A concerned parent reached out to me the other day and wanted to ask me a few questions about his son and the elbow pain he started having recently. Now I’m not a physical therapist so my knowledge is only so great on injuries, but the talk wasn’t so much on the specifics of the injury, but rather the how.

The son was 13, 7th grade, and lifting with the football team. He plays football and baseball and I’m not sure what positions, but his dad said that he has basically been throwing for 12 months straight between the two sports. Which the dad understands that a break in there might have been warranted.

The boy also hasn’t hit puberty so we are still in a growing stage with this kid. Recently, doing bench press his elbow started hurting. After some rest and an evaluation by a doctor, it was shown that it was a mild strain around the insertion of the triceps muscle.

He is continuing to rest the elbow and avoid heavy physical activity for awhile. Hopefully, the diagnosis is correct and the boy can resume playing pain free.

The concern the parent had though was the strength program his son was on. At the time of the injury, they were doing a “heavy” strength phase around 90-95% of a max for a couple reps (or something similar to that).

Should he be concerned that a boy his age and maturity level is lifting for a near maximum weight?

My answer first was that the elbow probably didn’t get injured with that particular bench press. My thought is along the lines of the old adage, hit a rock 99 times with a sledgehammer and nothing happens. On the 100th time the rock splits.

It isn’t that the 100th was such an awesome hit, it was probably the accumulative effect of the previous hits and the 100th was the one that broke the camel’s back.

Same thing here. The bench probably wasn’t the singular cause for the elbow to ache. It was probably an accumulative effect of a whole bunch of other things. One possibly being the constant throwing for 12 months. (I didn’t get into if the boy was a quarterback and/or pitcher)

Getting back to the question though. You will find strength coaches on different sides of the fence for this question. For me, I think you avoid heavy lifting for a young athlete like this kid. I still think he should lift, but not heavy and here’s why.

Yes, I realize back in the day when we played we were always trying to lift rocks and stupid, heavy things like that. This isn’t quite the same thing. These kids should be on a lifting program and taught proper technique. Technique is imperative as the weight increases.

But try as we might urging for proper technique, if I tell a boy in a football weight room to get 2 reps with a heavy weight and the second rep he is struggling to get it up with everybody yelling, “C’mon Jimmy, you can do it!!.” Do you think that kid is worried about proper technique?

HECK NO!!

He’s going to get it up there however he can. And with a structure that might not be able to support that kind of movement and lifting, the chance of injury could increase.

So, let the kids lift. Keep the weight moderate to a little above for reps of 6-10. I don’t like going higher than 10 because muscular fatigue could set in, controlling the bar could be tough, and once again the chance of injury increases.

Once they have hit puberty, the body is maturing, and it has been through a proper periodized strength program, yeah have at the max lifting. But, until that happens, I would say avoid it if you can.

I’d be happy to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment’s box and keep it clean.

Photo courtesy of U.S Naval Force Central Command on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/navcent/