Payne, V. G., Morrow, J. R., Johnson, L., & Dalton, S. N. (1997). Resistance training in children and youth: A meta-analysis. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 68, 80-88.

The following were found through the meta-analytic method.

• Regardless of age, children generally appear capable of eliciting an improvement in muscular strength and muscular endurance.
• Resistance training effects can be found in young, adult, and aged populations.
• Girls have the potential to improve more than boys. [They start from a lower status.]
• Resistance training is effective regardless of the body segment under investigation.

These findings are based on less than extensive data for children. Particular questions and specific populations need to be investigated by appropriate research.

Implication. Resistance training improves the performance of children in resistance exercises. It has yet to be demonstrated that such improvements are due to real morphological adaptations or whether they are purely neurologically determined, that is, they are learned skills.

This latter reason is highly attractive since few children have been exposed to the tasks of resistance training and thus, with practice, they become better technicians at the tasks before any physiological changes occur. Many researchers fail to distinguish this reason for strength improvement in experimental groups. Merely improving in the tasks that are trained, even though they are strength activities, does not mean that increases will transfer to other activities unless Ss were originally of a particularly poor strength standard.

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