Your Child Is Not Too Young to Train. They May Already Be Too Late to Wait.

A few years ago, someone told me their 12-year-old son had started doing push-ups and bodyweight squats in his room every morning. The response from a relative was immediate: "Stop him. He'll stunt his growth. It's not safe for children to train."

That advice — confidently given, completely wrong — is one of the most persistent myths in health and fitness. And in the Indian community especially, I hear it constantly. From parents. From doctors. From well-meaning uncles and aunties who say it with the certainty of a medical degree they don't have.

The truth is almost the exact opposite. And the science on this has been clear for over 15 years. The real danger isn't that children exercise too much. It's that they move too little, too early in life — and spend the next 50 years paying for it.

Where This Myth Came From

The fear around children and strength training came from one legitimate concern — growth plates. Growth plates are areas of developing cartilage at the ends of long bones in children. Because they are softer than adult bone, the concern was that heavy loading could damage them and disrupt normal growth.

This concern was not entirely irrational. But it was applied too broadly — and it was never supported by evidence. In real studies, no properly supervised resistance training programme has ever been shown to damage growth plates in children or adolescents.

In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics formally revised its position and confirmed that strength training is safe and beneficial for children and adolescents when properly supervised.

What does damage growth plates? Actual sports injuries — a bad landing in gymnastics, a collision in football, an uncontrolled fall. Not a correctly performed bodyweight squat or a light dumbbell press under guidance.

The Myth vs. The Science

The Bone Density Window — And Why Girls Need to Hear This Most

This is the part that I feel most strongly about. And it is the part that almost no one talks about in Indian households.

Bone density — the thickness and strength of your bones — does not grow indefinitely. It peaks in the late twenties and then begins a slow, steady decline for the rest of your life. In women, this decline accelerates sharply after menopause because estrogen, which is essential for bone maintenance, drops significantly.

Here is what this means in practical terms: the bones a woman has at 65 are largely determined by the bones she built between the ages of 9 and 18.

The years between 9 and 18 are the single most important window for building bone density that a girl will ever have. Strength training during these years builds a higher peak bone mass — and a higher peak means more protection against osteoporosis decades later.

Think of it like this. Two women reach menopause. One built strong, dense bones through active movement in childhood and adolescence. One did not. Both lose bone at the same rate after menopause. But the woman who built more bone early in life is starting from a higher point — so she has more reserve before she reaches the fracture threshold. The other woman hits danger much sooner.

Peter Attia, in Outlive, describes strength training as a form of retirement saving. Build the reserve early. Let it compound. The same logic applies to bone — except the compounding window for children is far more time-sensitive than it is for adults.

Bone density peaks in the late twenties — and then begins a slow, steady decline for the rest of your life.

Ages 9–18 are the critical window for building peak bone mass — especially in girls.

What Exercise Actually Does for Children and Teens

The benefits go well beyond bones. A child or teenager who exercises regularly — and I mean properly, not just walking to school — builds a foundation that touches almost every aspect of their health and development.

• Stronger bones with higher peak density — the most time-sensitive benefit
• Better neuromuscular coordination — the brain learns to control the body efficiently, which improves performance in all sports and reduces injury risk
• Improved posture and body mechanics — critical in an era of school desks, smartphones, and backpacks
• Better mental health — exercise is one of the most well-researched interventions for adolescent anxiety and low mood
• Healthier body composition — building metabolic habits early dramatically reduces the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in adulthood
• Confidence and body awareness — particularly important for teenage girls, who are statistically the most likely to stop exercising altogether in adolescence

Research consistently shows that physically active children perform better academically, sleep better, and report higher self-esteem. Exercise is not a distraction from development. It is part of development.

What Age-Appropriate Training Actually Looks Like

This is where the nuance matters — and where I want to be very clear. Age-appropriate does not mean no exercise. It means the right type, intensity, and supervision for each stage of development.

A Note on Indian Families Specifically

I grew up watching the children around me pushed hard academically and kept still physically. Sitting at desks. Studying for hours. The idea of a child spending time in the gym was seen as either dangerous or a distraction from education.

But here is what that generation produced: a population of adults in their 40s and 50s who never built the physical foundation their bodies needed. Chronic back pain. Weak knees. Early-onset diabetes. And women heading into menopause with bones that were never strong to begin with.

The girl who skips sport to study is not being protected. She is accumulating a debt her bones will pay in her sixties.

We tell our children to study hard so they have a good life at 40. We should also be teaching them to move well so they have a good body at 70. Both matter. Only one gets attention.

What Safe, Supervised Training Looks Like in Practice

The word "supervised" is doing a lot of work here — and it matters. The risks associated with youth strength training are almost entirely about unsupervised, ego-driven, heavy lifting by teenagers copying adults in gyms without guidance. That is a real problem. But it is a coaching problem, not an exercise problem.

• Start with bodyweight mastery before adding any external load
• Teach technique before intensity — a perfect squat with no weight is more valuable than a heavy squat done badly
• Keep sessions short and enjoyable — 30 to 45 minutes is plenty for younger children
• Ensure adequate protein intake to support bone and muscle development
• Prioritise sleep — growth hormone, which drives bone and muscle development, is released primarily during deep sleep
• Let the child lead their interest — forced exercise creates the exact relationship with movement that we are trying to prevent

The goal at this age is not a six-pack. It is a body that works properly, feels capable, and carries a reserve of strength and bone density into adulthood. Everything else — the aesthetics, the performance — comes later and comes easier because of the foundation built early.

The best time to start building a strong body is childhood. The second best time is right now. But the window for bone density is not infinite — and for the children in your life, it is open right now.

— Shiva Malhotra, Barefoot Protocol

ACE Certified Personal Trainer | Sydney, Australia