The Prevention of Overuse Injuries in Youth Sports
August 6, 2012 
3 Comments
We have a huge problem right now with the amount of overuse injuries we are seeing in youth sports. Did you know that 50% of youth sports injuries are overuse injuries? Call me crazy, but aren’t overuse injuries easy to prevent, especially in this population?!? I have discussed this previously in regard to youth baseball injuries:
- The Reason Why There are so Many Youth Pitching Injuries
- Preventing Youth Pitching Injuries
- Little League Pitch Count Rules
This is a big topic for me as I get to see the effects of overuse injuries in baseball everyday. I am ABSOLUTELY AMAZED at the amount of overuse injuries seen in youth sports that are preventable. I’m always amazed this time of year when I watch the Little League world series and see the kids getting overused and pitch count limitations being abused.
STOP Youth Sports Injuries
If you haven’t seen it yet, there is a new program called STOP Youth Sports Injuries develpped by the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine. The program is dedicated to reducing overuse injuries in youth sports. Please check out the STOP Youth Sports Injuries website.
They recently had a live webinar discussing the prevention of youth overuse injuries that is recorded and viewable here.
There are a ton of great resources and information. Please share this post to spread the word and help STOP overuse injuries in youth sports!
Most people will encourage youth to engage in a particular sport to be able to establish a healthy lifestyle but along with that, it will also be important to emphasize proper habits to help avoid the pain and inconvenience that sports injuries may bring.
I think the youth coaches have a huge responsibility now in knowing how to properly train these kids for the intensity of sport that is now required. Some of these coaches probably would benefit from our knowledge as PT’s to help with this. I am happy to say as far as Little League pitching goes, my son’s league does follow the pitch count rules, but I am concerned about some of the pitchers not being instructed in proper pitching technique and really having lousy form.
There is definitely a need to quality coaching!