Episode 1549 - Lifting weights stunts your growth #PTonICE Daily Show

Dr. Eric Chaconas // #ClinicalTuesday // www.ptonice.com 


In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Extremity Division Leader Eric Chaconas discusses the benefits & risks of youth weightlifting, dispelling many common myths regarding the negative effects that lifting weights can have on children.
Take a listen or check out the episode transcription below.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
00:00 ERIC CHACONAS

Morning everybody, Eric Chaconas here for the PT on Ice Daily Show. I am part of our Extremity Management team along with Lindsay Huey and Mark Gallant. Extremity Management is our really basic general orthopedic course that covers so many different conditions that you see of the shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand, hip, knee, foot, ankle. So it's two days, heavy lab, lots of fun, lots of movement, tons and tons of you performing the actual current best exercises that you would utilize in the clinic for all these different injuries and pain conditions that we see. As well as some of the most modern and evidence based manual therapy techniques that are utilized for all those same conditions. So we've got a number of upcoming open courses. Mark will be in Amarillo, Texas September 9th and 10th and then in Cincinnati, Ohio September 16th. And then we also have one in Rochester, Minnesota October 7th. So if you go to our website, PTOnice.com, click on live courses, you'll see Extremity Management down there in the second row. And that's how you can find out more details about that course.

01:31 WEIGHTLIFTING & KIDS

So today we're going to get into this topic of weightlifting and kids. And so this comes from some of the experiences that I've had in coaching youth sports and in training clinically. What I did early in my career was performance based training for youth golfers. So I've had this conversation and then really just experiences I've had with my own kids and friends in the community here. I've had this conversation about kids and weightlifting with a lot of people, a lot of people over the years. And it is amazing to me how often you hear people say, I don't, I don't, it's not a good idea for a kid to lift weights because it can stunt your growth. That is like saying the earth is flat. That is one of the most outdated, inaccurate statements that can be made. What we know now is that that is absolutely false. There is no difference in risk of, and what you're talking about are growth plate injuries, right? If you say stunt your growth, you're talking about the epiphyseal plate. You're talking about a growth plate injury being more at risk or having higher prevalence in a young athlete or young individual who participates in weightlifting versus one who does not. So we're talking about pre-adolescence. We're talking about middle school age kids. We're talking about even elementary school age kids. And I don't think a lot of people are making that argument in high school age kids.

04:52 BARBELL WEIGHTLIFTING FOR YOUTH

Usually most people are pretty accepting of the idea of weightlifting in high school. But where they push back on you is in middle school and elementary school. And so I think that's totally wrong. I think that's inaccurate. Now, again, it's a case by case basis and it's based on the kid and their maturity level and their ability to, you know, pay attention and be coachable and be well behaved enough to properly, you know, be safe. But for the most part, the argument that it could stunt your growth and that there is a higher risk of growth plate injury is completely unfounded. So that came from