Caring For Your Young Athlete

Caring For Your Young Athlete

By: Emilia Kubera-Shelton, DPT

Bowie Location

These young adults come to therapy with sprained ankles, hurt shoulders, sore backs, painful knees, and a sense of dread, expecting that they will be taken out of their favorite activity to get better. Healthcare professionals have known for a long time that most sport overuse injuries in youth are related to early sport specialization and an increase in the amount of training and competition.

Early sport specialization or “intense, year-round training in a single sport at the exclusion of other sports” can be detrimental to physical and mental health. Multiple agencies and societies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, and even the International Olympic Committee discourage early sport specialization and provide some general guidelines for sports participation of young athletes.

These guidelines are as follows:

• Postpone sport specialization until late adolescence 
• Take 3 nonconsecutive months off from sport  
• Limit hourly participation in training or competition to less than age number per week (ex. 13-year-old is recommended to participate in less than 13 hours of sport a week) 
• Take 1-2 days off a week for recovery 
• Other things you can do for your teen athlete 
• Talk with the coach and ask questions with injury prevention in mind 
• Look at recommendations from sports associations (most associations such as the NBA, and MLB have specific practice and competition guidelines available online) 
• Take your athlete for a pre-season screening, a physical therapy clinic with a specialty in sports is the best place  
• When injured consult your MD or your physical therapist as soon as possible – seemingly minor injuries can develop into a big problem or be a warning sign before a major injury occurs