textbooks ever considered how the average 3-5 sets of 3-10 repetitions of squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, power cleans and whole body lifts (with the usual rest intervals between sets) can stunt growth more than thousands of foot contacts during running (in most youth sports) or hundreds of similar impacts during jumping and landing (e.g. in basketball, volleyball, soccer, football etc)?
So far I have yet come across sports scientists who compare the skeletal loading forces in different sports so as to arrive at the conclusion that weight training is the only exercise that selectively stunts human growth. Interesting, isn't it? It sounds like there is still a lot of uneducated bias around in the world of sports training.
I trust that those same authors of that textbook also pointed out the high injury rate caused to many bodily structures by popular school sports such as American football, rugby, soccer and basketball. If they did, then they would be justified in insisting that youngsters should not be exposed prematurely to these potentially hazardous activities!
Add to this the results of clinical records done by an orthopaedic surgeon / Sports Doctor colleague of mine who has studied records of youngsters exposed to long periods of weight training. As yet he has not found any significant correlation between weight training and pathological closing of epiphyses.
It is really about time that this growth stunting by weights myth were dispelled or at least compared scientifically against similar potential risks encountered in other sports. It is not simply that something is inherently dangerous, it is that anything can be dangerous if not done properly.
In conclusion we might add this GROWTH STUNTING belief as yet another Puzzle & Paradox in our ongoing collection of myths that confuse and befuddle so many fitness professionals!
Sincerely
Dr Mel C Siff
