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Youth Sports Specialization

By Kaysha Heck

Youth sports specialization is a topic of high discussion and debate. In today’s world, there seems to be a strong push for young athletes to become bigger, stronger, faster, and specialize before they’ve even learned to multiply and divide fractions. If frequent, intense, and dedicated practice is what builds champions, then a kid should be “all in” as soon as possible. The idea being more hours, more volume, more training, and more coaching all equates to a better chance of getting recruited, winning a championship, or hitting some landmark along the projected path of “success.” What ten year olds are doing today, can be equated to what 14 years olds were doing ten years ago. This can have detrimental effects on a skeletally immature athlete. In our current world, the bombardment of social media, development camps, coaches’ clinics, showcases, “elite” tournaments, etc. has only fueled the flame of an already rapidly growing fire.

The push for early youth sports specialization has paralleled the discussion of increased injury risk among athletes who participate in one sport year-round. As a medical provider, it may shock some people that I am not against youth sports specialization. However, I think there are some key factors we need to be aware of when training youth athletes and a systematic approach that needs to be followed regardless of whether a kid plays one, two, or five sports.

In the last five to ten years, a plethora of studies have looked at the topic of youth sports specialization. What it really comes down to is the load (games played, innings pitched, flips thrown) and the volume (playing four sports with overlap in practices and seasons) of training that leads to increased risk of injury. A high school football player that plays club basketball and skis on the weekends accumulating 20 hours of sporting activity is at just as much risk as the 16-year-old gymnast who trains 20 hours per week in her one sport. Just because you play multiple sports, doesn’t mean your risk is less. Research says we need to pay particular attention to the number of hours per week of athletic participation.

The recommended number of hours per week of athletic activity should equate to the child’s age. For instance, a ten-year-old should participate in ten hours of sporting activity per week, no more. This may seem like nothing, but children still have immature musculoskeletal and body systems. Kids are not small adults. They are very different, and their bodies respond to training in a different way.

Regardless of what and how many sports a kid plays, early intensive training should be avoided. Instead, the focus should be on movement development, motor planning, and enjoyment of the sport. You must build good humans and athletes first, then they can specialize. Think of the best player on any team, what do you say about them? “He/She is an athlete!” There are fundamental patterns of movement, speed, loading, strength, and development that are the same across all sports. If you forget to build this solid foundation, you are missing the most critical piece of the puzzle, no matter the sport.

Regardless of what and how many sports a kid plays, early intensive training should be avoided. Instead, the focus should be on movement development, motor planning, and enjoyment of the sport. You must build good humans and athletes first, then they can specialize. Think of the best player on any team, what do you say about them? “He/She is an athlete!” There are fundamental patterns of movement, speed, loading, strength, and development that are the same across all sports. If you forget to build this solid foundation, you are missing the most critical piece of the puzzle, no matter the sport.

This is where playing multiple sports may be beneficial. For example, a running back who spends fall/winter developing his running, cutting, jumping, agility and lower body strength who then transitions to baseball in the spring/summer working on developing his upper body power, strength and throwing speed. This split of activity allows rest and recovery of one system while building up and enhancing another. Where this becomes dangerous is when you have a running back who also plays fall soccer for both a club and travel team. This athlete is no longer resting one system, but rather risking overload and overuse just like the specialized athlete who trains 20+ hours per week in one sport.

Here is some food for thought regarding injury risk and sports specialization:

  • In baseball alone, pitching more than 100 innings per year increases injury risk by 3x. A baseball player is 4x more likely to get hurt if they throw more than 80 pitches per game, and 5x more likely to get hurt if they throw more than eight months out of the year. In fact, some of the best pitchers come from colder climates simply because they can’t throw year-round.
  • By age 12, the highest number of specialized athletes are seen in women’s gymnastics (88%), men’s soccer (63%), women’s soccer (61%), men’s ice hockey (59%), and women’s ice hockey (57%).
  • David Epstein, author of “Range” and researcher of athlete genetics and performance, wrote in his book, “Parents always ask, ‘What workout is Michael Jordan doing right now? I want my kid to do that’ but they never ask, ‘What workout was Michael Jordan doing when he was 12-years-old to get to where he is now.’”
  • Steve Nash did not start playing basketball until he was 13-years old, and he won the MVP award, twice.
  • Members of the 2014 German National soccer team that won the World Cup didn’t specialize until age 22 or later.

 

The bottom line is, as medical providers, coaches, athletes, and parents we need to be smarter. No matter what the end goal is (professional, college scholarship, high school, or just fun) each athlete has a bank account. And every time you step on the court, field, floor, mountain, or rink, you are tapping into those savings. We have to be better about how we allocate training in order to reduce injury and prevent burnout.

Four Pines Physical Therapy offers Sportsmetrics ™ programming as well as an Arm Care Program for overhead athletes. Dr. Kaysha performs an injury assessment clinics with exercise recommendations for Axis Gymnastics athletes. We also provide Video Running Analysis in both the Alpine and Jackson Clinics. Finally, Dr. Kaya Tuchscherer, PT, DPT, CSCS in our Alpine Clinic provides video analysis and assessment for weightlifting and the barbell athlete.