The rising incidence of physical activity- and sports-related injuries has prompted the present-day investigation of resistance training as a potential means of injury prevention and physical literacy development among youth.
Relevant studies on the topics of athlete development, physical literacy, resistance training, and injury prevention in children and adolescents were reviewed (PubMed and Sports Discus, 1982-2016). Recommendations from consensus guidelines and position statements applicable to resistance training and injury prevention in youth, in addition to young athlete development, were reviewed. Additionally, hand searches, expert requests, article reference lists, and gray literature were utilized and reviewed for pertinent content.
Clinical review.
Level 4.
Youth throughout the physical activity spectrum are at risk for physical activity- and sports-related injury. Of highest priority are early specializers, physically inactive youth, and young girls, owing to increased injury rates. Resistance training among these at-risk populations has been shown to reduce injury risk by up to 68% and improve sports performance and health measures, in addition to accelerating the development of physical literacy. Recent recommendations, position statements, and national initiatives advocate for the incorporation of resistance training with qualified instruction among these groups.
Resistance training in addition to free play and other structured physical activity training can serve as a protective means against injury and a positive catalyst for the development of physical literacy to offset the impact of diminishing physical activity and early sport specialization in today's youth.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 335. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 July 2026.
All research outputs
#125,228
of 34,400,738 outputs
Outputs from Sports Health
#19
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Outputs of similar age
#2,356
of 354,148 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Sports Health
#1
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,400,738 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,322 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 26.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
