Why are kids injured more often in sports? – CNN International

Ironically, the combination of early specialization, playing on multiple teams during the same season, marathon weekend travel tournaments, and year-round participation, is unlikely to achieve the desired outcome: elite athletes who get accepted for college scholarships and professional careers.

Quite the contrary, there is evidence demonstrating that kids who play multiple sports while they’re young and wait to specialize until the early teenage years are actually better athletes.

For example, one recent study described survey results from 376 female Division I intercollegiate athletes. Of these elite-level athletes, 83% had participated in multiple sports as youngsters (three sports per athlete) and the average age of sport specialization was 13 years.

Popular culture abounds with examples of elite athletes who waited until their teenage years to specialize in just one sport. Former world No. 1 tennis player Roger Federer (basketball, badminton), women’s U.S. national soccer team player Alex Morgan (basketball, softball), and five-time NBA champion Tim Duncan (swimming) each competed in other sports before choosing to focus solely on one.

Of course, there are athletes who have reached elite status after specializing in one sport early and dedicating untold hours to training. Golfer Tiger Woods and tennis phenomenon Serena Williams are examples of this. But how likely is it that all those hours of training will result in the attainment of “elite” status?

According to recent data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the chances that a male athlete participating in popular high school sports such as basketball, baseball, football and soccer will play at the collegiate level is well under 10%. Furthermore, less than 1% — in fact, less than half of one percent — of these high school athletes will go on to play their chosen sport at the professional level.

There are additional reasons to take pause. Physical injury, overtraining and burnout may manifest in young athletes as depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep disturbance and chronic pain. Burnout may affect a young person’s performance in athletic, academic and social realms. In fact, the rate of depression among current Division I collegiate athletes has been reported to be higher than 20%. If the goal is to produce healthy young athletes who perform at elite levels with some degree of longevity, then sports training for kids in its current iteration is not the way to achieve it.

The existing methods of youth sport participation must be revised, both to protect children from unnecessary sports-related injuries and to ensure that they are able to reap the lifelong benefits of athletics and physical activity in a safe, positive way. Some initial steps have already been taken. In 2007, Little League Baseball instituted limits on the number of pitches a young pitcher could make in a given time frame with the goal of reducing overuse injuries of the shoulder and elbow among its young pitchers.

To date, however, guidelines such as these have proven inadequate in stemming the tide of sports-related injuries. What is needed is a cohesive, evidence-based approach that shifts our current sport-training paradigm. All of us who are involved with child and adolescent athletes — coaches, athletic trainers, school administrators, parents and health care providers — must work together to change the current culture of youth sport. If we work as a team, this is a winnable problem.

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