Editor’s Note: This is part four of our seven-part series on sports burnout and kids.
I recently turned to Bianca Edison, M.D., a sports medicine specialist with the Jackie and Gene Autry Orthopedic Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, for some insight on how to prevent our kids from experiencing sports burnout. In this nine-part series, we explore the pressures to excel that kids in L.A. face, how to recognize burn out, what to look for in a team and much more. In this segment, she discusses sports specialization.
How do you feel about kids who compete in several different sports?
There is increased pressure currently to participate at a high level, to specialize in one sport early and to play year-round, often on multiple teams. This increased emphasis on sports specialization has led to an increase in injuries, overtraining and burnout.
I applaud young athletes who play and participate in multiple different sports. This allows the child to experience many different options and figure out what is right for them individually, not what they think others around them may want. The myth that young kids need to specialize in one sport early on in order to be a successful athlete needs to be perpetually debunked.
The data exists to do so, but we need to disseminate that date more broadly and publicly. Most experts agree that sports specialization in general should not happen until much later. There have been numerous studies conducted that reveal that elite professional athletes and Division I NCAA athletes are more likely to have played multiple sports in their youth and underwent sports sampling and cross-training. Intense single-sport training did not begin until late adolescence.
Current evidence suggests that delaying sport specialization for the majority of sports until after puberty (late adolescence, around 15 or 16 years of age) can minimize negative risks (physical, emotional and mental) as well as lead to a higher likelihood of athletic success.
Playing multiple sports and at different seasons can make for more well-rounded athletes and also helps the athlete rest certain muscle groups while honing skills for other muscles, which can decrease injury risk.
Furthermore, experiencing different sports facilitates a much broader support network; the athlete can experience different coaches and different teammates, which expands learning even more.
