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 Authors of the guidance document, Dr. Joel S. Brenner and the AAP
Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, advise pediatricians and
parents to keep in mind that the primary focus of sports for young
athletes should be to have fun and learn lifelong physical activity
skills. Playing multiple sports, at least until puberty, decreases
the risk of injury, stress and burnout, they add.
Specializing at a later age, perhaps in the late teens, may be a
better route to accomplishing athletic goals than specializing
earlier in life, upping the odds of lifetime sports involvement,
lifetime physical fitness and potentially elite participation, the
report concludes.
“As they note, early specialization is in most instances unnecessary
and can contribute adversely to social, emotional, and physical (eg.
chronic over-use injuries) development,” said Shane V. Caswell,
professor of athletic training at George Mason University in
Manassas, Virginia, who was not involved in the report.
Kids who have specialized in a single sport should discuss their
goals with parents or coaches, according to the guidance statement
published in Pediatrics. Taking at least three months off their
specialized sport per year, and one to two days off per week, allows
for physical and psychological recovery.
Young athletes who train intensively should be closely monitored for
physical and psychological growth and nutritional status, the
authors recommend.
“This article highlighted the darker side of youth sports, the
overuse injuries that we’re seeing from children simply doing too
much,” said Dr. Avery Faigenbaum, professor at The College of New
Jersey, who researches exercise interventions in public schools.
In recent decades, kids have started to specialize in one sport very
early in life in hopes of playing professionally, but the science
says that diversifying sports participation makes kids more likely
to be successful and to stick with the sport, Faigenbaum, who was
not involved with the report, told Reuters Health.
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“That message from science and practice is not reaching patients,”
he said.
Sports should be fun and help kids make friends and learn new
skills, he said. Specializing too early can decrease creativity, he
said.
“If you only play baseball, and get really good at baseball, the
same muscles, tendons and ligaments get stressed over and over
again,” leading to overuse injuries, which are fully preventable,
Faigenbaum said.
“It’s a sign of bad training, the child was doing too much, not
exposed to a variety of activities with adequate rest,” he said.
“This is preventable if we do a much better job of educating coaches
and parents, diversifying sports participation and building that
foundation on athleticism.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2c32VTL Pediatrics, online August 29, 2016.
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