Health Benefits of Strength Training in Kids | Dr. Andy Galpin
In a Nutshell
Strength training and broader physical activity in kids produce measurable gains in intelligence, executive function, academic performance, and mental health markers like reduced anxiety and depression. Long-term tracking shows these habits independently lower adult risks of type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis, even decades later, regardless of family genetics. The benefits extend beyond sports to any consistent physical activity, supporting lifelong bone, muscle, metabolic, and cardiovascular health.
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Strength training produces an important, clinically significant and statistically significant enhancement in intelligence in kids. There is a very well documented benefit in executive function with endurance exercise, including working memory, mental flexibility, and inhibition.
More variety in sports and greater overall physical activity both enhance academic performance in schools. Improvements occur in overall cognitive function, direct academic achievements, and on-task behavior.
Kids who play sports are often slightly happier than kids who don't. Anxiety, depression, and ADHD have all shown benefits from resistance exercise. Confidence, self-esteem (especially in females), and perceived competence are significant outcomes. Perceived competence is a major driver of physical activity involvement in kids, based on how they compare themselves to peers.
Strength training develops resilience and grit. Stronger kids tend to be stronger adults. Direct evidence shows kids who are more physically active, strength train more, and play more sports are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life, independent of what happened in the intervening years. This holds true after accounting for familial co-founders, including siblings.
Being active as a kid provides some protection against developing diabetes later in life. A 40-year follow-up study showed kids who were more active had lower rates of atherosclerosis when measured again 40 years later. These findings appear consistently across multiple research domains including intervention studies, questionnaires, and epidemiology, and across multiple dependent variables like diabetes and heart disease.
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