Self‐Efficacy and Training for Strength in Adolescent Girls¹

To test the hypothesis that a gain in self‐efficacy about strength training could generalize to other areas of life and positively affect self‐esteem, untrained adolescent female volunteers were tested before and after participation in 12 weeks of strength training and compared with nonactive and mildly active volunteer controls. Pretest‐posttest results for the treatment group showed improvement in strength (+40%), weight training efficacy, confrontation efficacy, and total efficacy summed over 11 tasks. There were related positive changes in perceived physical ability, physical self‐presentation confidence, and general effectiveness in life. The treatment group improved posttest over controls on all these variables; controls did not change or worsened. These findings offer preliminary support that weight training for strength can improve confidence about a variety of life tasks in adolescent girls and could provide the basis for new modalities of therapy for low self‐esteem.