By Kaye Ross

A Los Altos fitness trainer is looking for 26 pre-pubescent girls to test the impact of weight training frequency on girls 7 to 13.

Analisa Naldi, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, will direct the 10-week study for her master’s thesis in kinesiology.

An informational meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. March 8 at FIT gym, 600 Rancho Shopping Center.

Study participants will be broken into two groups. One will work out once a week and another will train twice a week, both performing the same exercises. Naldi will then compare the strength of both groups.

Naldi emphasized that recent studies have shown that, even at 7, girls can benefit from weight training without injuring their bodies. “The early skepticism about injury was that there could be damage to the growth plate on the bone,” she said, “but there have been no documented cases of that happening.”

Naldi, 25, who also coaches girls basketball at St. Francis High School, said weight training brings both physiological and psychological benefits.

“The girls who weight train generally tend to be more self-confident, more open-minded,” she said.

Girls already associate weight training with heroes and strong people, and most know that it improves performance in team sports, Naldi said. So they are naturally enthused.

“The 7-year-olds are awesome,” she said. “They are so eager to learn and so malleable that they can do anything.”

For more information, call Naldi at 947-9831 and leave a message at ext. 133.