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Deadlifting weights at 4 years old - is this ok?


MarblesMom

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I just saw on my FB feed a very proud mama who boasted that her 4 year old was 'deadlifting' a 30 pound weight.  I know nothing about weight lifting, but that seems a bit much for a 4 year old to do from these virgin eyes.

Thoughts and comments please! (Before I say something to her I shouldn't....)

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11 minutes ago, MarblesMom said:

I just saw on my FB feed a very proud mama who boasted that her 4 year old was 'deadlifting' a 30 pound weight.  I know nothing about weight lifting, but that seems a bit much for a 4 year old to do from these virgin eyes.

Thoughts and comments please! (Before I say something to her I shouldn't....)

Kids should probably NOT weight train until they are at least 7 or 8. That's when they have the appropriate amount of balance & posture control. Strength training, however, is important and kids should start with body weight exercises. once they master these, they can try weights, with supervision of course. 30 seems like a lot, but I don't know the rest of this story - is the child some sort of phenom? Is he being directly supervised? Is he much better at controlling his body than your average Olympic gymnast at 4? 

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From all that I see on FB, he is a non-phenom, normal 4 year old.  

She is SUPER into training. 

She was with him while he was lifting (ok, taking pics for FB).  I have never seen any other gym activities with this kid. It seemed odd.

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There is this myth that kids and even teens should not ever weight train,  as it will stunt their growth. So if you do choose to say something,  she might get really defensive. It's actually really annoying to constantly have to explain that it's OK, and actually really good for everyone to strength train and use weights when appropriate.  

However,  in my lay opinion,  4 seems really young for deadlifting. If the mom is super into training,  we can hope that she made sure to work him up to 30 lbs, drilling proper form into him (or her, just realized you didn't specify) and that this child is not going to be injured. 

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As a wrestling and gymnastics coach, I have taught some incredibly kids, Kids who could probably deadlift way over 30lbs at 6 or 7. That said, I rarlely use weights with kids under 12. Not because it will stunt their growth, but because I find you get better strength gains when kids are using their own body weight. If they need more weight because lifting their own weight is too easy? I add on ankle weights. You'd be amazed at the difference an extra two pounds can make. 

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My personal trainer at my gym, said he wouldn't start training my son, until he was 14 years old, and even at 14 he would go easy on him. It was something to do with an increased, catastrophic injury risk (like blown knees, rotator cuff issues stuff like that). Bones were softer, ligaments and tendons were weaker, joints were loosey-goosey, stuff like that. Why 14 years old was the magic number, I have no idea.

I also remember begging my trainer, to imagine I was 13 (not in some creepy pedo way), because that man did NOT go easy on me...lol.

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  • 2 months later...

I think 4 years old is too young for stuff like that.  Every so often we see the pictures of young children whose parents pushed them into bodybuilding - that's getting extreme there.

On the other hand I wouldn't want kids to be be like the one kid at my cousin's wedding - they had to get him a small adult size suit jacket because of how obese he was, and I think he was seven or eight years old at the time.  I think the best thing parents can do is to encourage their kids to eat healthy and get a good amount of exercise but not to push the kids into things that they are too young for.

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  • 11 months later...

A little off-topic: Way back in the '60s, my family doctor wouldn't let his kids play Little League until they were over 10 because he was concerned about the damage pitching could do to their shoulder and arm joints. Fast-forward a decade or so and t-ball was invented for this very reason. (One of his sons grew up to be a major league baseball player for a few years and then became a high school athletics coach.)

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