"My grandson wants bigger muscles..."
This is not medical advice.
My grandson wants to look bigger and gain muscle. How does he go about doing that? Is it safe for kids to lift weights? What should he be eating?
We say weightlifting, but we are really talking about strengthening and muscle building. That is accomplished by resistance training. That term is more accurate as it encompasses many different avenues, including iron weights, body weight exercises, machines, and rubber bands.
Personal trainers
Most of my generation who lifted weights as kids did not have personal trainers. We bought magazines and watched movies, and mimicked those we looked up to.
However, you could jump start your teen’s muscle building by hiring a personal trainer for 5-10 sessions. I would go with them the first few sessions to see if you feel safe with that trainer, and if they understand your grandkids’ goals, i.e. building muscle, vs cardio, vs flexibility. I would also make it clear to everyone that you expect the kid to learn a routine in 10 visits, not need to be “baby sitted” forever. If the kid really wants to build muscle, they will be very motivated to do this on their own.
Start today
Body weight exercises, like push ups, pull ups, dips, planks, squats, etc, are the safest, easiest and most effective muscle building starters. They have the added benefit of being free, or needing minimal equipment. You can start today. Just get to work, do as many as possible. Repeat.
Body weight exercises are a safe self limiter. Kids are unlikely to become injured performing these simple and effective exercises.
Safety
Yes, it is safe for kids to lift weights. Saying that it was unsafe before was too much of a blanket statement without regard for context.
Kids jump out of treehouses and off the top bunk. Sometimes they get injured doing this, however in those cases it’s a hard landing, with 5x their body weight in force.
Jumping, and other types of external forces, are what increase our healthy muscle strength and bone density. Weightlifting has far less force involved, and it’s all about relativity. If we pick a weight that a kid could barely pick up once, that would be riskier. Picking a weight they can lift 10 times with good form is not only safe, it’s good for their health, and helps to prevent injuries.
Even heavy loads with good form are relatively safe, compared with sitting on a couch all day, playing video games.
Picking the resistance
Body weight exercises are done until tired or fatigued. Resistance training with dumbbells, barbells, kettle bells or machines involves picking the correct weight. That is outlined in these simple numbers,
There are rubber bands, which are ok, but not as likely to elicit a hormonal response.
Barbells and dumbells will help elicit a greater anabolic muscle building response. They are safe so long as someone teaches them safety, and good lifting form.
They don’t need supplements
There are many supplements on the market. We may not know if they are safe in every case. Kids have tons of natural muscle and height building hormones on board already. A prominent strength coach once told kids that if they want more muscle and height, all they have to do is wait a year. Their growth is so exponential, we don’t need to add unsafe supplements. All they need is work, calories and sleep.
Calories
I had some clients where the parents were very upset that the teenager came home and wanted to eat potato chips instead of better quality food. I agreed with them, suggesting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which has about 10 grams of protein. However, I also suggested he go ahead and eat the chips, just insist on the sandwich first.
He was very skinny, growing like a weed, playing football, lifting weights…He needed as many calories as possible for weight gain. He will need to adjust that diet in his 20’s, but let’s not deprive them of everything they like (except these chips…what’s in these, menthol?!)
At what point does the quality of our food become so heinous, that a cigarette would be less harmful in comparison?
Protein math
Here is some handy protein math. In most cases, if you have a skinny teenager who wants to add muscle mass, they just need to continue to eat as much as possible. Top strength athlete adults eat more than they want to, some up to 10,000 calories per day. Our bodies will uptake so much protein for muscle building, we don’t really know the upper limit.
If your teenager is overweight, then that narrative about eating as much as possible does not apply to them. “Overweight” is hard to define. Even the Body Mass Index is unreliable. Consult a dietary expert who does not rely on the BMI, and maybe more common sense about healthy eating, and healthy body weight expectations for growing teens.