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Rug rats become gym rats
PATRICK WHITE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
October 7, 2008 at 9:40 AM EDT
Most days, the parking lot outside the Twist Conditioning gym in North Vancouver is the sports equivalent of a Hollywood red carpet.
Over the years, the gym's namesake has trained the likes of hockey stars Mark Messier, Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund and retired basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon.
On a recent afternoon, several junior hockey stars bound for U.S. colleges were jerking, sweating and grunting their way through torturous workouts.
But in little over an hour, the testosterone-fuelled gym would take a decidedly childish air as a pack of children, aged 8 to 12, was set to take over this room full of dumbbells and Bosu balls.
Angus Crookshank, 9, at Twist Conditioning in North Vancouver. (JOHN LEHMANN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
"We have 12 coming in today," says Mason Gratto, a trainer at the gym and designer of its popular kids' program. "Everybody has to be out by then."
Only a decade ago, such programs would have been unthinkable. Backed by a dubious Japanese study, many doctors warned parents that weightlifting of any kind would stunt children's growth.
That was then. Now, buoyed by new research and zealous parents urging kids toward careers in professional sports, rug rats are turning into gym rats.
"There's still a certain stigma about having kids in weight rooms," Mr. Gratto said.
"They have this image of kids being forced to perform old-school weightlifting - big plates, low reps. It's not like that any more."
For years, coaches and doctors told young athletes that lifting weights before puberty would stunt their growth. Much of that claim was built on a 44-year-old study of Japanese peasants. It found that children who performed heavy labour tended to be short in stature.
Some medical professionals inferred that any sustained weightlifting regimen would damage children's growth plates, the portion of the bone that elongates during childhood.
"There was never any good science behind that," said Cameron Blimkie, a kinesiology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. "This was a myth based on studies in Europe and Asia that looked at children who were undernourished and overworked."
Dr. Blimkie has strong anecdotal evidence to support his case. He started his son on strength training at age 10. "Did it stunt his growth? He's 20 now. I'm 5 foot 8 and he's 6 foot 2, so I don't think so."
In a recent position paper, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology agreed, stating that "[a resistance training] program for children and adolescents may not only improve muscular strength, endurance, power and balance; there is evidence for improvements in body composition and motor skills."
Much of this new acceptance of iron-pumping kids stems from a sea change in the way athletes train. In the 1970s and 1980s, some professional hockey coaches advised players not to lift weights, convinced that heavy weights would produce bulky, unwieldy muscle and bulky, unwieldy skaters.
But starting in the 1990s, athletic trainers such as Peter Twist, then working with the Vancouver Canucks, started developing weightlifting regimens that mimicked on-ice hockey movements using balance balls, ladders, resistance bands, ropes and small weights.
Turns out, what's good for Sidney Crosby is also good for eight-year-olds.
"The idea there is to make children more athletic rather than just stronger," said Gregory Anderson, chairman of kinesiology and physical education at the University of the Fraser Valley. "If your personal trainer puts a kid on a traditional, bulk-building weight program, fire your trainer."
The Twist method focuses less on bulking up and more on neural recruitment: the synchronizing of muscles with the nervous system.
During one-hour training sessions, participants in the Kids Sport Conditioning program don't necessarily sweat and toil like their older gym-mates. They lift light weights, wobble atop stability balls, tug thick elastic bands and run relays. But they do get results.
"He's more focused than ever," George Crookshank said of his nine-year-old son Angus, who started attending the Twist gym last spring. "And his body, all that baby fat that was there even a year ago, it's gone."
Researchers also make a good case for weight training as a way to avoid those gawky teenage years. "All kids will go through that awkward gangly stage," Dr. Anderson said. "But these kinds of exercises help muscles become more co-ordinated to compensate."
That helps lure kids of all stripes. "We get the kids who are really elite athletes," Mr. Gratto said, "and we also get the kids coming in whose idea of exercise is a Nintendo Wii."
The attraction for some isn't just physical, but psychological, Mr Gratto said. "The kids who come in here all anxious and self-conscious, they all leave walking a little taller."
PATRICK WHITE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
October 7, 2008 at 9:40 AM EDT
Most days, the parking lot outside the Twist Conditioning gym in North Vancouver is the sports equivalent of a Hollywood red carpet.
Over the years, the gym's namesake has trained the likes of hockey stars Mark Messier, Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund and retired basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon.
On a recent afternoon, several junior hockey stars bound for U.S. colleges were jerking, sweating and grunting their way through torturous workouts.
But in little over an hour, the testosterone-fuelled gym would take a decidedly childish air as a pack of children, aged 8 to 12, was set to take over this room full of dumbbells and Bosu balls.
Angus Crookshank, 9, at Twist Conditioning in North Vancouver. (JOHN LEHMANN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL) "We have 12 coming in today," says Mason Gratto, a trainer at the gym and designer of its popular kids' program. "Everybody has to be out by then."
Only a decade ago, such programs would have been unthinkable. Backed by a dubious Japanese study, many doctors warned parents that weightlifting of any kind would stunt children's growth.
That was then. Now, buoyed by new research and zealous parents urging kids toward careers in professional sports, rug rats are turning into gym rats.
"There's still a certain stigma about having kids in weight rooms," Mr. Gratto said.
"They have this image of kids being forced to perform old-school weightlifting - big plates, low reps. It's not like that any more."
For years, coaches and doctors told young athletes that lifting weights before puberty would stunt their growth. Much of that claim was built on a 44-year-old study of Japanese peasants. It found that children who performed heavy labour tended to be short in stature.
Some medical professionals inferred that any sustained weightlifting regimen would damage children's growth plates, the portion of the bone that elongates during childhood.
"There was never any good science behind that," said Cameron Blimkie, a kinesiology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. "This was a myth based on studies in Europe and Asia that looked at children who were undernourished and overworked."
Dr. Blimkie has strong anecdotal evidence to support his case. He started his son on strength training at age 10. "Did it stunt his growth? He's 20 now. I'm 5 foot 8 and he's 6 foot 2, so I don't think so."
In a recent position paper, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology agreed, stating that "[a resistance training] program for children and adolescents may not only improve muscular strength, endurance, power and balance; there is evidence for improvements in body composition and motor skills."
Much of this new acceptance of iron-pumping kids stems from a sea change in the way athletes train. In the 1970s and 1980s, some professional hockey coaches advised players not to lift weights, convinced that heavy weights would produce bulky, unwieldy muscle and bulky, unwieldy skaters.
But starting in the 1990s, athletic trainers such as Peter Twist, then working with the Vancouver Canucks, started developing weightlifting regimens that mimicked on-ice hockey movements using balance balls, ladders, resistance bands, ropes and small weights.
Turns out, what's good for Sidney Crosby is also good for eight-year-olds.
"The idea there is to make children more athletic rather than just stronger," said Gregory Anderson, chairman of kinesiology and physical education at the University of the Fraser Valley. "If your personal trainer puts a kid on a traditional, bulk-building weight program, fire your trainer."
The Twist method focuses less on bulking up and more on neural recruitment: the synchronizing of muscles with the nervous system.
During one-hour training sessions, participants in the Kids Sport Conditioning program don't necessarily sweat and toil like their older gym-mates. They lift light weights, wobble atop stability balls, tug thick elastic bands and run relays. But they do get results.
"He's more focused than ever," George Crookshank said of his nine-year-old son Angus, who started attending the Twist gym last spring. "And his body, all that baby fat that was there even a year ago, it's gone."
Researchers also make a good case for weight training as a way to avoid those gawky teenage years. "All kids will go through that awkward gangly stage," Dr. Anderson said. "But these kinds of exercises help muscles become more co-ordinated to compensate."
That helps lure kids of all stripes. "We get the kids who are really elite athletes," Mr. Gratto said, "and we also get the kids coming in whose idea of exercise is a Nintendo Wii."
The attraction for some isn't just physical, but psychological, Mr Gratto said. "The kids who come in here all anxious and self-conscious, they all leave walking a little taller."