On any given afternoon, the fields around the high school are filled with athletes training. Behind the competition, injuries among student-athletes are becoming increasingly common.
According to research conducted at the Ohio State University by Jeff Grabmeier, more and more kids are playing sports at a competitive level and starting at earlier ages. UCLA health found that specializing too early can greatly increase the risk of injuries among young athletes. The repetitive movements, high training volume and stress placed on still-developing bodies make athletes more vulnerable to musculoskeletal injuries.
Sports medicine physician for Mass General’s Sports Medicine, Northeastern and The New England Patriots, Dr. Gianmichael Corrado is a Brookline parent and used to see many students for sports-related injuries when his office was in Boston.
“There’s no question that we’re seeing more injuries related to kids specializing in sports early,” Corrado said. “There is plenty of data to suggest that it’s not so good for their health.”
From Corrado’s perspective, the biggest issue l is overuse.
“You’re doing the same thing night after night, weekend after weekend. It really pulls kids to do more than the body can handle. So we get strains and sprains and stress fractures. Generally speaking, we think that changing it up is good for the human body,” Corrado said.
Head athletic trainer Alex Jyzk said there is no doubt that injuries have increased over time, and that is particularly true this year.
“We’ve had a lot of significant injuries this year,” Jyzk said. “We’re talking probably 20 season-ending injuries. In years past, maybe at this point in the year we’ve had four.”
This increase is not just specific to the high school but a trend that Corrado has said he has noticed in high school athletes all over.
“I knew one or two kids growing up who had ACL injuries in our whole school,” Corrado said. “Now, it’s almost a rite of passage.”
Many of those injuries involve athletes who also participate in club sports, which often require year-round training and competition outside of the school season. Jyzk said that many, many athletes at the school play club sports, and it hurts them. The increase in injuries has a direct relationship to the increase in club-sport participation, according to the study from the Ohio State University.
The rise in sports specialization is not happening by accident. Jyzk said it is driven by cultural pressures from adults and the increasing competitive nature of youth sports.
“I think a lot of it comes from adult pressure,” Jyzk said. “Club sports are telling kids you have to play on this team to make the next team. They are pushing the agenda that you have to stay in the sport all year to compete with the kid next to you.”
Senior Nico Liteplo has played soccer since elementary school and began playing club soccer in 7th grade. Liteplo said that at the time it felt like the natural step for improving as a player.
“There’s a point where you can only develop enough if you start playing club soccer,” Liteplo said. “A lot of other kids are doing it, and they’re going to get better.”
However, Jyzk said that excessive training leads to the development of muscles specific to the repetitive movements required in the sport, which can lead to injuries. While those muscles continue to grow and develop, others are left behind.
Injuries can be detrimental to athletes. Liteplo tore his ACL during his sophomore year, an injury that requires months of rehabilitation. Before he could fully recover, he tore the ligament again, and later suffered a third ACL tear.
Despite the growing number of injuries, there are ways to prevent them. Cross-training to strengthen new muscles and building strong, flexible muscles will all help, said Corrado.
“We’re finding increasingly that long, strong muscles are the most resolute ones and that staying warmed up, strong and flexible is incredibly important to decreasing injuries,” Corrado said. “A certain kind of lifting, like eccentric or isometric strength, yoga type strength, strength where the muscles are put out to length and then contracted, as opposed to sort of classic bench press and arm curls, where you’re just trying to make big muscles.”
Jyzk said the key to injury prevention is paying attention to your body and listening to the pain rather than ignoring it.
Corrado said he acknowledges that specializing early has benefits in addition to its risks.
“There are some intangibles: becoming a champion, getting great scholarships to schools,” Corrado said. But if you’re going to push to be an elite athlete, your likelihood of injury is much higher.”
