When a child climbs a tree, he or she uses the muscles of their upper body to pull and their leg muscles to push their way up. Is this dangerous? When a child sits up from a chair, he or she is using the muscles of their legs to push their body weight up to a standing position. Is this dangerous?

As a personal fitness trainer who works with a large number of children, I can't tell you how many times I have had parents tell me that they wouldn't mind their child doing push ups and sit ups, but NO WEIGHT TRAINING! I learned a long time ago that a standard push up involves pressing 60% of your body weight with the muscles of the arms and chest. So, say a child weights 80 pounds. I have him do 10 push ups. He is basically pushing 48 pounds with his arms and chest for 10 repetitions. Why would this be safer than having the same kid do a bench press with a 20 pound barbell for 10 repetitions? The answer is...IT'S NOT!!

Some parents simply do not understand what trainers do with children when it comes to weight training. The old "injured growth plate" topic comes up frequently. Recently, I attended a clinic lead by Dr. Wayne Wescott, director of research for the YMCA. The topic was Preadolescent Weight Training. Just as I expected, the "growth plate" topic was immediately brought up. Dr. Wescott replied:

"Myself and a team of researchers went to every hospital in the country to find out just how many cases of damaged growth plates have occured as a direct result of weight training among children. Surprisingly, not a single case had ever been reported as occuring directly from weight training. There were reports of children injuring growth plates within the confines of weightrooms, but most of these occured from falls due to horseplay or simple accidents."