One Rep Max Testing For Adolescents

[Dave Lemanczyk]

Not sure how many trainers and strength coaches are on board here but this is an issue that I deal with on a daily basis with new clients. For those that are in the field, I hope this message gives a solid perspective for you and helps you build a reputable business as mine has grown to.

One rep max testing for adolescent trainees is a terrible idea. When put into action this can possibly negatively affect their rate of development. There are growth plates within every joint and any injury to them results in a "stunting of growth". That's enough for me. A majority of the clients I privately train are performing athletes between the ages of 11 and 20. In ten years now I am yet to give anyone a one rep max test or a five rep max test.

When you own a business like I do, you don't want anyone getting hurt, you pay high insurance premiums, and the main thing is to give clients that want results effort based training that is sensible with limited risk. I have found my clients benefit more from simple exercises, higher reps, and based their progress on their ability to produce gritty efforts. They pay me to make them stronger not to become the world's strongest man. All my guys are healthy, compete at a higher level than when I met them, and the new clients keep coming in. It's working.

A lot of "strength testing" modalities (1RM & 5RM) might look good on paper but in the end it leads to negative things whether they be physical injuries or developing patterns of lacking self-confidence. If a young kid misses a lift that is important to him or her it could crush them mentally depending on how serious they take training and that particular movement. Much of what I do is help young athletes build their self-confidence and teach them how training can help it. It's not so much how much you lift but how good you perform under extreme stress and pressure. These are the same things that matter in competition hence the reason why they become a training focus.

I hope this helps someone make sound decisions for the clients and athletes you will work with. Help them build a base mentally and physically and they'll remember you forever!

Three basic rules I have for my clients that have to do with training and life are simply;

Do good
Feel good
Be good

[Mike Corlett]

Dave, what age, or range of ages, do you think it is "okay" for kids to start lifting weights? 14? 11-14? I have an employee who has a 13-year-old son shooting up like a weed in height and weighs 105 at 5 feet 6, which is why I ask. She would like to see him "put on some muscle", and I am cautioning her about it.

[Steve Weiner]

Dave,

That is great stuff right there. Your clients are learning how to form a solid base of strength through their own effort and they are learning what they can gain through their efforts.

Mike,

If you have a kid do sled pulling, farmer's walks, and bear crawls, that is a simple and solid program right there.

[Steve Gardener]

I'm not sure if the adage about growth being stunted is actually accurate but I do not use 1RM type training with any youngster that wants to do strength style training. Just in case.

[Dave Lemanczyk]

Dave, what age, or range of ages, do you think it is "okay" for kids to start lifting weights? 14? 11-14? I have an employee who has a 13-year-old son shooting up like a weed in height and weighs 105 at 5 feet 6, which is why I ask. She would like to see him "put on some muscle", and I am cautioning her about it.

I appreciate the response Mike. You have asked me a question about training a 14 year old boy. In my original post, I specifically stated that a majority of my clients are between the ages of 11-20 years old. We do lift weights however we do NOT do any max effort lifting. The reason as stated above is due to the interruption of the physical maturation process. A growing boy will "put on some muscle" just being alive and eating correctly. Add some progressive sensible training and you have an excellent opporutnity to enhance growth potential in many respects. Apply that knowledge. If your friend is in the New York area, please send him to me.

[Dave Lemanczyk]

Dave,

That is great stuff right there. Your clients are learning how to form a solid base of strength through their own effort and they are learning what they can gain through their efforts.

Mike,

If you have a kid do sled pulling, farmer's walks, and bear crawls, that is a simple and solid program right there.

Steve I appreciate your feedback. All my clients become WINNERS in athletics and in life. There is no coincidence that I maintain contact with them for life as well.

In regards to the advice you gave to Mike, less is more however with younger athletes (or anyone in general) movement correction is the priority before any lifting of any kind is done. This simple analysis procedure (which must be known to do) will make joint integrity/muscular imbalances obvious and give the trainer the chance to start the building process in a physiologically sensible manner.

[Dave Lemanczyk]

I'm not sure if the adage about growth being stunted is actually accurate but I do not use 1RM type training with any youngster that wants to do strength style training. Just in case.

Sometimes the subconcious realm of the mind knows more than any reality test can prove. There has been enough real life examples however of adolescents suffering broken bodily limbs and those limbs not growing to full potential as a result. Think about adolescents on average, how dense are their bones? Are those bodily joints bound with conditioned and taut connective tissues? Good job Steve, keep up the good work and thank you for the feedback!

[Patrick Povilaitis]

On the subject of young athletes. I was recently at an orthopedic knee and shoulder specialist (former surgeon for Detroit Lions) for a knee injury my wife sustained in an auto accident some years back. I was floored by the number of pictures on the wall and articles of high-school athletes thanking the doc for "putting them back together". Each one had a dossier, "both knees" "shoulder" "knee two times" associated with them.

These kids were successful at the high school level, but one must wonder what the hell is left after that? This was eye opening for me.....don't know if it is the training or the competition, but could be the loads placed on immature joints behind all this mess.

[Rick Walker]

Pat-

I think is more so due to so many parents expecting their kids to be the next superstar and thus making them specialize on one sport instead of letting them have fun, play multiple sports, and have time off.

Kids can now play one sport nearly all year long. There are summer football camps, AAU leagues, USA Football camps, etc. In our day, we played multiple sports which trained our bodies on multiple angles. It wasn't uncommon for us to do football, wrestling, baseball, and track. Then our summers were spent working on the farm, not playing sports other then pick up games with your buds.

These are over-use injuries for the most part. And, when a kid is forced to play the same sport for 10 months out of the year, they really have no time in the weight room to help them become more injury resistant and stronger.

I work with a guy who pitched for the Astro's minor league team for a year, and his elbow was so bad he couldn't continue. This was due to pitching since he was a young kid and never taking a break. Sure, it made him a great child athlete, but when he wanted to make it his career, he was too beat up to continue...

[Randall Strossen]

All -

Not being a personal trainer or a coach, or an orthopedic surgeon or physical therapist of any kind, I have no formal credentials to stand on for this, but in my experience (both direct and observing others), I respectfully disagree with the idea that limit singles are a terrible idea for adolescents or that they are necessarily inordinately dangerous.

My feeling is that, properly used, max singles measure your progress - can even facilitate it - and the risk is minimal. Also, the physical elasticity and recovery speed of teenagers is not to be overlooked in this discussion.

[Dave Lemanczyk]

@ Rick - You make some very good points about the non-stop all-go team play that happens nowadays with adolescent athletics. It is a reality and I can offer some personal experience to back it up. My father, who was an 8 year major league pitcher and all-star told my brother and I that we were allowed to play only one sport per season during adolescence. This was because he knew that our body's needed time to recouperate in order to develop optimally without negative recourse. We listened to his advice and it did both of us extreme good as we would end up working hard to achieve college scholarshps and thereafter both become professional athletes. Had we played on all these travel teams, extra teams, aau, we would have been another kid on the wall in an orthopedic surgeons wall thanking him for putting us back together as Pat mentioned. The old man knew what he was advising because he was a high level professional player himself and understood first hand the toll high level athletics takes on the body. He also cautioned us about the dangers of max effort lifting during adolsecence and we adhered to that advice as well. I train my athletes now to a path of independence (as my products also clearly state) for a living.

@ Randy - I appreciate your feedback. The adolescent or pre-mature physical body needs to be fully developed in order for max effort lifting to be done without recourse. While I respect your viewpoint here are a questions I have for you...If you were training an adolescent why would you risk their growth over a max effort single? Injuries do happen because of this. What benefit does a high risk max effort single bear to an adolescent? Are the connective tissues, joint integrity, and bone density of an adolescent strong enough to handle the stress of a max effort single? I consider your viewpoint on max effort singles valid for fully matured adults otherwise it is way off. Training adolescents is all about low risk, high benefit exercises that are based on effort and mental toughness.

[Randall Strossen]

Dave -

At an extreme end of the spectrum, look at the sport of weightlifting and the Junior and Youth categories - if singles were necessarily crippling, these boys and girls (some really are that, not even young men or young women yet) would be hobbling around, broken in many places, stunted, etc., but they're not.

Interestingly, if you look at some high school weightlifting programs (as in Olympic-style weightlifting), the injuries are coming from another sport, not from the weight room, where plenty of singles might be standard fare.

In the weight room, I think injuries are most likely to occur when the lifter is tired or when proper supervision is lacking. Of course, accidents can always happen, but they're not always as we might expect: I broke a leg once in a climbing accident, but I also know someone who broke a leg slipping on a kitchen floor and another person who broke one getting out of bed, believe it or not.

[AaronCorcorran]

I think if I had it to do over I would not let myself start with the heavy singles from such a young age. I started lifting at 12, started going for heaviest weights possible at 13 and being unsupervised by anyone who had a clue overtrained in that style for years. I reached the height I am now 6' at 13 and really think that the heavy loads had something to do with it. Sure I was very strong for my age by the time I was done with HS and did well in College Athletics too. Bests as a 17yr old Junior in HS were 405 bench, 500 squat, and 385 power clean at 220 BW. But I think I could have done even better waiting a little longer before stacking on the weight and if I had better supervised programming.

- Aaron

[Dave Lemanczyk]

Randy - I appreciate that feedback. My response to Olympic lifting max effort style at a young age is that it has a lot to do with natural selection. Those adolescents who can survive the intense daily olympic training without negative recourse go on to become champions. This has been done all around the world especially in regions where my own blood lines originate from. It is a high risk weeding out process that has been labled the "secret training" but really it's all natural selection and hard luck stories for the losers that were just human.

Six years ago for example, I took over as a strength and conditioning coach at a local high school that is known for their football success. Prior to my intervention, they had a program in place where the kids were maxing out on all compound weightlifts and olympic lifts every single day of the week. There were many kids that as a result of this max effort style tore tendons, ligaments, and muscles in their knees, shoulders, wrists, you name it and it was done. I changed this body destruction style and replaced it with an effort based solution whereby all kids had an opportunity to perform self-body construction through higher controlled repetitions. I took away the olympic lifting and replaced it with more sound solutions for the general population.

My job was to make sure these kids were preventing injuries and building confidence for the field where it mattered most. My concern was not getting their name up on the wall of gym lift bests. Physical training for an athlete is preparation for athletics. Many of the kids that were injured a year before were able to compete due to the training I put in place for them. I still recieve emails and telephone calls from these kids to the day thanking me for putting the sensible program in place for them. One guy for example, is a tugboat captain who works all around the world doing workouts on his boat when he can. If that doesn't spell a path to independence I don't know what does.

At the end of that academic school year, the coach asked me to step down because he didn't like the approach since his team lost in the county finals. They lose a tough game that could have gone either way. He said, and I quote, "I have a friend who is a big steroid guy, owns gyms, and he believes in max effort lifting. This is what we need here not what you're doing. I need my lineman weighing 300 pounds, not being agile at 270".

These were his exact words and a very sad state of affairs. To the day I do not hold anything against him. I respect everyones ability to have an opinion but feel bad for the kids that are subjected to it. For the kids, it's do or die and in developmental situations it should not be this way. Clearly it's too destructive. I hope this helps Randy. Sorry to hear about your leg accident, I hope you have healed fully!

[Randall Strossen]

Aaron -

A 385-lb. power clean as a 220-lb. 17-year old? That's impressive!

Who knows - it might have been the heavy lifting, but it might also be that you just peaked early or didn't have a perfect environment for tapping deeper into your reservoir of talent.



Dave -

Thanks much - I broke that leg more than 35 years ago . . . back when 5.10s were considered really tough and rock climbers bought their clothes at Goodwill stores! (If Chris Rice is reading this, he's probably saying, "5.10s? My granddaughter led a 6-pitch 5.10 the first time she went climbing.")

It's more prudence than talent I think that sorts out the dangerous from the productive: a wise coach once told me that an athlete should always be tugging at the leash, but it's the coach's job to hold him back a little.

I just don't see the selective use of singles as being unreasonably dangerous, but I have seen some really ugly-looking high-rep lifts that look slam dunks for the injuries.

[AaronCorcorran]

Aaron -

A 385-lb. power clean as a 220-lb. 17-year old? That's impressive!

Who knows - it might have been the heavy lifting, but it might also be that you just peaked early or didn't have a perfect environment for tapping deeper into your reservoir of talent.
......

Oh, I got much stronger through college. but, was plagued by injuries from overtraining, trying to go to heavy in the weight room, etc. I just really think that more focus on the getting stronger for my sport aspect instead of constant testing of max strength in gym lifts would have been better served.
I changed my training up to a full body less is more method just out of college and achieved more strength gains in 6 months than I had in the previous 5 years though. That gave me quite a bit of insight into how wrong I had been training for years and what was really possible with the right balance. There was no more max single testing, and my plan more closely resembled what Arthur Jones recommends in the Nautilus Bulletins with about 1/3 the number of training days.
I think that consistent productive brief work in the 6-10rep range would be much better for the average adolescent than constant max effort lifts. Though the occasional 1RM effort could be useful for quantifying progress and as an emotional / moral booster. I think that they should be limited in those attempts.

- Aaron

[Chris Rice]

I coach the throws at the Jr High and High School level. My problem is getting them to stop testing and start training. As soon as I turn my back - it's "how much can I bench day" again. Writing 3 sets of 5 or whatever on the board doesn't mean that's what they will do unless you are right there beside them. Training one on one is so easy compared to the average HS weight room - and Jr high kids are so clueless its not funny. And then the differences between kids is so large - I had a 7th grade girl do the full squat snatch acceptably well in 5 minutes of just watching me do it (not a great example of proper technique). And then I have those kids who cannot bench press an empty bar. We all know we need an individualized program for each kid but that's nearly impossible to supervise and do with very many kids at the same time.

[Mike Corlett]

Dave, what age, or range of ages, do you think it is "okay" for kids to start lifting weights? 14? 11-14? I have an employee who has a 13-year-old son shooting up like a weed in height and weighs 105 at 5 feet 6, which is why I ask. She would like to see him "put on some muscle", and I am cautioning her about it.

The information on this kid was two weeks old when I wrote it earlier this month. The kid is now 5 feet 8 inches, 115 pounds (height is accurate, kid may be lying about the weight, may be less). I have heard stories about kids in puberty with amazing growth spurts, but this is something else. It really makes you think hard about heavy weight training when the body is going through cycles like this.

[Todd Coenen]

Usually I tend to agree with the majority when it comes to topics involving fitness, but in this case, I have to respectfully disagree with the popular opinion.

I think the notion that heavy max attempts will stunt the growth of teenagers is a complete myth. I will agree that it's probably not the best way for teens to train, and it does increase the probability of injuries - but it definitely will not stunt growth.

From the time I was 15 years old, and through my first year of college I trained almost exclusively by alternating one workout with mostly heavy singles and the next workout consisted of doing triples with as much weight as I could handle. My accessory work was always in the 7 - 10 rep range, but most compounds were done in the manner I described. I was able to build a good base of strength this way, and it most definitely didn't stunt my growth at all. I'm currently 41 years old, height is 6'2", and weight is 225.

[Jedd Johnson]

I've never read any research that confirmed max singles damaged growth plates either.

Actually, I was always told that any lifting would affect the growth plates, let alone heavy singles and max attempts.

I think Max attempts need to be done only under supervision. I have heard about some scary stuff going down at the local high school weight room. Luckily, I "saved" a couple of my cousins this summer and showed them the right way to do lifts. If they continue to use good form, they should be in good shape.

I did not do any 1 rep testing with them during the summer. I showed them proper technique then started them out light and when their form started to break down, I'd terminate the set.

Not sure about that plate damage stuff, but I am sure that good technique will keep people safer regardless of the weight used.

[James Amos]

Strength training for the pre-teenage and early-teenage athlete is steeped in the kind of ambiguity and misconceptions that have achieved mythological status.

As a youth (i started lifting at the age of 12) friends and family told me lifting weights was going to stunt my growth and should be avoided at all costs! So while my friends were 'stunting' their growth smoking behind the bike shed, mine was taking place in the gym!

17 years have now passed and I have reached the beanstalk like height of 5'9''! Ok so I'm not a giant but you have to take into account my father is only 5'5'' and my mother is only 5'6''!

But enough about me... back to the debate.

I think we all agree most healthy youngsters,both boys and girls, are physically mature enough to begin a resistance program between ages 12-14.

What it appears to me we can not agree on is the intensity (and to some degree volume).

The views seem to range from the very conservative whereby no maximal efforts are undertaken to the reported extreme of 'maxing out on all compound lifts and olympic lifts every single day of the week'.

How many of us actually train 'regularly' on max lifts in adulthood?

Dave does this method of continual max training take place in high schools across the states? I have never seen anything of the like in British schools and i find the notion absurd.

Why would we subject adolescents to a form of training we would not undertake ourselves?

I personally only undertake maximal lifts say every 3 months, I don't get stronger from doing them its just a test. The vast majority of my training now comprises of set of 5's and 3's at various %'s of those max lifts.

As a youth it was probably more in the 6 - 10 rep range for compound / power lifts and If i was asked to devise a program for youths it would probably be very similar.

If I were to teach the olympic lifts to youths the complexity of the lifts and the stresses imposed on the CNS would lead me to limit the reps in the 3-5 range.

For both scenarios i would possibly suggest a one rep max test every 3 - 6 months where the lifts are carried out under competition conditions (and ensuring an adequate period of rest after the test for recovery to take place before returning to training).

To reiterate Randy's thoughts, properly used, max singles measure your progress (at all ages), can even facilitate it (indirectly) and the risk is minimal.

To me it seems training a youth would be no different to training an untrained adult. The body has yet to adapt to the specific demands imposed on it. You would implement a program where the volume and intensity was periodically increased / changed to allow the body to adapt (the muscles get bigger and the tendons get stronger).

For many years, it was speculated that strength training could damage the composition of the "growth plates" from which healthy bone continues to emanate until full skeletal growth is completed.

This is where the "growth stunting" myth surfaced.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence that a sound, supervised strength training program (which includes periodic maximal lift tests) can have an adverse effect on these body structures.

Strength training can not only increase bone density and make them more resilient to injuries, but enhances the muscular strength and endurance of the youngsters, just as it does with adults.