Researchers from Chicago have found that specializing in one sport at an early age isn’t going to make your child an elite athlete. What might work? Diversifying participation in a multitude of sports and not playing year-round. This is in line with what is promoted by the STOP Sports Injuries Campaign.
Recent research published in Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach, analyzed articles from 1990 to 2011 looking for information about whether sports specialization actually helps or hurts kids. The researchers also utilized recent work conducted by the article’s lead author, Dr. Neeri Jayanthi, the medical director of primary care sports medicine at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Jayanthi’s research looked at injury rates in 519 tennis players ages 10-18 who spent, on average, 11 to 15 hours per week training.
Their results highlighted that children who specialized in tennis were 1.5 times more likely to get an injury, regardless of their total training time. The researchers also found that in sports like cycling, swimming, and skating, those who started significant training around age 15 were more likely to become elite-level athletes than their peers who started training earlier.
“Kids often receive pressure from their parents or coaches to be the best in one given sport, when in reality participating in free play and a multitude of sports from an early age is the best strategy to create an outstanding athlete, ” said William Levine, M.D., chair of the STOP Sports Injuries Advisory Committee, in the April 2, 2013 news release.
Dr. Jayanthi told OTW, “As a health care provider to a young athlete, your recommendations must be specific and have some scientific support to impact change, rather then just saying ‘play less sports.’ You can identify risk by some simple questions such as: Did you quit all other sports to focus on one? Do you train in sports more than 16 hours/week? Do you train and compete in sports more than nine months/year?’ Counseling can happen at the individual level in the office, and more pro-active sports-specific efforts within sports organizations in your community. If each of us play a small role in education on those young athletes at risk, we can make some big changes together.”
April is Youth Sports Safety Month and the STOP Sports Injuries campaign has several free resources and events available to help educate parents, coaches and athletes on preventing sports injuries and keeping kids in the game for life. Please visit www.stopsportsinjuries.org/.
