Okay. I am 5 foot 6 inches and 18 years old. My mom telling me yesterday that my dad had a growth spurt in college makes me think that I might have some more inches left in me.

I've been lifting for only 2 weeks now and intend on really getting muscle in my legs and working on my core. Should I stop doing the back squat? Do you guys recommend I do some lighter weight lifting?

In Theory Lifting moderate amount of weights could actually HELP with your growth. When you sleep your HGH levels raise "human growth hormone" and people who exercise with weights have higher levels of release of this hormone. although no study has ever been done on the subject in theory it is very possible that moderate weight lifting can help stimulate bone growth from many points not just limited to the heavier release of HGH.

In conclusion, Weight lifting does not stunt your growth and in fact might help it. The only possible way it could would be if you lifted a weight so heavy you did damage to bone and so on. However you will not soon be strong enough to lift a weight heavy enough to do such damage.

Simply make sure you use proper form throughout all your movements.

agreed. Use propper form and you'll be fine.

At 18, you'll be fine. If you started at 14, it can. There's a reason why I see a lot of short flexed guys at the gym, I ask them when they started working out and most of them say "8th grade or so". However, at that age your body has gone through puberty(or should have by then) but as you get closer to 18 you start releasing more testosterone and all of that good stuff, but your body will be able to handle that extra stress on your body when you're 18 rather than at 14. There's also guys I've met where it hasn't affected growth at all, they're 6' 4" giants! I wouldn't worry about it too much, your body grows when it's ready, and these other fellas are probably right, growth hormone.

theres actually not much evidence to support that weight training stunts your growth at the age of 14 either..

the only worry was that it effected your growth plates but studies have ruled that out,just lift sensibly.

Adumb, I'm 14 (9th grade) and I'm 5ft 11 and still growing. My friends who workout are also tall. This growth stunting myth is probably preventing thousands of kids from working out in fear of it. I have yet to see anyone who has stunted their growth due to lifting weights.

IN THEORY, yes, but not fact. Like you said, there's been no study done on weight lifting stunting growth so no one knows the answer.

you should be good to go at 18 however, you might have developed late so it all really depends on that.

It's so odd that I never heard of this myth when I was growing up, I didn't work out because I was lazy!

I've only ever known one guy to get stunted growth from sport and that was through a badly broken knee cap in a hockey accident. I think common sense says that weight lifiting within an 8-12 rep range isn't going to inflict the kind of force needed to damage growth plates

Yea, but you still need to be careful when you're younger. I know a guy that lifted when he was real young and his joints got all messed up as a result. So I guess it's not really growth that's the only problem.

What's in that equation?

Lifting weight=bad joints

Where does youth come into any of this?

It doesn't. Where do we see this equation most?

When

lifting weights+bad form+misinformation=bad joints

buzz mentioned studies about weight lifting not affecting growth plates. wouldnt that be a study about stunting growth.

Buzz, if you got it on hand, care to post it?

If you have good form, there's no reason to believe that it will.

As a beginner you should try to focus on developing good form early so that you don't get laid back with injuries via bad form. When I just started I did about 20-30 reps per exercise to develop good form. I did that for the 2 weeks and then lowered my reps and increased weight to the standard 8-12 rep max.

I think "Weight Lifting Will Not stunt your growth" should be added to the sticky.

agreed. we got some good posts here from a user (i dont think he posts here anymore though) he is caled "Brian Grosso" if i remember correctly. if you search his name you should find tons of info on training young people.. he is an expert on that field, im sure we could put some quotes and links to his posts in that sticky.. ive actually wanted that for a long time.