Overuse Injury in Youth Athletes
What is an overuse injury?
An overuse injury is a sprain, strain, or stress fracture due to overloading tissues as they play, grow, and develop. While it’s great to have kids in sports and staying active, repetitive movements and impact can take a toll on their joints and growth plates.
Potential causes:
Growth spurts - tendons, ligaments, and bones are growing, stretching, and developing
Choosing one sport to play year round - repetitive movement and excessive impact
Neurological changes - Proprioception (bodily and spatial awareness) changes as they grow and their nervous system also has to adapt
Not getting adequate rest - children 6-13 years old need 9-12 hours of sleep/night. Often with busy school, work, and sports schedules, this sometime ends up on the wayside
Being new to an activity - the body needs time to adapt
Previous injuries - each recurring injury often tends to be worse than the last
How can I help prevent overuse injuries in my young athlete?
There are ways to mitigate injuries like sprains, strains, fractures, and broken bones such as:
Cross training - add strength and injury prevention training to support training and sports competition. Injury prevention recommendation is 2+ hours/week.
Breaks - Children who participate in any one sport more than 8 months out of the year have a significantly higher risk of injury. They should take 2-3 months off from their main sport/year
One sport per season - place them in different types of sports throughout the year, but not all at once
Rest days - MINIMUM 2 days/week. Time for wellness and social activities
Take enough time off to recover from injuries - kid’s are often eager to jump back in and the standard 4-6 weeks sprain or strain recovery time is not enough to jump back in competitively. They still need injury recovery and prevention protocol worked in when they return and often extra rest/recovery days
Maintain adequate nutrition and hydration - proper nutrition and hydration are part of recovery and healthy growing. Hydrate before, during, and after activity
Warm up and cool down - warm ups prepare the body for the physical activities to come. Cool downs help return the body to homeostasis and the muscles back into proper length tension relationships. Avoid static stretching any closer than 2-3 hours before intense activity.
Do not participate in more hours than they are years old per week (ie: 6 year old no more than 6 hours/week)
Make sure they are playing at an age and psychologically/developmentally appropriate level
Awareness of growth spurts - extra rest and nutrition, motor skill development (changes as their bodies change - think about the first time you hit your head on the freezer when you grew)
What are the warning signs?
There are 5 stages of overuse injury:
Grade one - symptoms only happen at the onset or end of the activity, then fade
Grade two - symptoms occur during the activity once participating for a bit and end when the activity ends
Grade three - symptoms occur at the onset or early on in the activity and persist during, but stop or fade after it ends
Grade four - symptoms occur during the activity and limit activity participation: frequency, duration, or intensity
Grade five - symptoms prevent participation in the activity or training
I personally pull my kids out for extra rest at grade two and they usually rest/active rest/recover for a week and get back at it feeling great. Of course they have wanted to play through it but better safe than sorry.
Check out my youth athletic development 8 week summer program to prepare your athlete for safe and strong play.
