How Much Is Too Much for Your Child to Play Their Favorite Sport?

Many youth athletes are “specializing,” or selecting to focus their time and vitality on just one sport, at an more and more younger age. Whereas these younger gamers are aiming to enhance their expertise and improve their odds of taking part in in school and past, this development has alarmed some pediatric sports activities drugs consultants, who’re seeing a rise in overuse accidents and psychological burnout in these athletes.

We mentioned this development with Arvind Balaji, MD, a pediatric sports activities drugs specialist at Stanford Drugs Kids’s Well being. Dr. Balaji practices in Pleasant Hill, as a part of our partnership with John Muir Well being.

Q: Why is that this one of the vital vital subjects for fogeys of younger athletes?

A: It’s a favourite of mine to debate throughout visits as a result of it gives a possibility to positively impression well being within the quick time period and long run. Taking part in a couple of sport, or sports activities diversifying, can dramatically cut back danger of harm for pediatric athletes. If youngsters can keep away from focusing an excessive amount of on just one sport, they’re much much less prone to get injured. That’s as a result of lots of the most typical sports activities accidents that we see in youngsters are overuse injuries, or accidents which can be brought on by repetitive stress to the identical muscle, ligament, or bone. Coaching the identical ability or sport an excessive amount of contributes to this downside. I additionally suggest sufferers and fogeys analysis the sports activities backgrounds of their favourite athletes. A typical theme amongst elite skilled athletes is that they performed quite a lot of sports activities as youngsters and solely specialised of their main sport nicely into their highschool years. This runs opposite to how we take into consideration youth aggressive sports activities today.

Q: What number of hours per week ought to a toddler play their favourite sport?

A: Right here’s a easy rule of thumb: Your youngster’s age needs to be the restrict for the variety of hours they spend taking part in their main sport in an organized style each week. So in case your youngster is 13, they will play their main sport for 13 hours per week, together with observe and video games which can be supervised, coached, and aggressive.

Q: Does that restrict apply for the entire yr?

A: It’s additionally so vital to include three nonconsecutive “darkish months” per yr. This implies months of the yr throughout which your youngster just isn’t competitively taking part in any sport. In fact we don’t need them to do nothing for these months—we would like them to get pleasure from free play with pals, or unstructured sports activities coaching, or actions like bike using or swimming. However we need to take away the bodily and psychological calls for of aggressive play to cut back harm danger in addition to mental burnout. Taking applicable breaks will assist your youngster return stronger—mentally and bodily—to their favourite sport and assist develop the inspiration for a lifetime of wholesome motion.

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