Lifting Weights

Q: What do you think of a 10-year-old boy lifting weights?A: If your son's interest in lifting weights is founded in a desire to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bo Jackson, he'll be disappointed. At 10, his body is not yet secreting large enough amounts of testosterone to produce significant muscle growth through weight lifting.Nonetheless, boys can improve muscle tone and increase strength by lifting weights. It is important the regimen not be excessive; tired muscles are more prone to injury.

A friend says his trainer told him it is mentally and physically beneficial to take four to six weeks off. I know that this is true for runners, but I have never heard this about weight training. It would seem that the lack of endorphins that your body is used to producing could lead to mild depression. What is your take on this? Most trainers agree that if you take time off from your workout, you're going to need to rebuild again when you return to the gym. If you take a mental-health break, that's fine.

BIGLER, Pa. - Eight-year-old Victoria Vasquez can do something few boys her age can do. Few boys of any age, for that matter. The third-grader from Edgewood can bench-press most of her own weight. On a recent Sunday in an antiquated gym in this mining town, Victoria demonstrated her strength at the annual Coal Country Classic championships. She dipped her hands in powdered chalk, just like an old pro, lay down on a padded bench and pressed an iron bar with all her might. When it was over, all of three seconds later, the little girl had hoisted 65 pounds off her chest.

Donovan McNabb has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Liberty Bell, and only a Super Bowl invitation will knock it off. After three consecutive losses in the NFC championship game, the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback will be back at the epicenter of disaster - or grandeur - again this week. Like the distraught Philadelphia fans who are consumed with their football team each week, McNabb's patience with the team's Super Bowl quest appears to be running out. Immediately after the Eagles earned a date with the Atlanta Falcons for Sunday's title game, he sounded like a man bearing a heavy load.

The Kenny Cooper-Tim Wittman case is closed for now.Cooper, the coach, and Wittman, the player, agreed to disagree yesterday on how Wittman should train on his own time to play for the Baltimore Blast."

I STARTED LIFTING weights. But not for the reason you think. You think I want to look "cut" and "ripped" and have bulging muscles like the ones on male underwear models who, for some reason, are always shown posing outdoors, looking sullen, as if a group of even more-muscular models stole their pants. You think I want to have muscles like that so women will look at me and think: "Wow! I would like to see his syndicated column!" But you are wrong. I'm lifting weights for sensible medical reasons, which I learned about from the highest possible medical authority: the Internet.

Gwen Patillo started lifting weights eight years ago as a way to reshape her body, something to just "move some things around a little."At the time a 52-year-old grandmother, Patillo had never of heard of a "dead lift" or a "clean and jerk," and the idea of lifting just a barbell was somewhat intimidating.Today, she's 60 years old, her grandchildren have children and her body is totally reshaped. Now she's nearly obsessed with getting stronger for her latest vocation: powerlifting."That's my goal these days and I think I've accomplished that in a lot of ways.

They threw out all the stereotypes about girls not lifting weights or throwing the shot at Old Mill High long ago and got on with the business of winning indoor and outdoor track championships.When 300 girls and 736 boys signed up for weight training at Old Mill in 1988, the school was featured in the Bigger, Faster, Stronger national magazine with a two-part, 14-page article that appeared in back-to-back months.The article stated that Old Mill had more boys and girls in weight training than any high school in the United States.

The ideal exercise program for most people includes combining two types of exercise. The first is aerobic -- running, fast walking, dancing or cycling -- to make your heart more fit. The second is strength training -- lifting free weights or pushing on strength-training machines -- to make your skeletal muscles stronger.If you lift weights competitively, you need to focus on lifting weights.Extensive aerobic exercise may keep you from achieving your maximum gain in strength.You cannot train for heart fitness and skeletal muscle strength at the same time.

Lunch time at Meade High School for the football players is more than a brown bag with a sandwich and apple. The Mustangs go to the movies every day with coach Jerry Hartman ruling the remote control.Hartman shows films of the team's next opponent, and middle linebacker Wilson Rodriguez is hooked."We have a one-hour lunch period at Meade and our players take 20 minutes to eat and then watch films for 40 minutes on a daily basis," said Hartman, a teacher of time management.Paying close attention to films, Rodriguez gains a mental edge to go with his sturdy 5-foot-10, 225-pound frame.

BIGLER, Pa. - Eight-year-old Victoria Vasquez can do something few boys her age can do. Few boys of any age, for that matter. The third-grader from Edgewood can bench-press most of her own weight. On a recent Sunday in an antiquated gym in this mining town, Victoria demonstrated her strength at the annual Coal Country Classic championships. She dipped her hands in powdered chalk, just like an old pro, lay down on a padded bench and pressed an iron bar with all her might. When it was over, all of three seconds later, the little girl had hoisted 65 pounds off her chest.

I STARTED LIFTING weights. But not for the reason you think. You think I want to look "cut" and "ripped" and have bulging muscles like the ones on male underwear models who, for some reason, are always shown posing outdoors, looking sullen, as if a group of even more-muscular models stole their pants. You think I want to have muscles like that so women will look at me and think: "Wow! I would like to see his syndicated column!" But you are wrong. I'm lifting weights for sensible medical reasons, which I learned about from the highest possible medical authority: the Internet.

THERE ARE A million stories in the Naked City, and I know yours, babe. You looked in the mirror not long ago and saw this pale, lumpy figure staring back, and a small, strangled cry escaped from your lips. So you freaked out and joined a health club to get in shape, you and a million other fleshy souls, which is literally how many people join gyms each January. (About half cancel their memberships by March, although that's another story entirely.) Now someone has to clue you in on proper health club etiquette, so you don't annoy the hell out of the pale, lumpy regulars like me. But why should I be the bad guy all by myself?

Meg Harrington took the tortoise approach to fitness when she decided to shed pounds after her third child was born: She started slow, lifting weights, but not the traditional way. She is using a slow-motion training technique that she and others say is difficult, but effective at building muscle, promoting weight loss and developing strength. Her SuperSlow workout has produced results: She's 7 pounds lighter and 4 inches trimmer. "It takes every ounce of strength that I have," says Harrington, 39, a homemaker and business consultant in Sterling, Va. "After about six or eight weeks, I got to the point where I hated it, and it felt like labor, but you know, when my 18 minutes were up, I was really proud of myself."

Your teen-age son or, increasingly, daughter announces that he or she wants to start strength training - lifting weights, pumping iron. Many parents' instincts to feel alarm are correct, because lifting weights improperly can cause serious injury. But, according to two county physical education teachers with long experience in weight training, given basic instruction for the athlete and understanding on the parents' part of what is involved, working out with weights is not a bad thing.

Thomesina Stanley pumps iron.Lots of people do, but Stanley is 53, a mother of three and a grandmother of four. And she lost a leg to cancer in 1967.Three years ago, the Edmondson Village alterations seamstress went on a search for an exercise she could do safely. Try swimming, her doctor told her. Driving home one day, she heard an ad for an open house at the Druid Hill YMCA. "I took a tour of the facilities, and I liked it. I didn't even know how to swim."With just one leg to propel herself through the water, she knew she'd need to build her upper-body strength.

Kenny Cooper said yesterday that he was disappointed that Tim Wittman missed the first day of training camp because of a lower-back injury that "was unrelated to soccer."The Baltimore Blast coach said Wittman received the injury to the left side of his back "while lifting weights" and added it was "hard to justify to the other players" why Wittman couldn't practice yesterday."It's just disappointing that something like this would happen a day or two before training camp opens," said Cooper.

Your teen-age son or, increasingly, daughter announces that he or she wants to start strength training - lifting weights, pumping iron. Many parents' instincts to feel alarm are correct, because lifting weights improperly can cause serious injury. But, according to two county physical education teachers with long experience in weight training, given basic instruction for the athlete and understanding on the parents' part of what is involved, working out with weights is not a bad thing.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Former Orioles right-hander Ben McDonald has an interesting explanation for why he chose to make his latest comeback attempt with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.He received queries from a number of clubs -- including the Orioles -- who were interested in gambling on his continuing recovery from extensive shoulder surgery, but he bypassed several contenders in favor of the second-year expansion Devil Rays because they probably won't be in the pennant race come late summer.

Joel Stephens played a doubleheader yesterday: a cancer checkup at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by the Orioles game at Camden Yards. The latter made the former more palatable, said Stephens, 22, an Orioles farmhand battling colon cancer."