Kids who focus on one sport to the exclusion of others end up getting injured more often, new research suggests.
In fact, those who devoted themselves to only one athletic pursuit were almost
twice
as likely to get hurt as those who played multiple sports, said Dr. Neeru Jayanthi, medical director of primary care sports medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. His findings were presented at the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine annual meeting earlier this month.
In the recent study, researchers looked at 154 young athletes, average age 13, who played a variety of sports.
Eighty-five of the participants came to the clinic for treatment for a sports injury, while 69 were just getting sports physicals. The bottom line: 60.4 percent of the athletes who had been injured were considered specialized, compared with only 31.3 percent of those who came for physicals. Kids who came to the clinic with injuries played organized sports an average of 11 hours a week, compared with fewer than nine hours in the uninjured group.
Why do the injuries occur?
"One reason is repetitive use of the same muscle group and stressors to growing areas, for example, the spine," explained Jayanthi. "Second is exposure risk," he added. "If you're getting really good at one sport, the intensity increases because you are getting better. People are developing adult-type sports skills in a child's body. The growing body probably doesn't tolerate this."
Younger children -- those who have not entered high school -- tend to be especially vulnerable as their bodies are still growing. By high school, when bodies are more mature, specializing is safer.
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