Dealing with youth sports injuries

With the prediction of an early Spring, many of us are eagerly awaiting the upcoming baseball season.  Luckily, we won’t have to wait very long.  Major League Baseball teams already have pitchers and catchers at spring training.  At this point of the year, I’m getting ready for the rash of overuse injuries which always present in my office.  This year I thought I’d remind everyone of their responsibilities when dealing with youth sports injuries. 

Many athletes are out there every day playing with some type of pain.  Sometimes it’s tendonitis from working muscles too hard and too quickly.  Other times it’s a minor sprain/strain of a tendon/muscle, which often goes untreated.  Then there are times when an athlete is more severely injured and it is either ignored/suppressed by the athlete, neglected by the coach, or written off as “whining.” The real problem for the athletes that I treat is they wait too long to be treated thus taking more time for healing to begin. 

The good news is the majority of all sports injuries in adolescents are from overuse of specific muscles and joints.  These repetitive motion injuries can have major impacts on basic movement patterns and athletic ability.  The question is “Why are they occurring in an otherwise healthy young kid?” 

One reason for overuse injuries comes from specialization of sport.  When kids select to play one particular sport, there is very little variation in the physical demands placed on them.    The lack of variety in physical activity will actually hinder full body development muscularly and neurologically.  Another contributing factor is lack of an off-season.  Little league baseball players season begins in April through July.  Then the full travel team kids play July through August.  Finally there is a short break of 2-3 weeks for families to settle into the school year.  Next, it’s the Fall Ball season from September through October and sometimes into November.  This is all followed up by winter conditioning from November until the season begins all over again.  A lack of time off for recuperation and rest increases the likelihood for the body to breakdown more quickly.  We cannot expect our youth to follow the same physical schedule as adult athletes. 

With all of that said, here are a few things for you to watch and/or consider if one of your athletes develops an injury.

1.  Pain should never be debilitating:  soreness 1-2 days after training is normal, but anything longer than that is a concern
2. Pain should never limit normal movement:  again soreness is okay for 1-2 days, but if you can’t lift your arm up high enough to throw a ball – that is a concern
3. Try to determine if there is a pattern to a specific movement and the onset of pain
4. Pain and tenderness felt in a specific joint = overuse injury

It is always hard to determine if an athlete’s complaint of pain is “serious” enough to warrant medical intervention.  The suggestions presented here are guidelines for you to consider.  Most people will rely on the advice of the child’s coach or from the advice of another parent, whose kid had a similar problem last year.  Ultimately, the decision for medical intervention lies with the parent.  Please remember that, if left untreated, injuries always get worse with time.  Now it isn’t necessarily the pain levels that get worse.  It’s the potential for movement pattern compensations that develop, neurological firing pattern changes that develop, changes that develop within the soft tissue components of the body (muscle, ligament, bone), and the changes that could potentially occur to the growing parts of bones that are fractured and undiagnosed/treated. 

If you think your athlete is injured and you are unsure of what or where to go next, I know someone who can help.