Tulsa Spine and Rehab

why kids shouldn’t specialize in a sport too early

Kids are becoming more involved in all kinds of sports activities these days. Whether they’re practicing baseball, soccer, football, baseball, or weightlifting, is it better for them to specialize in one sport or play a wide variety of sports instead? Within the last couple of years, there has been a lot of good evidence coming out about this subject.

Years ago, kids who played several sports often began to specialize too early. This was a common practice back then because we simply didn’t know any better. If a child was really good at soccer, their parents used to want them to focus on the sport primarily. There was also a rule that said that children had to practice for 10,000 hours before they were considered an elite athlete who specialized in a particular sport. This is crazy, of course, and research shows that you can specialize in a sport with around 4,000 to 6,000 hours (for instance, basketball and field hockey players only require 4,000 hours and wrestlers only require 6,000 hours).

Dr. James Andrews is a world renowned orthopedic surgeon out on the east coast. He’s published some information about injuries that arise from overuse, and he mentioned that children who specialize in a single sport account for 50 percent of overuse injuries in young athletes according to pediatric orthopedic specialists.

Let’s say that a young child begins to specialize in baseball. He’ll continue to practice his throw as a pitcher, and sadly, he will begin to experience rotator cuff injuries as early as the age of thirteen. When kids play multiple different types of sports, they are developing various different types of motor patterns. Soccer involves running, kicking and jumping. Baseball involves running and throwing. Practicing each of these different types of movement will eventually develop a well-rounded athlete and not just a baseball player or a soccer player.

I found something very interesting on social media that was posted by Urban Meyer, who’s the head football coach for Ohio State University. He showed a graph of 42 of his recruits, and only five of them specialized exclusively in football. Pete Carroll went on to say that in his recruiting process, he asks people how often they play basketball or pitch in baseball. He’s trying to get a sense of what type of athlete the player is. This is because his experience has shown that if you give him a well-rounded athlete, he can develop a really good football player.

I’m a Certified Medical Provider with the Titleist Performance Institute. I remember Dr. Greg Rose saying during one of their seminars that if you gave him two kids, one who was an eighteen-year-old prodigy that had played only golf since he was very young, or an eighteen-year-old well-rounded athlete, he would pick the athlete every single time. I found that very telling because the athlete is developing skills involving different movement patterns.

There was another study by Ohio State University that found that children who specialize early in a single sport led to higher rates of adult physical inactivity. I found that particularly interesting as well. The study went on to say that those who commit to one sport at a young age are often the first to quit. As an exception to the rule, they do recommend early specialization in two sports: gymnastics and ice skating. These sports are very technical in nature, and it’s actually beneficial to specialize in them at an early age.

I think that kids also just need time to be kids. Parents have got to allow their children to experience different types of activities. Most importantly, specializing in one activity can lead to injuries and set them up to have trouble later down the road. That’s why I think doing multiple different things will prevent us from seeing many of the injuries that result from overuse.

To learn more about the strategies you can take to prevent sports related injuries, contact us online or give us a call at (918) 743-3737.

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