Specializing in Single Sport, Travel Team Play Result In Overuse Injuries

The Case Against Early Specialization (Part 6)

There is no doubt that early specialization and playing on a select team take their toll on a child's growing bones, joints, and muscles. Prior to high school, most children are simply not physically mature enough to handle the stress that playing the same sport on a year-round or nearly year-round basis places on their bodies.

  • According to Safe Kids Worldwide, more than 3.5 million children age fourteen and under get medical treatment for sports injuries each year. Of those, nearly half are overuse injuries, such as Sever's disease (a heel problem often associated with soccer), Osgood-Schlatter disease (knee pain common in male soccer and basketball players), gymnast's wrist, runner's knee, swimmer's shoulder, shin splints (common in soccer players and track athletes), and Little League elbow or shoulder (usually from throwing breaking balls, an ability that professional baseball players and coaches say isn't needed early in a player's career to rise to the professional level).

  • Twenty-five years ago, only 10 percent of the patients treated by Dr. Lyle Micheli, a pioneer in the field of treating youth sports injuries and director of the sports medicine division at Childen's Hospital Boston, were overuse injuries. Now overuse injuries represent 70 percent of the cases he sees.

  • The surest path to burnout or an overuse injury is to play a sport season after season. Your child will benefit far more in the long run if he takes a season off to play another sport or plays his chosen sport only in alternating seasons.