Re:Greg -Anecdotal Experience

[Guest guest]

I myself began competitive lifting at the age of 17 but my coach would let me

only train with compound exercises heavy once a week and was very careful to

work on flexibility. I have trained many high school lifters and always with

the same template and never before they reached at least 16 years of age.

Before that I have mainly enforced the current functional training ideas. My

own son is a good example. He is now 23 and is more of an MMA fighter than a

power lifter although he has won several USAPL, AAU and NASA meets. He is

mainly injury free other than a disk injury that he sustained in wrestling, not

lifting. I am 57 nearly 58 and was basically injury free until age 40. Since

then I have had a torn rotocuff, hernia that resulted directly from power

lifting in the abdominal area, two crunched disks that luckily did not herniate.

These are the most serious of the injuries although I have torn just about every

muscle used in power lifting.

But I digress and back to your point, in our current society we are training our

children and youth at much younger ages and specializing in them in particular

sports also at a much younger age. While this has obviously greatly improved

our competitive ability internationally and in professional and collegiate

sports, it is my belief solely from observation and personal experience that we

have payed a big price for that in the physical and mental damage we have done

to our youth. Obviously, there are individual differences but it would seem

that many young athletes not only suffer from additional injury and possibly

premature aging of certain parts of the body but also such mental deficits as

emotional immaturity, narcicism, etc. Perhaps some good research in this area

might wake us up to what we are doing to our youth all in the name of winning.

Interestingly, I see parents every day spending exhorbant amounts of money in

order to make their son or daughter the next sports super star that would never

even consider spending the same amount improving their academic skills.

Eddie White

Blue Springs, Missouri