As kids continue to focus on one sport early on and playing it year-round, sometimes on multiple teams at once, overuse injuries have increased dramatically over the past decade.
Tom McGowan discusses how The Washington University and St. Louis Children's Young Athlete Center has developed a series of interactive injury prevention and educational programs designed to improve the overall health of young athletes.
Selected Podcast
Young Athlete Center Offers Sports Safety Series to Help Reduce Injury Risk
Featured Speaker:
Tom McGowan, MEd, LAT, ATC
Tom McGowan is an athletic trainer at the Washington University and St. Louis Children's Young Athlete Center. Transcription:
Young Athlete Center Offers Sports Safety Series to Help Reduce Injury Risk
Melanie Cole, MS (Host): As kids continue to focus on one sport early on, this type of sport specialization when they're playing it year round, multiple teams—maybe they're on travel teams and they're on the school team. Overuse injuries have increased dramatically over the past decade. My guest today is Tom McGowan. He's an athletic trainer at the Washington University and St. Louis Children's Young Athlete Center. Tom, tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen. As we were talking even a little bit off the air about sports specialization, what have you seen happen over the last decade?
Tom McGowan MEd, LAT, ATC (Guest): Yeah. So pretty much all these kids are getting focused in on a single sport. Whether it’s the sport that they like the most, if their best sport that they're the best at playing. They specialize early on. With that, they get injuries that are common with the sport, overuse injuries just from doing repetitive action and movement. In the old days, kids used to play all sports. So they would get kind of a good base of movement and fundamental exercises and things like that. So as we’ve progressed more and more, kids want to specialize in one sport so they can be the greatest. That actually causes more injuries in the community.
Host: So tell us about the sport safety series and how you identified a need for a program like this?
Tom: So the sport safety series is a program that is made up of five different classes designed by the Young Athlete Center. It’s main focus is spreading injury prevention within the community. Each of the classes targets a certain overuse injury or overuse population that we seen in a lot of injuries. As injuries increase in sports like baseball, running, soccer, even strength training or lifting weights. We’ve seen a lot of increased injuries there. So we have these specialized programs and classes that we offer to the public to really get them started and get an introduction into injury production.
Host: So tell us a little bit about the minimum and maximum age of participants? Is this a referral based program? Tell us about it.
Tom: So the minimum age that we usually set for most of our programs is seven years old. We ask that athletes can listen and follow instructions. So if you have a seven year that can't follow instructions, then we say well maybe we’ll wait a couple years until they mature a little bit. We haven’t really set a maximum age. Most of our classes are geared towards adolescent ages, but a lot of our classes will also show benefits to older athletes as well. So we encourage any athlete in the high school domain to participate, and even college athletes can benefit from learning these fundamental exercises that can prevent injuries.
Host: So well us about some of the classes and session that are offered and what types of exercises are involved?
Tom: Yeah. So we have five different classes that we offer. We offer a runner’s 10 class, which has exercises that are geared towards runners. It has a little bit of stretching, a lot of core work, and a lot of hip and glute strength as well. We also have a class that is geared towards overhead athletes. That is called our throwers exercise class. As you can guess, that has a lot of upper body and shoulder strengthening. We also have a class that is geared towards soccer. That is the FIFA 11 plus warmup that has also been shown to be good for any lower extremity sports such as basketball, lacrosse, rugby. We also have a strength training class that gives you a fundamental of what you should do as far as strength training goes. That’s really general athletics. It gives you the coordination and fundamental strength to play whatever sport you want. Then our last class is for concussion education. That’s kind of general athletic class as well. That is basically for anybody that is curious about learning more about concussions and how to notice signs and symptoms.
Host: Well so important and we’re hearing more and more about concussion and the need for that type of training today. What would you like pediatricians and primary care providers to know about telling their patients about programs like this, about the sports safety series, and getting their young athletes involved.
Tom: Yeah. So the sports safety series is a great resource for clinicians of any type that have parents, coaches, or team managers asking about more information on how they can prevent injuries. Our goal is to increase buy in within the athletic community in regards to injury prevention. The olden days of standing around in a circle and stretching are gone. These classes are really designed to keep players on the field and introduce those injury prevention skills before they get hurt so they can stay on the field longer, and possibly improve their overall result.
Host: Yeah. That’s a great reason and a good point. So tell us where the sessions are held and who facilitates them. Who’s running these classes?
Tom: Of course. The session are facilitated by physical therapists and athletic trainers together. So you have two different clinicians. Both have specialization in sports medicine and in orthopedic medicine as well. Classes can be held at any location. We offer groups a chance to work at the Young Athletes Center, which is a 4,000 square foot facility, but we also offer groups the option to use their own field or court. We will come out as a group and demonstrate and teach these teams and athletes all the exercises and the program on their own turf as well.
Host: That’s very cool. How neat that you do that for teams. Does this cost anything? How many people register for these classes or get in touch with you if they want you to come speak at their school or work with their teams?
Tom: So all the programs are free. This is part of our initiative with the Young Athletes Center to provide injury prevention resources to the community. So this is our way of doing that. If anybody is interested, they go online to our website at stlouischildrens.org/sportsafetyseries. There's more information on the website about each class. Then at the bottom of that page is a request form. If they fill that out, I will receive a request and we can set up a time to do the class. It’s really pretty easy.
Host: Well it sure is. What a great program, Tom, and so important for the provider and coaches to hear. Tell them what you would like them to know about the sport safety series through the Young Athletes Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Give us your best advice.
Tom: So each class within the sports safety series is designed to introduce these groups to basic concepts of injury prevention. Taking that class once and then never doing it again isn’t going to reduce the risk of injury. That program is meant to be bought into by the adults surrounding each player. So it’s up to all of us—clinicians, coaches, parents, leaders, managers—anybody involved around youth athletics to really buy in and motive our athletes to continue these programs and to prevent those injuries on the field.
Host: So important and what a great program. Thank you so much Tom for coming on and telling us all about it. Again, to register you can visit stlouischildrens.org/sportsafetyseries. That wraps up this episode of Radio Rounds with St. Louis Children's Hospital. To consult with a specialist or to learn more about services and resources available at St. Louis Children's Hospital, you can call the children’s direct physician access line at 1-800-678-HELP. Or head on over to stlouischildrens.org for more information and to get connected with a series such as this or one of our providers. If you as a provider found this podcast informative, please share on your social media and be sure to check out all of the other interesting podcasts in the library. This is Melanie Cole.
Young Athlete Center Offers Sports Safety Series to Help Reduce Injury Risk
Melanie Cole, MS (Host): As kids continue to focus on one sport early on, this type of sport specialization when they're playing it year round, multiple teams—maybe they're on travel teams and they're on the school team. Overuse injuries have increased dramatically over the past decade. My guest today is Tom McGowan. He's an athletic trainer at the Washington University and St. Louis Children's Young Athlete Center. Tom, tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen. As we were talking even a little bit off the air about sports specialization, what have you seen happen over the last decade?
Tom McGowan MEd, LAT, ATC (Guest): Yeah. So pretty much all these kids are getting focused in on a single sport. Whether it’s the sport that they like the most, if their best sport that they're the best at playing. They specialize early on. With that, they get injuries that are common with the sport, overuse injuries just from doing repetitive action and movement. In the old days, kids used to play all sports. So they would get kind of a good base of movement and fundamental exercises and things like that. So as we’ve progressed more and more, kids want to specialize in one sport so they can be the greatest. That actually causes more injuries in the community.
Host: So tell us about the sport safety series and how you identified a need for a program like this?
Tom: So the sport safety series is a program that is made up of five different classes designed by the Young Athlete Center. It’s main focus is spreading injury prevention within the community. Each of the classes targets a certain overuse injury or overuse population that we seen in a lot of injuries. As injuries increase in sports like baseball, running, soccer, even strength training or lifting weights. We’ve seen a lot of increased injuries there. So we have these specialized programs and classes that we offer to the public to really get them started and get an introduction into injury production.
Host: So tell us a little bit about the minimum and maximum age of participants? Is this a referral based program? Tell us about it.
Tom: So the minimum age that we usually set for most of our programs is seven years old. We ask that athletes can listen and follow instructions. So if you have a seven year that can't follow instructions, then we say well maybe we’ll wait a couple years until they mature a little bit. We haven’t really set a maximum age. Most of our classes are geared towards adolescent ages, but a lot of our classes will also show benefits to older athletes as well. So we encourage any athlete in the high school domain to participate, and even college athletes can benefit from learning these fundamental exercises that can prevent injuries.
Host: So well us about some of the classes and session that are offered and what types of exercises are involved?
Tom: Yeah. So we have five different classes that we offer. We offer a runner’s 10 class, which has exercises that are geared towards runners. It has a little bit of stretching, a lot of core work, and a lot of hip and glute strength as well. We also have a class that is geared towards overhead athletes. That is called our throwers exercise class. As you can guess, that has a lot of upper body and shoulder strengthening. We also have a class that is geared towards soccer. That is the FIFA 11 plus warmup that has also been shown to be good for any lower extremity sports such as basketball, lacrosse, rugby. We also have a strength training class that gives you a fundamental of what you should do as far as strength training goes. That’s really general athletics. It gives you the coordination and fundamental strength to play whatever sport you want. Then our last class is for concussion education. That’s kind of general athletic class as well. That is basically for anybody that is curious about learning more about concussions and how to notice signs and symptoms.
Host: Well so important and we’re hearing more and more about concussion and the need for that type of training today. What would you like pediatricians and primary care providers to know about telling their patients about programs like this, about the sports safety series, and getting their young athletes involved.
Tom: Yeah. So the sports safety series is a great resource for clinicians of any type that have parents, coaches, or team managers asking about more information on how they can prevent injuries. Our goal is to increase buy in within the athletic community in regards to injury prevention. The olden days of standing around in a circle and stretching are gone. These classes are really designed to keep players on the field and introduce those injury prevention skills before they get hurt so they can stay on the field longer, and possibly improve their overall result.
Host: Yeah. That’s a great reason and a good point. So tell us where the sessions are held and who facilitates them. Who’s running these classes?
Tom: Of course. The session are facilitated by physical therapists and athletic trainers together. So you have two different clinicians. Both have specialization in sports medicine and in orthopedic medicine as well. Classes can be held at any location. We offer groups a chance to work at the Young Athletes Center, which is a 4,000 square foot facility, but we also offer groups the option to use their own field or court. We will come out as a group and demonstrate and teach these teams and athletes all the exercises and the program on their own turf as well.
Host: That’s very cool. How neat that you do that for teams. Does this cost anything? How many people register for these classes or get in touch with you if they want you to come speak at their school or work with their teams?
Tom: So all the programs are free. This is part of our initiative with the Young Athletes Center to provide injury prevention resources to the community. So this is our way of doing that. If anybody is interested, they go online to our website at stlouischildrens.org/sportsafetyseries. There's more information on the website about each class. Then at the bottom of that page is a request form. If they fill that out, I will receive a request and we can set up a time to do the class. It’s really pretty easy.
Host: Well it sure is. What a great program, Tom, and so important for the provider and coaches to hear. Tell them what you would like them to know about the sport safety series through the Young Athletes Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Give us your best advice.
Tom: So each class within the sports safety series is designed to introduce these groups to basic concepts of injury prevention. Taking that class once and then never doing it again isn’t going to reduce the risk of injury. That program is meant to be bought into by the adults surrounding each player. So it’s up to all of us—clinicians, coaches, parents, leaders, managers—anybody involved around youth athletics to really buy in and motive our athletes to continue these programs and to prevent those injuries on the field.
Host: So important and what a great program. Thank you so much Tom for coming on and telling us all about it. Again, to register you can visit stlouischildrens.org/sportsafetyseries. That wraps up this episode of Radio Rounds with St. Louis Children's Hospital. To consult with a specialist or to learn more about services and resources available at St. Louis Children's Hospital, you can call the children’s direct physician access line at 1-800-678-HELP. Or head on over to stlouischildrens.org for more information and to get connected with a series such as this or one of our providers. If you as a provider found this podcast informative, please share on your social media and be sure to check out all of the other interesting podcasts in the library. This is Melanie Cole.