At what age can you start weight training?

At what age can children go to the gym? Zozhnik explores whether strength training is really contraindicated in childhood, and also understands how children can and cannot train.

At what age can you go to the gym?

We have all heard the phrase: “If you lift weights, you won’t grow.” However, the truth is that children can strength train and benefit from it. Many authoritative organizations have come to this conclusion, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, ACSM, ACE, ISSA and others.

Strength training can be safe and beneficial for children only if it is age appropriate, performed with impeccable technique, and only under the supervision of a specialist.

Sports and age

Greetings to all readers of my blog! Today's article will concern older athletes. Are you over 40 and desperate and think that this is the limit for a man? Do you think that in adulthood it is impossible to achieve results in sports? Let me tell you, age is not a hindrance and not a limit! Sport and age should never conflict with each other, and if you think that bodybuilding and age are incompatible concepts, then you are deeply mistaken and I will prove it to you!
Athletes who have been involved in any kind of sport all their lives, including bodybuilding, do not give up this activity until old age, because sport is a “drug” (a good drug) and a person who has tasted this buzz will never stop playing sports.

But there are people who decide to take up sports only after forty and they are plagued by very big doubts, “Can I do it?” Maybe it's too late for sports? What if there were injuries? I'll tell you you can!

Since my blog is about strength sports, then the article will be about bodybuilding and age.

It’s never too late to develop your body, and many bodybuilders, bodybuilders, and powerlifters are well over forty and give a head start to many young athletes.

Branch Warren - 40 years old, famous bodybuilder competing at Mr. Olympia

Ronnie Coleman - 50 years old, competed in Mr. Olympia competitions until he was 45 years old and won first places

Jason Cutler - 41 years old, competes at Mr. Olympia

The famous Arnold Schwarzenegger remained in decent shape until he was 55, and there are many such examples.

Of course, this does not mean that you need to win first places in competitions, I just want to say that if these athletes can be at the peak of their physical capabilities, then in order to simply get their body in order you don’t need anything beyond possible .

The only problem on the path to self-improvement is not age , but simply banal laziness and lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities. Many people are better off just lying on the couch, eating chips, drinking beer and watching football with a saggy belly. But it shouldn’t be like that, and a man should look like a man at any age, even 20 or 70 years old.

Of course, the training of older athletes should differ from the training of athletes 20-30 years old. It’s just that as you age you need to be much more attentive to your health. If at a young age any sores and injuries heal “like a dog,” then problems may arise with age, but this should not become a problem and these problems can be avoided if you follow further advice.

1. Be careful about your joints and ligaments. With age, joints and ligaments lose their strength and elasticity. If you work with heavy weights, do it very carefully, no sudden movements, pay special attention to the technique of doing the exercises, always drink various vitamin complexes, and place special emphasis on calcium.
2. Always warm up thoroughly before training (at least 10 minutes)
3. If you are not a professional athlete, then do not try to set personal records in the gym with heavy weights as in your youth, this is fraught with injuries.
4. Get regular medical examinations (take tests, check your heart and other organs). Follow all doctor's recommendations.
5. Watch your back! Try not to tear or injure your spine and back muscles. Always keep your back in the correct position, especially when doing exercises.
6. At the end of your workout, be sure to do muscle stretching exercises.
7. Make sure you breathe properly and do regular cardio exercises.
8. Pay special attention to your nutrition, follow a diet (less fats and carbohydrates, more protein and vitamins)
9. Forget about bad habits, no cigarettes, beer, vodka, etc.

If you train for yourself and don’t set records, then you don’t need to race ahead of the horse, exercise for your own pleasure, choose exercises and working weights that are comfortable for you.

I will especially note the importance of nutrition, since the main success in building a beautiful body depends 80% not on training but on nutrition. No harmful animal fats, only vegetable oils, fish oil (omega-3, omega-6) Less fast carbohydrates (sweets, flour, baked goods, etc.) Complex carbohydrates (vegetables, cereals, fruits). More protein (lean meat, better chicken or beef, eggs, cottage cheese, seafood, you can also drink protein powder)

There are many athletes who started training after 40, some for themselves, and some even begin to compete and win first places. The most suitable sport for mature athletes is powerlifting. You can compete in this sport up to 70 years old, in your own weight category.

In bodybuilding, of course, the situation is more complicated and here success can only be achieved before the age of 45, although competitions are now held for older athletes, the main thing is that there is a desire)

In general, I believe that after 30 years a man is most promising, both in terms of sports and in other areas.

For a woman, of course, age is critical, because a woman needs to have time to give birth and aging occurs faster. But for a man there is no limit, and with age a man, on the contrary, only gets better, of course only if he leads a healthy lifestyle worthy of a man.

Now you know that bodybuilding and age , and any sport and age are quite compatible.

Subscribe to blog updates, because an article with a training program for older athletes will be published soon.

Pumping up muscles at home

We all understand that at the age of 14 you don’t have money for the gym, and saving on buns in the school canteen is also not an option, because without food you won’t gain weight.
If asking your parents is not an option, then you can start training at home . And then, when you reach the size of a closet, you can take money from high school students.

What can we pump up at home:

I’ll tell you right away that it will be more difficult for a teenager to build muscles than for an adult man, but you’re a serious guy and you’re not going to relax, so you’ll succeed.

Back

As for me, the back is the most important thing; it needs to be trained first. If you have a powerful back, then at least you will have fewer problems with the spine, because the muscles will create a good corset that will take the main load and relieve the spine.

But not every adult, even an adult, understands this. But really, why build a powerful back if you can just spread your elbows wider, imagine that your back is as wide as the equator and proudly walk around the city, scaring passers-by.

But if you still want to build real muscles , then at home you can do the following exercises:

1. Pull-ups . There are a huge variety of pull-up options. The most effective for pumping up the back, in my opinion, are classic wide-grip pull-ups. You can also do pull-ups with a reverse close grip. If you don’t know how to do pull-ups, you can buy an expander band (by the way, it will also be useful in other exercises). With such an elastic band it will be easier to pull yourself up and over time you will learn to pull yourself up on your own.
2. Bent-over dumbbell rows. This exercise should be done with light weight and, most importantly, light weight. This exercise places an axial load on the spine, therefore, you need to pay attention to the technique. If you don’t have dumbbells, you can use the same elastic band.

   

3. boat. This exercise is a must for teenagers. It strengthens the muscles along the spine, which will allow you to increase the load on dumbbell rows in the future. And in principle, if Masha asks you to carry her briefcase home, you will have a much better chance of carrying the briefcase without breaking your back, and maybe you can carry Masha too.

   

At home, these are perhaps the most basic exercises that will help pump up a teenager’s back, but this will be quite enough to build a powerful back like Statham’s.

This is something that even grown men often forget about. Or maybe they don’t forget, maybe they just think that their gherkin will look more massive against the background of thin legs. But I advise you to pay enough attention to your feet too.

In addition, there are a huge number of muscle fibers in the legs; each workout stimulates a good release of testosterone and makes not only the legs grow, but also the back, chest, and even neck.

To pump up a teenager’s legs at home, we will need:

1. Squats . You can squat with or without weight. Naturally, it is better to squat with weight. You may not have extra weight in the form of a barbell or dumbbells, but you do have a schoolbag with textbooks. Just throw it on your back or put it in front of you and squat.
2. Lunges . Also a very cool exercise. It also pumps up the buttocks very well. And I’ll tell you a secret, my little male, girls like inflated male butts.
3. Pistols . These are squats on one leg. A great option if you find it easy to squat with your own weight.
4. Walking to higher ground . It could be a chair, a sofa, a bedside table, in general, anything where you can put your foot and get up without hitting your head on the ceiling.

I described these and other exercises in detail in the article on how to pump up thin legs , so follow the link and learn.

So the legs were pumped up. But, I want to note that if you have a weak back, then I do not recommend lifting your legs with additional weight. Therefore, first, pump up your back, and then add weights to your leg training .

Breast

Well, what would it be like without powerful breasts? This is the main attribute of a successful man. Especially if your breasts are larger than those of your classmates. The sagging breasts of classmates who are on a pie diet do not count. This is not a reason to be proud.

To have pumped up breasts, you need to do the following exercises:

1. Wide grip push-ups . This is perhaps the simplest and most accessible exercise. If you find it easy to do push-ups with your own weight, then a backpack with textbooks will always come to your aid.
2. Dips . These are already exercises for advanced people. If you want to focus on your chest, then look for wider bars and tilt your body a little forward when performing. If you are generally a powerful guy, then again you can use a backpack and complicate the exercise.

Perhaps you have weak arms , so you won’t be able to immediately start doing push-ups like an adult. There is nothing wrong with this, you just need to strengthen your arms first, and then start doing push-ups.

Shoulders

It will be more difficult to pump up your shoulders at home. Most exercises that work the deltoids require a barbell, dumbbells, or kettlebell . In some cases, you can limit yourself to ingenuity, but not in all.

So, what can you do at home:

1. Dumbbell/barbell press while standing or sitting . Not everyone has a barbell at home; dumbbells are easier to find, but if you don’t have them, you can use, for example, water bottles.
2. Swing dumbbells to the side . Also a good exercise, especially if you have dumbbells. If there are none, then we take water bottles again.
3. If suddenly you have a kettlebell at home, then you can do kettlebell rows to the chin . It will be absolutely wonderful. But I remind you that this exercise can only be done if you have strong back muscles, so that the weight of the weight is taken not by the spine, but by the muscles.

Training after 50 years

Bodybuilding is of interest not only to young people, but also to those who have celebrated their significant half-century anniversary. Of course, going to the gym is beneficial for everyone, but as you age, you need to pay much more attention to your health.

In order to preserve and maintain oneself in excellent physical shape, strengthen the body, increase tone, but at the same time not harm health at all, people after fifty years of age need a special technique . If you follow the tips and recommendations below, listen to the needs of your own body, making certain adjustments to your sports program, each visit to the gym will bring maximum benefit.

Some general tips

● You need to start with pull-ups on the horizontal bar, squats, push-ups. At 13–14 years old, it is enough to be able to do 3–4 pull-ups. If at 15 a guy does 20 pull-ups, he is strong and ready for weight training.

● Stretching exercises increase muscle strength. They make muscles elastic. Stretching, repeated many times, gives the muscle endurance. Therefore, exercises with an expander are useful.

● It’s better to train every other day, for an hour. And do this not in the morning or in the evening, but in the middle of the day.

● A rest day is not a complete inactivity for the muscles, which may even ache a little after yesterday’s workout; on the rest day you need to perform gentle stretching exercises. This way the muscles will recover faster and prepare for the next workout.

● The load during training should be “varied”: work the arm muscles - work the calves, do exercises for the abdominals - do them for the upper shoulder girdle, for the back - for the hips, and so on.

● And yet you don’t need to look in the mirror at what this or that muscle looks like. Bodybuilding is the next stage. Now the goal should be one - to become stronger, if yesterday you did three pull-ups, then in a week you need to do five pull-ups.

https://youtu.be/VPDwJU7kBwY

Basic principles of a training program after 50 years

Age is not a hindrance to either sports or bodybuilding. Despite this fact, we must not forget that processes begin to occur in the body that affect the human condition in a far from positive way. These changes, unfortunately, cannot be stopped. They must be taken for granted and taken into account when creating a training program.

Degenerative changes begin to occur in the tissues of the joints, the speed of all regenerative processes decreases, the function of the endocrine system is disrupted, metabolism slows down, and so on. The body as a whole begins to work much worse than before. And you should never forget about this.

If the decision to take up bodybuilding is made in old age, then the training program should be developed taking into account all the fundamental principles for building the training process:

Frequency of loads - heavy training should be replaced by unloading

The concept of “heavy training” for an older athlete is strikingly different from a similar complex for young athletes. The number of repetitions when working with heavy weights should vary from 5 to 12, and with light ones - from 12 to 20. This load is enough to stop the catabolic reactions occurring in the muscles and gain a small amount of mass. In old age, there is no talk of increasing muscle mass.

Load control - the level should be selected as optimal as possible

Training will bring maximum benefit only if each exercise is performed correctly from a technical point of view, and the weight is selected correctly. In old age, joint mobility decreases significantly, so the range of motion should be somewhat different. Breathing deserves close attention.

Restoration of the body - rationally organized periods of rest

Metabolic rate decreases with age. This also applies to the production of hormones. Recovery processes are much slower, and, therefore, more time needs to be spent on rest. If you do not experience increased fatigue and ailments, a two-day break between training days is quite enough.

Nutrition - a properly selected and balanced diet

This point is no less important. You should not neglect your own health for the sake of sports results. The diet must fully comply not only with the basics of proper sports nutrition, but also be selected in full accordance with the age and needs of the body.

For mothers of boys: 5 dangerous consequences of taking steroids. Tell your son now

According to sports doctors, before the age of 16, training with barbells and weights is out of the question. And after reaching this age, you can only engage in athletics under the guidance of a coach. But what to do if the boy is determined to pump up his muscles?

13-year-old Dima came home with a torn jacket after a clash with high school students. This is not the first time - the guys from 11th "B" become attached to him every day. I don’t like the fact that he’s a “nerd” - he studies well, he understands computers better than anyone else in school, but at the same time he’s overweight and can’t stand up for himself. The doctor explained that many boys at the beginning of puberty accumulate fat under the skin, which the body then burns and uses as biological fuel during accelerated growth and accumulation of muscle mass. But Dima did not calm down, he decided: “I will pump up my muscles, I will become an athlete!” “Is it possible for him to exercise at this age, isn’t it harmful?” - Mom was worried.

It is believed that exercises with dumbbells (weighing no more than 1.5 kg) are allowed for adolescents from 14–15 years old, and only on the condition that they are performed in the “lying on your back” position, but in no case standing or sitting. The only acceptable way to pump up muscles for a 12-13 year old boy is to use his own body weight as a training device, doing push-ups, pull-ups, and all kinds of hanging on the bar. However, even at the age of 16–18, it is they, and not training with a load, that should form the basis of training.

“Before the start of endocrine changes in the body, that is, until about 12 years of age, the muscles in boys are significantly different in structure and composition from the muscles of an adult man,” says Olga Golovinskaya, a sports doctor and teacher at the Moscow Center for Advanced Training of Healthcare Specialists. “There is not enough myoglobin protein in the muscles of a teenager, and there is too much water, so they get tired quickly and cannot cope with high loads. And the bone base to which the muscles are attached is still fragile: the rapidly growing skeleton does not have time to accumulate enough calcium to strengthen the bone tissue, so under intense loads, fractures and deformations of the bones and spine are possible. In addition, a teenager’s intervertebral discs, as well as his muscles, contain a lot of moisture. In a sense, this is good: the more water in the disc, the better it absorbs shocks and shocks when walking and playing sports. But under vertical loads, the increased hydrophilicity of the discs can literally backfire on your boy, causing an intervertebral hernia, which in some cases requires surgery. To prevent this from happening, don’t force things - increase the load gradually, and forget about barbells and weights!

Cardio and strength training for adult athletes

A guide to bodybuilding after 50 cannot be considered complete if it does not contain any practical recommendations. To have a clear idea of ​​what direction to move in, you need to know everything about organizing cardio and strength training.

Cardio loads

Elderly athletes need to take special care of the condition of the vascular system and heart muscle, which are most often associated with most of the problems and ailments that appear with age. Cardio training is a kind of “lifeline” that allows you to maintain the function of the cardiovascular system at a fairly good level.

Main conclusions

Working out in the gym provides great health benefits and shaping the body. The main benefits of strength training in childhood include:

• increasing the level of physical fitness (development of strength, coordination and general endurance of the body);
• active development of the spine and strengthening of bone tissue, a positive effect on the health of ligaments and tendons;
• reducing the risk of injury during outdoor/sports games;
• increasing self-confidence and developing the child’s strong-willed qualities.

Before starting classes in the gym, you should take into account the level of physical fitness, age and the presence of appropriate motivation in the child. For children, personal training or classes in a small group of 2-3 people are best (the trainer must carefully control the technique and load in each exercise).

Strength training

Athletes of any age very often neglect warming up. Every strength training session should begin with it, and should be performed twice a week. The total duration of each lesson can vary from twenty to forty minutes. The intensity should be chosen moderate. The main thing is that the training corresponds to the age of the athlete.

General recommendations

Strength training for athletes over 50 years of age has slightly different goals than similar exercises for young bodybuilders. Increasing physical parameters and gaining weight are no longer a priority. The main goal is to maintain muscle tone and improve health. There is no need to focus on working with free weights.

Strength training program

It is recommended to work on safe exercise machines, and not with weights. The intensity is assumed to be such that two to three sets of 8-12 repetitions are performed for each muscle group. The training should include functional movements that mimic those performed in everyday life.

List of Recommended Supplements

Microelements

The body always needs minerals and vitamins. The only difference is that as a person ages, he begins to consume much smaller amounts of nutrients. And if mineral supplements may be sufficient for everyday life, then against the background of bodybuilding, the likelihood of developing a deficiency of minerals and vitamins required for the normal functioning of the body increases. To compensate for this deficiency, you should take good, high-quality multivitamin complexes.

Fish fat

Unsaturated fatty acids are of great importance for older people. They are an integral part of metabolic processes and increase the performance of the joint-ligamentous apparatus. A deficiency of unsaturated fatty acids can trigger the development of many diseases, especially in older people. Taking fish oil can help avoid this.

Improving the functioning of the articular-ligamentous apparatus

The risk of dysfunction of joints and ligaments becomes more pronounced with age. Their normal function can be maintained by taking appropriate sports supplements.

Proteins and amines

Catabolic processes leading to the destruction of muscles occur when a person does not exercise. This phenomenon is typical for absolutely any age, but is much more pronounced after 50. Leading an active lifestyle resists these processes, but without the use of protein and amino acid supplements it is not as effective.

Nutrition for gaining muscle mass for a teenager

If you are thin and want to gain weight as a teenager, then be prepared for the fact that you will stop liking food and you will be sick from just the sight of it. Because you will have to eat a lot .

You will need to eat a lot of meat, fish, dairy products, various cereals, nuts and other things. The most important thing is to maintain the required amount of BZHU and cover the calorie consumption. I wrote about this in more detail in an article about nutrition for weight gain for a skinny guy.

And you must understand that if you train hard, put all your strength into training, but during the day you eat one cookie and eat yogurt before going to bed, then you will not have any mass.

At what age can you go to the gym? All the truth.

Friends, my respects! At what age can you go to the gym? Lately I have been increasingly receiving letters with this question in the mail of the ABC of Bodybuilding project. The number of questions reached a critical point, and I simply could not remain indifferent and decided to dedicate an entire mini-note to the answer. From it you will learn what age is the best and most preferable for starting fitness and bodybuilding, as well as what effect age has on the compositional forms of bodybuilders.

If everything is assembled, then let's begin.

At what age can you go to the gym: the best time

It may seem to some that the question of at what age can you go to the gym is childish and frivolous. However, I don’t think so, or rather, on the contrary, I have all the respect for the people who asked it. After all, if a person wants to learn something from an area unfamiliar to him, then this is a sure sign of the seriousness of his intentions. He wants to start building his body not out of the blue, but based on some knowledge, physiological processes and scientific calculations. In addition, it is possible that this person is not an egoist (that is, he is trying not only for himself), but a parent who wants the best for his child. Usually this question is asked by the younger generation, whose age is still very young, but they already want to acquire muscle volume. And not only do I want to, but I also inject myself, and my mother won’t let me :).

This article will be useful for the entire honest company.

And we will start it with some statistics, or rather a survey that was conducted among readers of one foreign publication on fitness and BB. They were asked our question today, and here are the answers they received.

As you can see, most respondents said that the age of 14-16 years is the best for starting their training adventures. In second and third places (with a clear lag from the leader) are the numbers: 17-18 and 19-21 . Let's scientifically understand why the survey showed exactly these results, and what the readers relied on. Maybe they just like the numbers 14-16, and that's why they preferred the latter.

So, let's start from afar, let's take aim, so to speak.

As you know, athletes (in this context, bodybuilders) exist of almost all ages. However, you can train your body more easily (and get better results) at certain stages of your life. To become a bodybuilder, a person must have a certain (medium-high) muscle mass and a low percentage of subcutaneous fat. Only in this case will it be competitive. The main starting points in building large muscles are the hormonal system, in particular the hormone testosterone, which affects body composition and athletic performance involving explosive strength and speed.

Age in bodybuilding from small to large

Bodybuilding or bodybuilding is also a strength sport, and the concept of age in bodybuilding does not play a significant role. People of any age have a certain physical fitness and are able to perform exercises to increase muscle strength, their growth, strengthen physical health and improve the appearance of their body. It is better to start doing bodybuilding, or rather weight training to gain muscle mass, after 17-18 years of age. The body grows, gets stronger, the skeleton goes through the last stage of strengthening, the musculoskeletal system is formed, so you shouldn’t load it with heavy weights. Yes, of course, young men need to develop their muscles, but within the framework of physical education, and use your own body weight for resistance, these are push-ups, pull-ups, exercises on the uneven bars; the workout style is perfect for this, or use dumbbells with light weights. After all, people are drafted into the army at the age of 18, this period when the body is already formed and ready for great physical exertion. When a young man has crossed this age period, he can already fully begin to choose complexes from the bodybuilding system, but here, too, recommendations from specialists are needed, because guys want to get results quickly and immediately. But the Russian proverb says “if you drive more slowly, you will continue to do so.” Likewise, in power sports, haste is not welcome, and it will not lead to anything good. Lack of experience and failure to follow the execution technique can lead to injuries and may completely turn you away from this strength sport in the future. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting classes for young men with light weights; there are even training programs for a certain age category, and they combine both strength exercises and cardio exercises. And young boys really don’t like cardio exercises, give them dumbbells and barbells right away. This is the wrong approach. Everything has its time. Of course, some young men want to quickly get results, pump up muscles, and begin to use chemistry for muscle growth. Big muscles from glossy magazines make their heads spin, and they forget about their health. After all, pharmacology is a very complex science and improper use of drugs has a detrimental effect on the body, especially young ones.

The most ideal age for bodybuilding is 20 years old and up to 29 years old. During this period, with the right approach to training, nutrition, and lifestyle, you can build an excellent foundation for muscle mass and the relief of your body. At this time, you can already start lifting heavy weights and loading your muscles to the maximum. The body tolerates the recovery period well, metabolism accelerates in your body, natural bodybuilding at this age is an excellent time to pump up all muscle groups. And the conscious attitude towards sports is more serious and professional, many young people not only lift iron in gyms, but begin to get acquainted with literature, become enlightened and learn the intricacies of body structure and medicine. All muscle groups in your body at this age grow and strengthen at an astronomical rate.

Now let's move on to the next age period. This is 30-40 years. An age that is able to maintain strength and health. But many associate this period of life with banal life questions, but where would we be without them? Work, family, stress, relaxing on the couch. When you were intensely involved in bodybuilding before, now it is gone and forgotten. But there are those who continued and did not give up lifting iron. After all, pay attention to the age of professional athletes competing in the Mr. Olympia, Mr. Universe, and Arnold Classic tournaments, many of whom are over 30 years old. Yes, these are professionals, but aren’t we simple ones capable of any more results? Of course, this is not the correct point of view, you just need to consciously approach the exercises and understand that you need to take a little less weight and shorten the approaches. The training process time should not exceed more than 1 hour. After all, compared to a 20-year-old young guy, a forty-year-old man should already know that his recovery after strength training is reduced by 10%, and will unfortunately decrease by 1% every year. Muscle growth will be slower than with younger gym goers. Therefore, for me, who have crossed the 40-year mark, gaining muscle mass is a difficult task. But this is not a reason to give up the goal, improve your strength indicators and tell yourself why I need this. After all, I'm not young anymore. Many people leave the gym with such thoughts, because they have lost incentive and they have shut down their willpower and hid it in bins under a layer of fat. There is no need to approach bodybuilding or fitness with such thoughts; only setting goals and step-by-step approach to them can change your life for the better. Therefore, bodybuilding at the age of 40 is not only possible, but also necessary. After all, many have lost their beer bellies, but before there was no thought about it, then gain more muscle mass and definition. There is nothing out of reach, there was a desire.

Bodybuilders who are over 50 years old command respect and respect, for example, the oldest bodybuilder in the world. At this age, muscles are already decreasing in their mass content, the production of growth hormone is decreasing, and bones are no longer so strong. But even here, bodybuilding exercises have a positive effect for those who practice at this age. Research from New Mexico State University has shown that exercise with dumbbells and barbells counteracts these effects on the body. Everything is based only on individual approaches for each bodybuilder at this age. After all, we all know that there are tournaments in the world for 60- and 70-year-old athletes, and they look no worse than their younger colleagues, be confident and attractive. Therefore, practice and achieve results at any age. Best regards, Sergei.

Why are steroids dangerous?

Which boy hasn't dreamed of Arnold Schwarzenegger's muscular torso, bodybuilder Sean Ray's phenomenal quadriceps, or Sylvester Stallone's six-pack abs? In an effort to become like their idols in their homeland, the United States, 25% of high school students take anabolic steroids - and undermine their health. Gross interference in the subtle hormonal mechanisms that control growth and puberty does not pass without leaving a trace. When used uncontrolled, anabolic steroids can have the exact opposite effect of what was expected: instead of a hero, they can turn a young man into a creature of indeterminate gender and put him in a hospital bed.

1. Anabolic steroids suspend the production of the main male hormone - testosterone, suppress the formation of sperm (spermatogenesis), reduce libido, cause testicular atrophy - a kind of hormonal castration leading to infertility, and increase the risk of developing prostate cancer.

To restore spermatogenesis after a week of taking these drugs, it takes at least six months, and with longer use, pathological changes become irreversible.

1. Under the influence of anabolic steroids, the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates is disrupted. The pancreas increases the production of the hormone insulin, which sharply reduces blood glucose levels and leads to a hypoglycemic state - dizziness and fainting during exercise.
2. With regular use of anabolic steroids, insulin resources are depleted, the glucose level in the blood increases - the boy develops diabetes mellitus. One of the strongest men on the planet, Sylvester Stallone, paid for the sculpted muscles acquired thanks to anabolic steroids with this disease.
3. Muscle stimulants cause scalp hair loss.
4. Steroids contribute to the development of gastritis and cause mood swings from euphoria to aggression, but teenagers have an already unstable emotional background!

Those who are addicted to anabolic steroids develop a tendency to violence and experience mental dependence - when hormones are withdrawn, a condition reminiscent of drug withdrawal occurs. So your son is not on the right track with anabolic steroids - his body now produces enough of its own male hormones to build muscle mass. Try to bring this information to his attention.