Scott Webb (Host): Weight training for student athletes can increase muscle size, prevent injuries, and provide confidence, but how much weight training is too much? Joining me today to answer this question and more is Dr. Kyle Meyer. He's a board-certified sports medicine physician with Franciscan Health.

This is the Franciscan Health Doc Pod. I'm Scott Webb. Dr. Meyer, it's nice to have you here today. We're going to talk about weight training, right? And how much weight training is too much for a young student athlete. And I was telling you about my daughter who plays college basketball, and she was complaining that she did maybe too much weight training. So, it's coincidentally a great time to have you on. And maybe let's just start there. Like, what are the benefits of weight training for student athletes?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: There's a lot of benefits. I mean, the obvious benefit is it increases your strength, your power, your endurance, makes you faster, more explosive. Those are kind of the things that most people, especially athletes, are trying to accomplish when they start a weight training program.

But going to your daughter's example, injury prevention is another really big factor. In the body, joints are stabilized by dynamic stabilizers, like muscles and tendons and static stabilizers like ligaments and bones and things like that. You can't really do a lot to change the static stabilizers, but the dynamic stabilizers like the muscles can be strengthened and provide more support to the joints.

So, that's another big factor in weight training to actually prevent injuries by improving the strength of the muscles that surround the joints that you're trying to strengthen. There's something called Wolff's Law, which essentially means if you put a force into a bone, that bone will change to adapt to that force that you're putting into it.

And so, osteoporosis prevention is directly attributable to the increased forces that you're putting through your bone. And maximum bone mineral density actually peaks in early adulthood for women. So if you do your work to strengthen your bones in your teens, 20s, and up to your early 30s, you can actually prevent your risk of injuries down the road in your 60s, 70s from things like slip and falls, hip fractures, and stuff like that.

So, even for the long-term health, not just the short term, I don't want to get hurt while playing basketball, can benefit quite a bit from a good weight training or strength training program.

Host: Yeah, that's perfect. And I wanted to ask you, because I think we tend to use these words interchangeably as if they mean the same thing, but I feel like maybe they don't. Like, what's the difference between strength training and weight training?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Strength training is essentially just a blanket term for anything you would do to improve your overall strength. Weight training would be a subcategory of strength training where you're actually using equipment such as barbells or weight machines to accomplish that goal of improving your strength. But strength training as a whole could include swimming or doing plyometrics like box jumps and things like that on top of weight training with the machines and other devices like barbells and things like that.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. It makes me wonder, I was trying to think back when my kids were young, but is there like a safe age for a student athlete to begin weight training and some sort of routine? And what's the best way to get started?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah, there's not really a specific age that, okay, this is the cutoff. You're going to start strength training and you're going to weight training here. Really, it's kid dependent. And so, the kid's got to be able to follow directions to do things safely. And so, much of strength training or weight training in a child is going to come down to the person that's actually coaching them.

Usually, if you're going to start, I mean, like coachability is going to be around six, seven, eight years old, somewhere around that range. And you're going to not just like give them heavy weights and things like that and just be like, "Okay, start repping curls and doing bench presses and things like that."

You're going to still focus on things like body weight exercises. If you are going to teach them form for actual weight training techniques, give them something light like a PVC pipe and then show them proper form. Kids aren't going to build muscle bulk. They don't have the hormones in their body to be able to build muscle bulk. So really, like what you're accomplishing in kids is you're recruiting, the nervous system to actually fire when they want it to fire, and that can help with recruiting the muscles to do their jobs, but also improving things like balance, proprioception, which is sense of position and space, all of those things. So, to answer your question, not a specific age, but they've got to be coachable and you're not going to want to just start them out with like an actual program.

The other thing is like I have a three-year-old, and if it's not fun for a kid, they're not going to do it. So if you think you're going to take like a six or seven-year-old to the gym and then show them how to use all of these different pieces of equipment and just do like, "Okay, here's three sets of 10, here's three sets of 10, here's three sets of 10," they're going to get bored with that really quickly. Kids are going to want to do fun things. They're not going to want to do, just like two hours in the gym, putting in work like a bodybuilder or something like that, you know?

Host: So, Doctor, let's talk about maybe in terms of age and especially development guidelines like developing a plan for student athletes who want to weight train, how best to do that?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah. So as we were discussing really little kids, it's about learning the basics, staying safe, not overworking them or making things unfun. When they get a little bit older, like puberty age, like 12, 13, 14 years old, then you can start adding a little bit more increased resistance, so some actual weights and things like that.

But in that age group, you still don't really want to be doing like maxing out and things like that, that are going to put a ton of extra stress on the joints. Because you got to remember during this age range, their body's already recruiting a lot of their nutrients just to grow naturally. And if you start adding extra stress, you're going to kind of throw off some of those factors and can actually hurt them and cause stress injuries and things of that nature.

And then, when they hit about 15 to 18 years old, that's when you can start really adding in more kind of like an adult-style program, where they can do those higher weight, lower repetition exercises, and approach more kind of maximum lifts. But even in those circumstances, if you're trying to get to max lifts, your max shouldn't be like anything that you can just kind of force up. It should be what you can do safely with good technique. So, those are all things to take into account as far as age goes. Is puberty and pre-puberty and post-puberty are all much different stages in what you're going to be able to do and whatever you're going to be able to do safely.

Host: Right. I have to confess, Doctor, that I always found weightlifting to be incredibly boring. You're talking about little kids having a hard time doing it for long periods. I just always found it to be so boring. And I'm just wondering, you know, maybe it's because we didn't have AirPods and things to listen back then. I don't know. I think that would have helped. But in terms of, like, building a safe and consistent and, you know, like, a healthy routine, like, how do we do that? How do we help our young student-athletes do that?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: So, rest is probably the most important factor. You can't just be doing the same exercises day in, day out over and over and over again. As we were talking about earlier, the way you actually build muscle and build strength is by stressing the muscle to the point where it causes little areas of microscopic damage. Same for the bone and the tendon too. But then giving yourself time to rest so your body heals that, when it heals, it comes back stronger. If you just keep loading the same area over and over and over again without actually giving yourself time to rest and recover, you will end up with injuries. That's how adults end up with tendonitis and stress fractures, and kids end up with growth plate injuries and apophysitis, which is essentially inflammation at the attachment site of tendons onto bones. So, the rest days are really important.

For specific strength training exercises, you're looking at two or three days a week for any given body part. If you're going to be doing like arms and chest one day, then you're going to wait a couple days before you're doing those again, and maybe do legs a different day or something like that. And then, you'd kind of mix in the cardiovascular exercises, the running, the swimming, things like that.

And then, on top of that, the sport-specific practices. And I've seen so many like stress fractures and things like that in kids because they'll be doing a club team and then a travel team and then a varsity team, and they're doing the same sport every single day, and they don't give themself any rest days. And even their rest day is just a day where they only play for one of those teams.

And so, they really don't take into account like the actual necessity of getting that rest so that their bones and muscles and tendons can actually come back stronger, and they're actually doing themselves a disservice by not giving themself that rest. So, I'd say rest is probably the most important thing to keep in mind.

Host: Yeah, that's what I mentioned. I prefaced today. It was talking about my daughter, and I told her, you know, rest and recovery are so key, as are, Doctor, proper warm-up and cool-down. I'm not sure I ever really convinced either of my kids how important those two things are. They all just want to jump right in. You know, they want to walk out the door and run a marathon. But maybe describe the importance anyway of proper warm-up and cool-down.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Sure. I mean, for kids, honestly, like they can probably go zero to 100 a lot faster than we can.

Host: Yeah, they really can.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: So for you and me, proper warm-up is probably a bigger factor here. But yeah, I mean, warm up, the idea is generally you're trying to get blood flow to the muscles. You're trying to loosen the joints up. Make sure everything's moving properly, that all your nervous system is kind of functioning to the point where your balance is going to be good, your sense of position and space is going to be good, because those things are going to decrease your risk of injury when you're cutting and pivoting and doing things like that on the field. So, just doing some like light jogs, some like the karaokes where you're doing like crossover steps and things like that just gets the blood flowing.

Stretching before exercise honestly doesn't have a lot of great evidence. Like the stretching afterwards has a little bit better evidence as far as when the muscles are already warmed up, you get a little bit better pliability. And then, dynamic stretches have even better evidence than static stretches. So, dynamic is like if you've ever seen an NFL player warming up and they got the athletic trainer in front of them and their leg's up on the athletic trainer's shoulder, usually what they're doing is actually pushing down on the trainer's shoulder. Trainer's holding it in place, and then they relax after about 30 seconds, and then the trainer kind of pushes a little bit more to provide a bit more of a stretch. And you actually get more out of that dynamic type of stretching than you would if you were just doing a static stretch. So, that type of stuff I like to add on to the end of the exercise routine to improve your flexibility.

But also, just for the cool down aspect of it, just once again getting the heart rate back down to normal. And this kind of contributes tto some of the recovery aspect that we were talking about, just kind of getting everything back down gradually to the level that you were at prior to participating.

Host: Yeah. And I wanted to ask you, like, how do we know, and maybe this is a case-by-case basis, but generally speaking, like, how do we know when enough is enough and when what we're doing is too much? Is it just really like listening to our bodies or, you know, hopefully before the weight is pinned against our chest and we can't raise it, we can't lift it? Like, how do we know when we've had enough?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah. So, overtraining syndrome is a real thing and a pretty devastating thing and can actually take a while to recover from. So, there's what you're talking about, which is kind of like maxing out your body for one given session. And really, I mean, like we talked about earlier, that's what you're trying to do is you're trying to actually stress your muscle. You're trying to stress your muscles and tendons and bones to actually adapt them to more stress down the road, as long as you build in proper recovery. But say you don't build in that proper recovery and you're starting to get into that overtraining level, things you'd be noticing are fatigue and irritability.

Interestingly, like you think athletes are extremely healthy, but another kind of paradoxical thing is when training goes up, so does the risk of infections, so like upper respiratory infections and gastrointestinal infections. When I was working with the Eagles, I remember, my co-fellow and I were like the on-site doctors for the training camp. And we got on a regular basis, I mean, several visits per day of guys getting upper respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal infections, like much higher than you would expect for like a young, healthy population in the middle of summer. And the reason for that is what I was just talking about, like the increased training actually has a paradoxical effect, especially in the early stages in the training camp of decreasing the immune response. And so, people become more susceptible to these infections. So, stuff like that as well can be a sign that you've kind of crossed into overtraining territory, and aren't really performing at your capability anymore. And in those circumstances, I mean, like I said, rest comes into play. And then, nutrition as well, making sure you're getting enough nutrients and keeping appropriately hydrated and things such as that.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned rest there. It makes me wonder, like, while we're actually or our young student athletes actually weight training, is there a need for rest while you're weight training? And if so, like, what's appropriate?

Dr. Kyle Meyer: I mean, usually you're going to take a couple minutes between sets to kind of let your muscles recover. So, you, say, do a set of 10, your muscles are pretty fatigued. You feel like you can't, like, put up another couple reps, usually give it a few minutes. And then after that, do your next set.

I've seen, like, bodybuilders and professional strength trainers And these are guys that strength training is their job, keep that in mind. But they say that you should wait enough time between reps to allow yourself to do your next set of reps at your full capability and for what you want to accomplish.

So if that means waiting five minutes, 10 minutes between sets, then that's what you're going to do. Now, gym etiquette and for the rest of us that have lives outside of just lifting weights all day long, that might not be feasible. Your reps should be manageable. And like I said, you should be able to give yourself enough time between them that your next set, you can do them with proper technique and keep yourself safe in that regard so that you're not increasing your risk of injury by throwing your form off.

Host: Yeah. Yeah, what you touched on there, the gym etiquette part of it.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah, right.

Host: It's a nice theory maybe to take 10 minutes between, but you know...

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Hog a machine for an hour.

Host: You touched a little bit earlier on nutrition and hydration, and I didn't want to let that go. Maybe you can discuss the importance and how they contribute to effective and successful weight training.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Nutrition's your fuel. So if you're burning energy by lifting weights, you need to replenish that energy in the form of food. The foods you should be eating generally should be healthy. So, you see this a lot, especially in like the high school population where they're eating a lot of processed stuff, chips and all kinds of snacks and Pop-Tarts for breakfast. I mean, I remember like I hated the cafeteria food when I was in high school. So, Pop-Tarts and 2% milk were like my regular lunch. And maybe like that doesn't catch up to you when you're 15 years old and you have a crazy metabolism and aren't really having the issues like an adult would.

I mean, if you're actually trying to get fuel and nutrition out of the foods that you're eating, lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, I mean, kind of all the classic stuff.

Carbohydrates provide energy, and so you'd want more complex carbohydrates, pastas and things like that, as opposed to sugars and things that are going to be burned much more quickly, and not really provide a sustained amount of energy for you. For specific diets, I always advocate for the Mediterranean diet, which is a bunch of like healthy fishes or fish and oils like olive oil and nut oils and fish oils, which actually have some anti-inflammatory effects to them as well.

Hydration, obviously, everything in your body is kind of processed using water. Staying adequately hydrated and also, I mean, that can throw your electrolytes off too. So depending on what you're doing, you might want to consume like a sports drink or something along those lines that has sodium and things like that, that can actually keep your electrolyte balance in equilibrium too, depending on how much you're sweating and not just consuming pure water.

Because getting into a whole other side of this like hyponatremia for usually more endurance athletes can be an issue as well. But talking more even about strength training, it's still important to stay hydrated and keep your electrolytes at an appropriate balance, so you don't get things like cramps and things of that nature.

Host: Right. Let's talk about any maybe risks or drawbacks to too much weight training, just the downsides, I guess.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah. I mean, I think we talked about a lot of them, which is like going into the muscle tendon tears and things like that where you have trained so much, that you've caused those stresses and those microscopic tears, but you haven't done enough to actually allow them to heal, or you've overloaded it to the point, where you've actually caused more significant tears and that can cause chronic pain and things like that in those tendons or joints.

This isn't really about kids so much. But like if you've got an osteoarthritis where the cartilage is starting to wear down, that extra friction can cause some irritation in the joints as well. Stress fractures, so you have the tendon overload component that I was just speaking about. But also if you're putting too much stress through the bone and not allowing it to heal, stress fracture starts out as these little tiny microscopic cracks in the bone and your body generally heals them. But if you don't get enough rest, those cracks will continue to propagate to the point where it becomes an actual fracture line through the bone. That can obviously cause pain and throw off your performance as well, and we have to rest you and immobilize the joint so that it can heal, or at least take a lot of the stress off of it.

And then, as we were talking about earlier, the over-training syndrome, if you really are overdoing it, that can certainly be a major drawback. So, making sure that you're doing everything in a safe manner and I know I keep harping on it, but allowing your body time to heal is a huge important factor.

Host: Yeah, healing is so important and a lot of great takeaways from you today, but give you a chance here at the end. Final thoughts, takeaways, if you will. We frame this as, you know, how do we know when it's too much, you know, for a student athlete? Just sort of wrap things up for us.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Yeah. I mean, like I've been saying, strength training has a lot of benefits, and there's not a specific age where you need to start strength training. But as I was saying, it can have repercussions down the road too if you do everything well and are getting good muscle recruitment and appropriate stresses through the bones and muscles and tendons.

Not only can it prevent injuries and improve your self-esteem, but also can have repercussions down the road in preventing fractures and things like that secondary to osteoporosis. So, I think there's a lot of value there, but you also have to listen to your body get coaches that know what they're doing and aren't going to put students at risk because they want them to be an animal in the gym and do everything that an adult is doing when their bodies just aren't ready for it.

So, parents need to kind of monitor the kind of people that are around their kids, not just accept that a coach is going to be an expert because the high school hired the assistant gym teacher to be the strength and conditioning coach, you know. And make sure that things are being done appropriately and safely.

Really, for appropriate guidance, I had a lot of really good coaches and teachers when I was a kid, and sometimes it's hard to tell because there were also some malignant ones out there too, thought they were the next Bobby Knight.

Host: Yeah.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: And so, you got to be really careful with who's giving your kids advice. And if something sounds wrong, I mean, you can always come to someone like me, who can kind of steer you in the right direction because I honestly just want what's best for the athlete and for the student.

Host: Right. Yeah, sort of an impartial person and expert. I appreciate your time today. It was really educational for me. I told you some of these, you know, connect with my life a little more than others, that I get to host for Franciscan Health. Today was definitely one of them. So, thank you so much.

Dr. Kyle Meyer: Of course. Anytime.

Host: And to learn more, visit franciscanhealth.org/sportsmedicine. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. And be sure to check out the full podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is the Franciscan Health Doc Pod. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.

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