In the United States, about 30 million kids and teens reap the benefits of participating in organized sports, to say nothing of the millions more who are active outside of team sports. However your young athlete gets active, they can boost their physical, mental, emotional, and social health through sports, and that’s a great thing.
Unfortunately, the flipside to sports participation is an increased risk for injury — there are about 3.5 million injuries each year among the 30 million kids who engage in group sports.
While it’s not always possible to avoid injury in young athletes, some great practices can go a long way toward prevention. Below, Dr Rajiv Sood and the team here at Spine & Orthopedic Center dive into these great strategies that every young athlete should adopt.
If your child focuses all their time and energy on one sport, this can be problematic, especially in a developing body. Sports specialization early on can lead to repetitive stress injuries that can become longer-term problems.
For example, young pitchers can develop issues with the ulnar collateral ligament that often require surgery to repair. Young soccer players can also experience issues like meniscus tears that might need surgical repair.
To avoid placing too much stress on a part of a young athlete’s body, we feel it’s important that they cross-train. The young pitcher we referenced earlier can find an activity that takes the pressure off the arm — perhaps running would be a good counterpoint.
So, make sure your child steps out of their sports specialization and tries their hand at other activities for more comprehensive conditioning.
In addition to cross-training, strength training is also important for young athletes. Your child’s body is developing and you want to make sure that their muscles build up well. So, in between running around on the field or wherever they participate, it’s a good idea to hit the gym once or twice a week for well-rounded muscle strengthening.
We specialize in helping young athletes and found that sports massages are a great practice. These massages focus on keeping your young athlete’s connective tissues supple, and we also want to encourage good circulation in these tissues.
As part of our sports massages, we also focus on myofascial release. The fascia is a tough connective tissue surrounding and running through the muscles. Through myofascial release, we target any knots or trigger points that might pull on these tissues to release their hold on the muscles.
Athletes of all ages should take periodic breaks from their activity of choice. These timeouts allow your young athlete's body to reset and prevent them from pushing too hard — to the point where they injure themselves.
Sports injuries often start out as a small nagging problem—the knee hurts after running around, or the wrist is a little sore after a game of tennis. We urge you not to ignore these early warnings and get your child in to see us as soon as possible. Early intervention, especially for young athletes, is important because we can prevent them from doing more permanent damage.
The bottom line is that we applaud early sports participation, and the benefits can far outweigh the risks, especially if you have a good injury prevention plan in place.
For a more personalized injury prevention plan for your young athlete, we invite you to contact our office in Jonesboro, Georgia, to set up an appointment.