How soon is too soon for kids to specialize in a single sport?
What are the benefits of playing multiple sports?
Learn more from Winston Gwathmey, Jr., MD., a UVA expert in sports medicine?
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Should Kids Specialize in One Sport?
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Learn more about Dr. Winston Gwathmey
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Winston Gwathmey, Jr., MD
Dr. Winston Gwathmey is fellowship trained in sports medicine; his specialties include caring for athletic injuries and conditions of the shoulder, hip, knee, and foot/ankle.Learn more about Dr. Winston Gwathmey
Learn more about UVA Orthopedics
Transcription:
Should Kids Specialize in One Sport?
Melanie Cole (Host): If you are parents with hopes of your children playing in college a particular sport and they’re specializing in that sport, should they be doing that? What else can they be doing that will help them excel in the sport that they specialize in? My guest today is Dr. Winston Gwathmey. He’s fellowship trained in Sports Medicine at UVA Health System. Welcome to the show, Dr. Gwathmey. So many parents see their children and they have these dreams of Olympics and college sports and professional sports. Speak to the parents, please, just for a minute about sports specialization and what they should expect from their children.
Dr. Winston Gwathmey (Guest): First off, I think that it is critical for kids and adolescents to be involved in sports. I think sports teach a lot of important things about life and about being healthy and those types of things. I certainly don’t want this to sound like I’m against youth sports. It’s just the concern that we have as physicians is that some kids are playing too much of the same sport. They are overusing their bodies at a young age and they’re getting themselves into trouble because of just not being smart about how they play sports. What it leads to is injuries. It leads to disillusionment with the sport which they play. It leads to kids that could be a lot better off if they were to have a broader athletic experience and just be smarter about how they participate in sports.
Melanie: Let’s start with our young ones, then, Dr. Gwathmey. We start them in soccer and in little league softball and baseball. They’re not playing the big, tough sports so much when they’re little. It’s generally those kinds of team sports that may be a little contact-y. Do we need them in these sports or do we have them try basketball, volleyball all at the same time or if we see that they have a propensity for soccer and they’re running down the field, we leave them in soccer and let them work on that.
Dr. Gwathmey: I think if a child shows an aptitude for a specific sport, certainly allowing him to explore that aptitude is important. I don’t want someone who shows early signs of being an outstanding soccer player to be forced to play a different sport just because that’s the way it should be. But, I think the kids should be encouraged to consider the seasons and consider playing other types of sports so they have the opportunity to see what their skills are in other types of sports and sometimes other sports translate into the sport in which they are good at. If they play soccer, sometimes just the movement and patterns in basketball or football or these other sports could be helpful for their progress in the sport in which they play. I think that kids should be encouraged to play and to participate in all different types of sports for a number of reasons – just to be well-rounded.
Melanie: Certain sports lend themselves to excelling – tennis. You see kids that are really, really into this particular sport, and soccer and some of those. What do you tell parents about off season and what if they live in a place that plays that sport year round?
Dr. Gwathmey: Off season is pretty important. I think some of these kids aren’t getting an off season. I think the sport in particular that I see the most trouble with is baseball in which kids who are 10, 11, 12 years old. They watch baseball on T.V. and they see these guys throwing 95 mile an hour fastballs, curve balls and these types of things and all they want to do is become a major league baseball pitcher. At age 11 or 12 years old with a growing skeleton, they’re out there with their dad or their coaches throwing the ball as hard as they can with mechanics that aren’t very well-developed. It puts a lot of stress on the growing shoulder and the growing elbow. If you just do this over and over and over again without having the opportunity to rest and to heal, then you can get into trouble at a young age with elbow injuries and with throwing injuries in a young athlete. Baseball gets the most recognition right now but at any sport, if you do too much of the same thing you can get yourself into trouble. A tennis serve can have very similar mechanics to a baseball pitch. People who run cross country and those types of things, they can just put too much stress on their growing skeleton. I think it’s important that anybody who does the same thing over and over and over again realizes that they are at risk for overuse and the consequences of overuse which might be disability or injury or not being able to play the sport they want to play. They should just be aware of that.
Melanie: Even the organizations are coming out, as you say, and with the pitching limits and things. That helps coaches and parents to kind of keep track of that for them. What cross training would you recommend doing other things with these children? Are there certain sports that go together that you could say, “Play basketball at this season and then soccer in the spring and they’re not going to interfere with each other.” Do you have some cross training favorites, Dr. Gwathmey?
Dr. Gwathmey: Classically, football and soccer end up being fall sports, basketball is usually in the winter, baseball and tennis and those types of things are in the spring. I think the sports in which you are active with your lower body like, say, soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring is a good combination because in the fall, you’re running and you’re building quadriceps and gluteal strength and those types of things. You’re building your hand-foot coordination and you’re running and you’re conditioning and that kind of stuff. In the winter, you’re playing basketball or one of the sports where you’re using a combination of the upper extremity and lower extremity and in the spring playing baseball or tennis where you’re using a lot of throwing motion and using your arms and shoulders more. That’s kind of the fit that I’m kind of hoping for. Each given season, you’re not overdoing it with the same muscles and the same joints that you’re using the prior season. For instance, if you’re playing baseball in the spring and then tennis in the summer and then volleyball in the fall and you constantly have this overhead motion, that might lend itself to overuse even though you’re using it a little bit differently. I just think that it is critical to think about your body and think about what you’re doing to the body and work on trying to have a broader experience or, basically, a more diversified portfolio, if you will.
Melanie: When our kids are doing these particular sports, say you’ve got gymnastics, should they be weight training along with these sports or do you want them to lay off of strength training and just concentrate on flexibility or plyometrics to avoid injuries, whatever it happens to be?
Dr. Gwathmey: The human skeleton between the ages of about 10 and 16 is a pretty interesting machine. The bones are growing at an exponential rate. The muscles sometimes don’t keep up with the bones quite so much. The kids are trying to build muscles for their sport, for the beach and those kinds of things. They do a lot of strength training on a growing skeleton. I certainly think conditioning and some strength training is very important and very helpful but those who go beyond and try to put too much weight on and overuse their muscles and their joints, they can injure their skeleton. I think it is a pretty critical time in a kid’s growth is as they’re putting on bone mass and they’re putting on extra muscle mass not to overdo it. I think plyometrics and conditioning – basically, growing stronger just with the activities that you’re doing out in the field and with your training can be helpful--not necessarily putting all of that time into the actual weight room trying to put the bench press up as high as you can. The extra weight that some kids put on their growing skeleton can be detrimental.
Melanie: Dr. Gwathmey, no kid wants to sit out of a sport that they love but give parents some hope. If their child has had some sort of an orthopedic injury, can it right itself if it is a chronic overuse or is it something that might plague them from then on?
Dr. Gwathmey: That’s the thing. You have to identify what factors went into the injury in the first place. Like a traumatic injury like an ACL or a sprained ankle or something like that. Sometimes, it’s a freak accident. But, if you have an athlete who has shoulder soreness or a ligament tear in their elbow or something like that, you have to look into what went into that. Was it a mechanical problem? Was it an overuse problem? Once you start delving into that and try to identify the factors that played a role in this, you can start to figure out whether or not it’s going to be effective to treatment as far as recovery. The beauty of taking care of kids is they heal. You have to have a pretty bad injury for a kid not to be able to get back to his sport because the human body in adolescence has a remarkable, almost miraculous, propensity to heal if you give it the proper environment in which to heal; that is, alleviating the stresses on the body, getting good nutrition, making sure you’re eating healthy, and making sure that you’re not doing things that hurt the body over time. I think that all parents and kids can be optimistic about an injury they may have because at age 14, 15, 16 years old, chances are you’re going to heal 100% unless you’re doing something that is chronically causing additional problems. That is just going back to the source of the problem in the first place. As an orthopedic surgeon, we certainly don’t like having kids in our operating room. That’s for sure. That’s why I think the educational portion of this is critical; much more so than the actual surgery.
Melanie: Why should families come to UVA orthopedics for their sports medicine care?
Dr. Gwathmey: We have a lot of experience treating athletes of all ages. We have kids from 12 years old to 90-year-old kids who are out there playing tennis. We have good experience across the entire gamut of athletics and age groups. We have specialists who take care of every part of the body. I think when you have a group of the orthopedic surgeons that we have here at UVA, with the experience that we have and our interest in helping people, I think it is a good place to come. We’re at the front lines of sports medicine. All of us are involved in policy and the latest research. I think it is a good place to come to have that level of care.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Gwathmey, for being with us today. It is great information. You’re listening to UVA Health Systems Radio. For more information you can go to UVAHealth.com. That’s UVAHealth.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Should Kids Specialize in One Sport?
Melanie Cole (Host): If you are parents with hopes of your children playing in college a particular sport and they’re specializing in that sport, should they be doing that? What else can they be doing that will help them excel in the sport that they specialize in? My guest today is Dr. Winston Gwathmey. He’s fellowship trained in Sports Medicine at UVA Health System. Welcome to the show, Dr. Gwathmey. So many parents see their children and they have these dreams of Olympics and college sports and professional sports. Speak to the parents, please, just for a minute about sports specialization and what they should expect from their children.
Dr. Winston Gwathmey (Guest): First off, I think that it is critical for kids and adolescents to be involved in sports. I think sports teach a lot of important things about life and about being healthy and those types of things. I certainly don’t want this to sound like I’m against youth sports. It’s just the concern that we have as physicians is that some kids are playing too much of the same sport. They are overusing their bodies at a young age and they’re getting themselves into trouble because of just not being smart about how they play sports. What it leads to is injuries. It leads to disillusionment with the sport which they play. It leads to kids that could be a lot better off if they were to have a broader athletic experience and just be smarter about how they participate in sports.
Melanie: Let’s start with our young ones, then, Dr. Gwathmey. We start them in soccer and in little league softball and baseball. They’re not playing the big, tough sports so much when they’re little. It’s generally those kinds of team sports that may be a little contact-y. Do we need them in these sports or do we have them try basketball, volleyball all at the same time or if we see that they have a propensity for soccer and they’re running down the field, we leave them in soccer and let them work on that.
Dr. Gwathmey: I think if a child shows an aptitude for a specific sport, certainly allowing him to explore that aptitude is important. I don’t want someone who shows early signs of being an outstanding soccer player to be forced to play a different sport just because that’s the way it should be. But, I think the kids should be encouraged to consider the seasons and consider playing other types of sports so they have the opportunity to see what their skills are in other types of sports and sometimes other sports translate into the sport in which they are good at. If they play soccer, sometimes just the movement and patterns in basketball or football or these other sports could be helpful for their progress in the sport in which they play. I think that kids should be encouraged to play and to participate in all different types of sports for a number of reasons – just to be well-rounded.
Melanie: Certain sports lend themselves to excelling – tennis. You see kids that are really, really into this particular sport, and soccer and some of those. What do you tell parents about off season and what if they live in a place that plays that sport year round?
Dr. Gwathmey: Off season is pretty important. I think some of these kids aren’t getting an off season. I think the sport in particular that I see the most trouble with is baseball in which kids who are 10, 11, 12 years old. They watch baseball on T.V. and they see these guys throwing 95 mile an hour fastballs, curve balls and these types of things and all they want to do is become a major league baseball pitcher. At age 11 or 12 years old with a growing skeleton, they’re out there with their dad or their coaches throwing the ball as hard as they can with mechanics that aren’t very well-developed. It puts a lot of stress on the growing shoulder and the growing elbow. If you just do this over and over and over again without having the opportunity to rest and to heal, then you can get into trouble at a young age with elbow injuries and with throwing injuries in a young athlete. Baseball gets the most recognition right now but at any sport, if you do too much of the same thing you can get yourself into trouble. A tennis serve can have very similar mechanics to a baseball pitch. People who run cross country and those types of things, they can just put too much stress on their growing skeleton. I think it’s important that anybody who does the same thing over and over and over again realizes that they are at risk for overuse and the consequences of overuse which might be disability or injury or not being able to play the sport they want to play. They should just be aware of that.
Melanie: Even the organizations are coming out, as you say, and with the pitching limits and things. That helps coaches and parents to kind of keep track of that for them. What cross training would you recommend doing other things with these children? Are there certain sports that go together that you could say, “Play basketball at this season and then soccer in the spring and they’re not going to interfere with each other.” Do you have some cross training favorites, Dr. Gwathmey?
Dr. Gwathmey: Classically, football and soccer end up being fall sports, basketball is usually in the winter, baseball and tennis and those types of things are in the spring. I think the sports in which you are active with your lower body like, say, soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring is a good combination because in the fall, you’re running and you’re building quadriceps and gluteal strength and those types of things. You’re building your hand-foot coordination and you’re running and you’re conditioning and that kind of stuff. In the winter, you’re playing basketball or one of the sports where you’re using a combination of the upper extremity and lower extremity and in the spring playing baseball or tennis where you’re using a lot of throwing motion and using your arms and shoulders more. That’s kind of the fit that I’m kind of hoping for. Each given season, you’re not overdoing it with the same muscles and the same joints that you’re using the prior season. For instance, if you’re playing baseball in the spring and then tennis in the summer and then volleyball in the fall and you constantly have this overhead motion, that might lend itself to overuse even though you’re using it a little bit differently. I just think that it is critical to think about your body and think about what you’re doing to the body and work on trying to have a broader experience or, basically, a more diversified portfolio, if you will.
Melanie: When our kids are doing these particular sports, say you’ve got gymnastics, should they be weight training along with these sports or do you want them to lay off of strength training and just concentrate on flexibility or plyometrics to avoid injuries, whatever it happens to be?
Dr. Gwathmey: The human skeleton between the ages of about 10 and 16 is a pretty interesting machine. The bones are growing at an exponential rate. The muscles sometimes don’t keep up with the bones quite so much. The kids are trying to build muscles for their sport, for the beach and those kinds of things. They do a lot of strength training on a growing skeleton. I certainly think conditioning and some strength training is very important and very helpful but those who go beyond and try to put too much weight on and overuse their muscles and their joints, they can injure their skeleton. I think it is a pretty critical time in a kid’s growth is as they’re putting on bone mass and they’re putting on extra muscle mass not to overdo it. I think plyometrics and conditioning – basically, growing stronger just with the activities that you’re doing out in the field and with your training can be helpful--not necessarily putting all of that time into the actual weight room trying to put the bench press up as high as you can. The extra weight that some kids put on their growing skeleton can be detrimental.
Melanie: Dr. Gwathmey, no kid wants to sit out of a sport that they love but give parents some hope. If their child has had some sort of an orthopedic injury, can it right itself if it is a chronic overuse or is it something that might plague them from then on?
Dr. Gwathmey: That’s the thing. You have to identify what factors went into the injury in the first place. Like a traumatic injury like an ACL or a sprained ankle or something like that. Sometimes, it’s a freak accident. But, if you have an athlete who has shoulder soreness or a ligament tear in their elbow or something like that, you have to look into what went into that. Was it a mechanical problem? Was it an overuse problem? Once you start delving into that and try to identify the factors that played a role in this, you can start to figure out whether or not it’s going to be effective to treatment as far as recovery. The beauty of taking care of kids is they heal. You have to have a pretty bad injury for a kid not to be able to get back to his sport because the human body in adolescence has a remarkable, almost miraculous, propensity to heal if you give it the proper environment in which to heal; that is, alleviating the stresses on the body, getting good nutrition, making sure you’re eating healthy, and making sure that you’re not doing things that hurt the body over time. I think that all parents and kids can be optimistic about an injury they may have because at age 14, 15, 16 years old, chances are you’re going to heal 100% unless you’re doing something that is chronically causing additional problems. That is just going back to the source of the problem in the first place. As an orthopedic surgeon, we certainly don’t like having kids in our operating room. That’s for sure. That’s why I think the educational portion of this is critical; much more so than the actual surgery.
Melanie: Why should families come to UVA orthopedics for their sports medicine care?
Dr. Gwathmey: We have a lot of experience treating athletes of all ages. We have kids from 12 years old to 90-year-old kids who are out there playing tennis. We have good experience across the entire gamut of athletics and age groups. We have specialists who take care of every part of the body. I think when you have a group of the orthopedic surgeons that we have here at UVA, with the experience that we have and our interest in helping people, I think it is a good place to come. We’re at the front lines of sports medicine. All of us are involved in policy and the latest research. I think it is a good place to come to have that level of care.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Gwathmey, for being with us today. It is great information. You’re listening to UVA Health Systems Radio. For more information you can go to UVAHealth.com. That’s UVAHealth.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.