No attempt should ever be made at a weight that may be beyond the athlete's limit on a given day, irrespective of how much an athlete may have lifted in the past. It should be emphasized to the young athlete that the true measure of his or her success is technique perfection and gradual conditioning to the demands of high level performance, the foundation of all subsequent performance. Moreover, as was indicated in the earlier chapters of this book, research in Eastern Europe suggests than young athletes actually experience faster strength gains when they exercise with moderate loads than when they lift heavy loads. Great care should be taken never to overtrain the young athlete. Patience should be exercised in eliciting the body's adaptive capabilities.
Young athletes require their energy for growth and maturation as well as sports improvement.
Exhaustion may divert such energy. In addition, an overtrained athlete is prone to injury and illness, both of which are to be especially avoided in young athletes. Joint pain should never be ignored in any athlete and this is doubly true in young athletes. All young athletes should be carefully supervised in order to assure that proper training methods are applied, to teach them proper technique and to prevent their attempting lifts that are beyond their capabilities. Finally, all young athletes should be taught how to handle situations in which misses occur.