Tulsa Spine and Rehab

Focus brings results in life, especially in sports, you focus, you get further. But more focus can also bring consequences, especially where young athletes are concerned. What’s the risk of early specialization? It’s something we should talk about today with Dr. Sean Riley from Tulsa Spine and Rehab. Sean, I know you have a young athlete.

I do. I played soccer growing up. I was passionate about soccer. I was fortunate to play at a relatively high level, I had a chance to play a little bit in college. I have a little eight-year-old, Holden, and I’ve been so blessed with him. He’s getting into a lot of different sports, and really enjoying being outside with his buddies, and it’s been fun to watch his development. I was in the car the other day, Charlie, and he so insightful for an eight-year-old says, “Dad, you and I are a lot alike. We kind of look alike, we like medium rare steak, we like hot dogs, some of the same music.” And I’m like thinking to myself, “Where in the heck is this going?”

He says, “But that, we’re also not alike.” I said, “Holden, what do you mean by that?” He goes, “Dad, I don’t think I’m going to be a soccer player.” I’ll tell you what, Charlie, kind of crushed me. But it goes into early specialization of sports. What that means is we want athletes to play as many different sports as they can. And we want to develop young athletes. What I’m seeing now with parents, players, coaches, organizations and so forth, these young kids are starting to specialize in these sports at a very, very young age. I’m not a fan of it.

They’re getting into like select leagues and things like that, and playing the sport all year long.

Sure. For instance, when I was growing up, I would play soccer in the fall, I would typically play basketball in the winter, and I might play football in the fall as well. I might play a little bit of baseball in the spring. You know, you’re playing multiple different sports, and with multiple different sports, there’s typically multiple different motor patterns that are associated with them. Does that make sense, Charlie?

Perfectly. Yeah, exactly. And it’s like my stepson, Grant, is involved in Track, but he’s also involved in water polo and other sports as well, because it’s giving him a lot of different motor activities.

Absolutely. You’re developing young athletes. But what I’m seeing now, it’s becoming more of a trend, and more commonplace is that a lot of coaches, and even parents, unfortunately, are really forcing their kids to make decisions at an early age, eight years old. Okay. You really enjoy soccer, let’s just focus primarily on soccer. So now we’re developing a soccer player. I’ll never forget a couple years ago, I read an article, I think it was USA Today, or online, Urban Meyer, the head football coach at Ohio State, it was interesting, he was talking about his recruiting process.

He went on to talk about that he recruits athletes. I mean, obviously, he’s recruiting football players, but he’s really interested in kids that play multiple different sports. We talked about developing different motor patterns, but also it kind of speaks to the volumes of that kids, they’re able to deal with adversity in different types of sports and so forth. So I thought that was very interesting. I always talk about that when I’m talking with parents here in the clinic is, going back to the Urban Meyer story, that you’re really trying to develop an athlete. Different types of motor patterns.

But here’s what I’m starting to see in the clinic with a lot of these kids, Charlie, that are specializing at such an early age. We’re starting to deal with repetitive type injuries. For instance, baseball players, start developing a baseball, and I love baseball, I think Holden plays baseball, I think baseball is a fantastic sport. But, you know, we’re getting these young kids that are throwing X number of pitches a game, and it’s just wearing their shoulders out, and I’ve seen kids. There was a kid that had Tommy John surgery I think by the age of 13.

I was with a guy yesterday, who in his mid 20s, and had planned on a career in baseball, and threw out his arm in a pitching in college for that very reason. They’re throwing them harder and faster, starting them younger, and it’s leading to these kind of, what you’re describing, repetitive motion injuries.

Yeah. Ultimately, I think, when you’re playing multiple different sports, you’re working different muscle groups and so forth. So, you know, I talk about, it’s very important to develop young athletes. Early specialization has the potential to cause these repetitive type injuries. And the third is kind of the most important for me as a dad with an eight-year-old, you’re seeing burnout at these kids at the ages of 12 and 13. It’s so sad, because a lot of these kids really enjoy that sport at a young age, but they’re required to go so hard, so fast, put so much time and energy into it, they just kind of lose it. They kind of lose their way, and they just essentially burn out.

I’m not suggesting that kids shouldn’t work hard, and I was one to train very hard at a very young age, it’s something that I enjoyed, and that’s the key. You’ve got to keep it fun for kids. They need to go out, they need to work, they need to have a good time why they’re doing it. And I think what we’re starting to see is when these kids, at such an early age, are so hyper focused only on one sport, it can create some burnout as well.

So, your advice to parents obviously is to diversify. Get them into more than one sport. Are there other things that a parent can watch for and being aware of potential issues for their child?

Yes. To answer your question, I think it’s very important that kids play multiple different sports and have fun. If a child starts to specialize at somewhat of an early age, I think that you might want to be hyper aware of maybe some red flags out there. For instance, [inaudible 00:05:54] baseball, you start working with a young child, and he’s 10 years old, and he starts complaining of chronic shoulder pain. Okay, when you hit the reset button and make sure we get it looked at, figure out we’re not heading down a path where he potentially has an injured rotator cuff, and then he’s done.

That’s one of the scary things, is once you start dealing with some of these injuries, it potentially shuts them down. So I just encourage kids, parents to allow the kids to play as many sports as they want to. Once they get into the teenage years, 13, 14, I am all onboard with, “Okay, this kid is going to be a heck of a baseball player. It’s time that we start limiting some of these other sports so he can focus.” Things are changing.

I was listening to the radio the other day, and Tony Meola used to be the fantastic goalkeeper for the US National Soccer team, and I didn’t know this, he played baseball and college soccer at the University of Virginia, which is a fantastic school, academically. You imagine going to the School of Virginia playing D1 Baseball and soccer. Sure, that was in the ’90s, I don’t know if that would happen, it would be very uncommon, but I think it’s okay for these kids, once you get into the teenage years, to kind of get focused and somewhat down on one sport they may be playing.

But wait for the appropriate age for that to happen. Don’t push that along. Your advice then is to diversify when they’re young, let them try many different sports, because you never know which one is going to catch them. And make sure they’re having much. There’s no point in making a drudgery and then potentially burning them out on a sport. Most importantly, watch for those red flag injuries. Watch for pains that they may be having. If that happens, then it’s a good time to get them in front of Dr. Riley and a specialist at Tulsa Spine and Rehab early rather than later. The problems will go away. Dr. Riley, thanks a lot for your time today.

Thanks, Charlie.

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