Young Gymnasts and Weightlifting

[Guest guest]

The gymnasts at our gymnastics school begin weight training when they

are accepted onto our competitive team training program. Some of these

girls are as young at 8 years old. At this stage they are not doing maximal

lifts however. For the first 6 months, we limit them to overhead presses,

overhead squats, front and back squats plus body resistance exercises like,

crunches, back extensions(bending at the navel not hip joint), pull ups,

handstand pushups, etc. We also include agility drills. Before someone is

invited into the team training program, most have had 2 years of gymnastics

training so their general conditioning is pretty good. Our more experienced

gymnasts do the 3 types of squat plus power cleans, snatches(power and

squat), Romanian deadlifts, and power jerks.

We found out that the foot placement on split jerks conflicted with their foot

placement on the balance beam hence the use of the power jerk. For changes of

pace, we sometimes do drop snatches, push presses etc. We do no bench presses.

We have never had a meaningful injury while doing this. Anyone that has had the

opportunity to see gymnastics up close can see that the stress on the muscles

and joints is far greater than the stress created in weightlifting. We have

several

girls that are clean and jerking their own body weight. While this is certainly

not Olympic level, it's not bad for girls that are not competitive

weightlifters.

There is no evidence that properly designed and supervised weight training is

harmful to children. Limit beginners to a few simple movements, focus on

technique, keep sessions relatively short(for our 8 to 10 year olds we limit

sessions to 45 minutes). A lot of encouragement is a must. It's amazing how

excited these kids get about doing this. Along with me, three of my female

coaches also lift so the kids see that we practice what we preach. When the

coaches work in with the kids, some of the kids walk around like they are ten

feet tall. It's nice to see the pride they develop from learning these things.

Ayars

Sandhills Academy of gymnastics

P.O. Box 3789

Pinehurst NC28374