In addition to increasing muscular strength and muscular endurance, children’s regular participation in a youth resistance training program has the potential to influence many health- and fitness-related measures. Resistance exercise may favorably alter selected anatomic and psychosocial parameters and reduce injuries in sports and recreation activities.

Psychosocial benefits:
Youth resistance training provides an opportunity for virtually all participants to be continually challenged and to feel good about their successes. Furthermore, it may foster favorable attitudes toward fitness and lifelong exercise. Youth athletes who increase their strength by resistance training seem better prepared to tolerate the sometimes forceful demands imposed on their immature musculoskeletal systems. Children who are stronger and more powerful are more likely to succeed in sports, and therefore, are more inclined to value the physical and psychosocial benefits of lifelong exercise.

Reduced injuries:
Approximately 35 million young athletes between the ages of six and 18 play competitive organized sports, and many others participate in community-based sport programs. Along with this increase in sports participation have come numerous reports of injuries to ill prepared and improperly trained young athletes. In one report involving high school male and female athletes, the injury rate for those who performed resistance training was 26.2%, compared to 72.4% for athletes who did not perform resistance training. Furthermore, the time required for rehabilitation was only 2.02 days for the former group vs. 4.82 days for the latter group. Appropriately designed and supervised resistance training programs may help prevent such injuries.