18 Dec Let’s Talk Youth Sports
Written by: Julianna Baratta PT, DPT
Coming from a physical therapist, there is so much that can be discussed on the topic of youth sports. Movement is so vital to maintaining lifelong health and wellness and oftentimes that starts in our youth.
As society continues to advance, it’s important to remember that maintaining a physically active lifestyle is so important, but also to keep an eye out for when activity can be taken to the extreme. Let’s dive a little bit deeper into the nuanced conversation around youth sports…
Let’s start first with the importance of introducing youth physical activity and creating active children. As technology continues to advance each year, society becomes more and more sedentary. Groceries are ordered online and delivered to the house. Shopping is done in person less and less each year.
Kids notice these things and pick up on these habits from a young age. As technology advances, it becomes very easy to stay inside all day and accomplish everything from the comfort of your living room. While these advances are amazing, there is a hidden downside that is affecting kids more and more.
Childhood obesity rates continue to climb, as physical activity becomes an after-thought when at one point in time it was the norm in a child’s life. “From 2017 to March 2020, the prevalence of obesity among U.S. children and adolescents was 19.7%. This means that approximately 14.7 million U.S. youths aged 2–19 years have obesity. For children, obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile for age and sex” (CDC, 2024). As a physical therapist who works with children, the value of exposing children to organized sport or recreational activities is so important for multiple reasons…
- It gives the child an outlet and opportunity to be physically active during the day and ensure they are up and moving for their physical health.
- It allows kids to develop age-appropriate motor skills along with other age-matched peers to progress typical gross motor development from a young age
- It builds community and socialization skills in kids who are getting less and less of that in today’s remote society, which also can improve mental and emotional health and well-being as childhood depression and anxiety continue to rise
When discussing youth sport involvement however, it is important to think of kids in certain age ranges… According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), kids between the ages of 2-5 are still too young to participate in any organized sport, as they are still lacking the appropriate balance, motor skills, and attention span. For children in this age category rather, the importance of playtime and safe exploration of their environment is encouraged, in a space where they can copy movements in more a show-and-tell format, where competition is discouraged.
Children ages 6-9 are old enough to participate in basic level organized sports, as motor skills are more developed, but things like teamwork and strategy are still lacking.
By ages 10-12, children now have the motor skills and cognitive ability to participate in more dynamic/complex organized sport. Children in this age range are also about to enter adolescence/puberty, where physical activity becomes even more important (and that is a whole other conversation for a separate day). It is a good idea to keep these age ranges in mind when deciding what type of physical activity would be best for your child to participate in.
Now let’s switch gears and talk a little bit about a specific subset of youth athletes that I come across frequently as a performance physical therapist. Keeping kids physically active is so important, but there is a point where more is not always better. This brings me to discussing overtraining and early specialization in youth athletes.
First, you may be wondering…what is “early specialization?” Experts say that specializing in a sport means, “training year-round (more than eight months per year), focusing on one primary sport, and/or quitting other sports to focus on the primary one.” Now this is not an uncommon practice in athletics, especially at higher levels.
The controversy that we are seeing more and more is what we call early specialization, which according to the AAP, means specializing prior to 15-17 years old. There are a few reasons why this is something to avoid, and as someone who works closely with children and youth athletes, it is important that I bring some of these issues to light. Early specialization may seem like the child is “getting ahead of their peers” or “starting them young,” but in reality it could have negative effects on a child’s physical and mental health in the long run.
- Physically: Diversification of sport participation allows the child to use various muscle groups and vary the stresses placed on bones, muscles, and other soft tissue structures. We have to remember that these are still developing children whose bodies are not meant to withstand the stresses that an adult can withstand. What we tend to see frequently in youth/adolescent athletes who specialize early in a singular sport is a higher rate of overuse injury from repeated stress to the same tissue over-and-over again without appropriate rest or off-time. Some of these common overuse injuries include stress fracture, tendinopathy, apophysitis, or strains/tears. It is not uncommon to hear of a youth baseball player with a UCL tear or a runner with a hip flexor strain or even a dancer with chronic low back pain. By diversifying the sports that the child is participating in and allowing enough time to rest these overused structures, we can decrease the stress placed on these same structures and hopefully prevent some of these injuries from happening.
- Mentally: When a child starts to specialize in one sport from a young age, the probability of early burnout becomes higher and higher. “Burnout” is when the child becomes physically, mentally, and/or emotionally exhausted from participating in their sport without a separate outlet or appropriate break and may even start to devalue the sport or activity. A jarring fact is that ~70% of kids stop participating in organized sports by age 13. Sport is supposed to be enjoyable for youth athletes and early burnout can lead to stress, anxiety, or even depression if left unchecked. Another potential pitfall affecting a specialized youth athlete’s mental state is developing a perfectionist personality trait, especially if the amount of pressure being placed on the child (whether that comes from themselves or others) becomes so high that anything less than perfection starts to seem like failure. This can really alter a child’s mental health not just during these formative years, but in the long run as well.
So, we see the potential harms of early specialization in our youth athletes, but you still may still have questions… Maybe your child enjoys their sport and you’re wondering what you can do to avoid these physical or mental pitfalls from occurring? The obvious answer is make sure the child is involved in multiple different sports throughout the year.
Now, that doesn’t mean tack on another sport while continuing to play travel ball in the off season. I mean truly stepping away from the one sport for a few months and participating in a different sport/activity. Or, if the child doesn’t want to play a different sport in the off season, at the very least putting them in an off-season training program, where professionals can ensure they are cross-training the necessary muscle groups to avoid overuse injuries during the season. The general guideline is as follows…
Kids should only be practicing/playing their sport for as many hours per week as their age (not exceeding 16 hours/week) and have 1-2 rest days per week. For example, an 8 year old should not be practicing/playing their sport more than 8 hours/week.
There are also some great benefits to diversifying the sports that a child participates in. Multi-sport athletes usually become well-rounded, and oftentimes end up becoming better all-around athletes in the long run. Remember at the end of the day, physical activeness is a lifelong goal and where we strive for longevity and lifelong health and fitness, not only winning the state championship as a 15 year old (as amazing an accomplishment that that would be).
In closing, I point out that physical activity and youth participation in sports/recreation is a great thing, and something I will always promote as a professional in the physical wellness space. I see first-hand how important physical activity and movement is across the entire lifespan, starting with youth. However, it is also my job to point out where “more” becomes too much, and how that can have a negative impact on a kid’s young life. What you can do is continue encouraging youth sports and participation in fun, recreational play for developing kids, while keeping an eye out on the guidelines to ensure children develop a positive relationship with movement and fitness that will last them a lifetime.
Have more questions? We have an entire podcast dedicated to this topic:
Want more on this topic?
Check out some of the links below for more information, and also look out for our podcast episode where we discuss these topics even more in depth!
https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/27833/Professionalization-of-youth-sports-can-lead-to
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood-obesity-facts/childhood-obesity-facts.html
https://www.aap.org/globalassets/publications/coya/sports_readiness_final_secured.1.0.pdf
https://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting/how-to-get-recruited/club-sports