Much research has been done, and continues to be done regarding the safety and benefit of strength training for young adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Sports Medicine, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association all support strength training for young adults — if it's done properly.

Appropriately prescribed youth strength training programs are relatively safe when compared with other sports and activities where children regularly participate. The forces placed on joints during sports participation may be far greater than those generated from resistance-training programs. The most traditional concern about youth strength training involves the potential for injury to the epiphyseal plate (growth plate). Growth plate fractures have not been reported in any perspective resistance training studies that were characterized by appropriately prescribed training regimens and competent instruction.

Definition of Terms
There remains much confusion about the different manners in which people “lift weights.” According to the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), weightlifting movements can be described as the following:

Weightlifting refers to the competitive sport of lifting barbells as practiced in the Olympic Games. Male and female competitors if different weight categories demonstrate their strength in two lifts (snatch and clean-and-jerk) that require the barbell to be hoisted overhead.

Powerlifting is a competitive sport that evolved from weightlifting in the United States in the 1960’s. It consists of three barbell lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift).

Weight training is the term used when someone lifts weights for the general purposes of improved health, sport performance, or physical appearance.

Strength training is applied to athletes who use resistance training to increase strength with the express purpose of improving performance in their chosen sport. Strength training implies that the athlete is actually using a high enough resistance, applied with a relatively low number of repetitions, to actually gain strength.

Resistance training is the overall scientifically correct term for all of the previously mentioned forms of training. Resistance training implies the use of some form of external resistance, free weights, resistance training machines, body weight, elastic tubing, or other forms of resistance applied for any one of the reasons listed earlier.