How Much Weight for a Teenager ??

[Wild Thing]

My son and I are going away for a weekend soon, and we will be going about a mile from the car.

I was wondering how much weight it would be reasonable for him to carry as he is a slim 13 year old.

Opinions and advice welcomed.

Thanks

Phill

 

[Nonsuch]

My boy is similar - a slight 14 year old but getting pretty strong. It really depends if he has "muscled up" yet. I would have thought about 20lbs.

More critical is to get a rucksack hip-belt that fits him and can take a share of the load from the shoulder straps. The hipbelt needs to be "floating' at the sides with adjuster straps so it can wrap round him (as he probably has no hips!)

 

[Old Bones]

There's actually a thread over on Outdoor Magic at the moment about what to get for a kid doing DoE, and BobC from Backpackinglight.co.uk rec says

a growing teen should never carry more than 20% of their body weight, to prevent posture damage

.

I seem to remember that the 20% should include boots, etc ('1lb on the feet is like 5lb on the back'). On the other hand, your only about a mile from the car, so you don't need to go ultra-light, and you can always make more than one trip. When I was that age, being in the woods was great, but so was being vaguely comfortable!

 

[beenn]

As much as he wants to take.
The body will learn, when i was 13 i used to put my own kit together and go out with older friends/cousins, now i take younger cousins out with me

 

[santaman2000]

The same as an adult; 20% of his body weight.

 

[Wild Thing]

Thanks for the advise chaps

 

[wingstoo]

I used to say 20% of body weight, but that might feel too heavy at the end of the arm, but on the back it feels a lot better. I was 12st at the time, 12 X 14 = 168 / 5 =33.6lb

So if you work on 2lb for each stone in weight you will be under the "recommended" weight.

Most importantly is he tries on the packed bag, if he isn't comfortable with it then he won't enjoy the trip, it might be just a mile, but next time it might be 5, 10 or more miles.

 

[AuldJum]

You boys must be very kind.

When i was that age my grandad had me carrying a horrendous weight.

The reasoning being that you need to build muscle. I took the same approach with my son.

This was 60 years ago though, times have changed.

 

[outdoorpaddy]

The most I carried was on Duke of Edinburgh when they have you carrying the most inefficent and pointless equiptment that there is, I must have had about 20-25kg on my back and I found it fine after about a half hour just to get adjusted up. I must have been about 14/15 at the time, 2/3 years ago, mind you I am rather stout and don't find that weight difficult to manage. I think it also depends on the core strength of the individual so it can vary quite a bit from person to person. I would say, give him a bit more than you'd expect him to be able to manage, and if he's okay with it then let him push on, let him find out whats comfortable and what's not but just make sure you don't overdo it.

outdoorpaddy

 

[hoppinmad]

Hi
Up to one third of body weight, or a maximum of 15 kg
Mountaincraft and Leadership by Eric Langmuir, and various doe guidelines available over the internet

 

[Highbinder]

Ask him, he might want to take a lighter load or he might want to carry his own 'as an adult', All you have to do is have a bit of extra space in your rucksack incase you both decide you need to lighten the load into the trip.

 

[santaman2000]

I'll stick to my original post of 20% body weight. Same thing that's been the standard guideline for Boy Scouts for over 70 years. Also that's the highest weight recommended by the Army for pack mules for almost a century and a half.

 

[FlyingHaggis]

20% of their body weight but what i did with my kids was ask them to go through what they want to take with them before , then we went though his kit .packed it up and had a wee walk around the house up and down the stairs a few times , he relise'd what was comfortable for him and what he wanted to add and take away , I also left a bit of room in my bergin as when we started to Yomp up the hills there was space to transfer equipment

I was also a great believer in allowing my kids to learn by trial and error but being with them to rectify any problems sometimes we over protect our children and cover them in cotton wool they need to learn and problem solve by them self a hard thing to do as a parent