Sports medicine practitioners have been warning for years that there has been an upswing in the over-training of young athletes. Now, there are stats to back those warnings.
In a recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, researchers found nearly half of all injuries seen in pediatric sports medicine are due to overuse. It also found more lingering problems in older teens and young adults attributed to earlier growth plate injuries – injuries that occurred to theft cells at the end of long bones that aren’t fully formed and replaced by solid bone until ages 14 to 16 in girls and 16 to 18 in boys.
Here are some indicators your young athlete (or you, for that matter) are over-training:
- Unusual muscle soreness: It’s common to have some soreness for a day or two after a tough workout. If that pain lingers after three days, though, it could be a sign that your muscles aren’t getting the needed recovery time.
- Constant thirst or feeling sick: Overdoing it at the gym can cause your body to go into a catabolic state – when stress hormones cause your body to break down muscle tissue to fuel its immediate needs instead of the usual nutrients and proteins. A catabolic state naturally causes dehydration and can lower your immunity.
- Insomnia: It seems incongruous, but over-training can lead to bouts of insomnia.
- Behavioral changes: A change in blood chemistry, insomnia and other overtraining effects are most easily noticed in behavior, whether it manifests as depression or aggression.
According to St. Elizabeth Sports Medicine’s Stacey McConnell, sports medicine doctors have been seeing the anecdotal evidence for years.
“We see the overuse injuries, sometimes we see the physiology and biochemistry effects, and we see depressed kids,” said McConnell. “We see the whole gamut, and it mostly comes from the pressure to perform.”
Whether the pressure is from an outside source – say, a coach or parent or the drive to land college scholarship – or the pressure is self-motivated makes a world of difference.
McConnell said the best thing is to let your young athlete pace him- or herself and not to restrict them to a single sport. Cross-training is the best way to encourage overall health while cutting down on repetitive, overuse injuries.
“In cross-training, they’re doing all sorts of activities, not focusing on the same movement over and over,” he said. “Let your kid be a kid. If they have the gift, the motivation and the right attitude, great. Don’t put pressure on them for outside reasons. Let them find their passion.”
