At Wagner PT & Performance, we love youth sports. Sports are fun, character building, teach young athletes how to stay healthy, can provide opportunities for scholarships and even professional competition. We specialize in working with athletes to help them recover from injuries, avoid them in the first place and perform at their best. Keep reading to find out how to prevent injuries in youth athletes.

Strength Training To Prevent Youth Athlete Injuries 

There's a reason we are such huge proponents of strength training for youth athletes. Over and over again, it has been shown to enhance performance and reduce injury risk. When it comes to how to prevent injuries in youth athletes, strength training is a cornerstone.

 A position statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics said:

• resistance training is supported for athletes of all ages

• youth who DO NOT participate in resistance training may be at increased risk of negative health effects

• resistance training should be an essential component of training for young athletes and regular participation early in life correlates with better health outcomes later in life

A consensus of experts from 2014 (Lloyd et al) said:

• strength training has no adverse effects on growth. In fact, adolescence is an ideal time to participate in resistance training to enhance bone mass and proper growth

• resistance training has been show to reduce injury risk

• A multitude of physical qualities improve with resistance training (strength, endurance, motor skills, jumping, running, cutting, throwing, etc.) 

• resistance training is an important part of athletic development prior to and during high level competition) 

We all want kids to be healthy now and into the future. Developing good training habits early on pays huge dividends. 

Sports require a lot of fitness, strength, power and agility and it is imperative that young athletes are exposed to strength and conditioning as early as possible. We use a specific framework called the Long Term Athletic Development Model (LTAD) that can be adapted to an athlete of any age and maturity level. Learn more about how we manage youth sports injuries and development here.

The Long Term Athletic Development Model

Playing Multiple Sports Reduces Injury Risk

Similar to resistance training, there is a ton of great research showing that delaying sport specialization leads to lower injury rates and better performance in sports. In short, playing multiple sports is one significant way to prevent injuries in youth athletes.

For an in-depth look at this topic, check out a 2 part article we wrote last year: PART 1 and PART 2

Here are a few key points:

• higher training volume has a linear relationship to increased injury in high school athletes (Myer et al) 

• highly specialized athletes had a 2.25x greater risk of sustaining injury (Myer, Faigenbaum et al) 

• delaying sport specialization decreases the likelihood of injury and increases the likelihood that athletes will have a longer and healthier playing career

Athletes who play at the highest levels tend to specialize later, not earlier. A study of division 1 athletes (Post et al) showed that only 16.9% were specialized by freshman year of high school and only 41.1% were specialized by senior year. Another study (Buckley et al) showed that high school athletes specialized at 12.7 years of age on average, college athletes at 14 years or older. 

Athletes have a much greater chance of staying healthy and playing at a higher level if they spend their younger years developing skills in a multitude of sports and also participate in strength and conditioning.

If an athlete does specialize, the strength and conditioning piece becomes even more important. Highly specialized athletes need a strength and conditioning program that is built to prepare them for the specific stresses on their body from a single sport. Off-season strength and conditioning often takes the place of additional sport seasons for these highly specialized athletes.

Sleep More To Get Injured Less

This is a pretty basic one that everyone intuitively knows, but that still doesn't mean our young athletes are getting as much sleep as they need. Youth athlete injury prevention and sleep are closely linked.

A study of adolescent athletes (Milewski et al) showed that those who slept less than 8 hours per night were 1.7x more likely to have an injury when compared to athletes who slept more than 8 hours.

This protective effect is even greater when athletes get 9 or more hours of sleep. This is just the injury risk and doesn't even mention the negative effects on reaction time, strength, fitness, etc. 

We know it can be challenging to sleep 8 or more hours per night with busy schedules but this is absolutely non-negotiable. If a young athlete doesn't sleep enough, they are seriously hindering their ability to stay healthy and perform at their best. 

Fuel Your Body To Reduce Injury Risk

Sports nutrition can be a confusing subject, especially because every athlete has different preferences and different ways their bodies handle food. However, one thing that is pretty straight forward is that youth athletes need to eat more! To prevent injuries, your body has to be fueled well.

We’ve found this to be especially problematic with young female athletes.

If you participate in sports at any level (especially at a high level), you need to fuel your body properly. The exact amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fats can be a pretty individual thing but total amount of calories is something we need to think more about. 

For example, an article from The Journal Of Sports Medicine recommends that 13-14 year old female athletes participating in heavy physical activity get about 2,725 calories per day and boys get 3,175 calories per day.

Move up to the 17-18 year age range and these numbers increase to 2,875 calories for female athletes and 3,925 for males.

These numbers might seem a bit high, but you have to keep in mind that athletes don't just need to replace what they are losing in terms of calories, they need extra calories to build muscle mass and resilience.

You don't have to be obsessively tracking weight and calories, but having some general knowledge in this area is vital. This is also an important time to build healthy attitudes towards food and good nutritional habits for life.

Check out the references below for a couple in-depth articles you can read for more information on this topic.

Hydration To Improve Performance and Reduce Injuries

Hydration is another topic that gets a lot of lip service, but still isn't taken as seriously as it should be. According to a 2015 article from The Journal Of Sports Medicine (also referenced above), under hydration results in performance decreases, increased risk of heat injury and higher perceived exertion at a given workload.

Many athletes already arrive to practices and games without being hydrated well. Add a strenuous game or practice on top of this and it can be tough to catch up.

Again, we don't need to go crazy with hydration. It is possible to over hydrate, but this is hardly the problem with most athletes. A good general rule of thumb is to divide bodyweight in pounds in half and drink that many ounces of water at a minimum.

That means a 150 pound athlete needs at least 75 ounces of water throughout the day. This can go up a lot if there is strenuous exercise or hot weather. This should also be combined with plenty of fruits and veggies in the diet.

Here is another way to think about minimal fluid intake from this article:

An athlete weighing 60 kg (132 pounds) should replace 780 ml (26 ounces) of fluid per hour during exercise and another 240 ml (8 ounces) after exercise. Combine this with the recommendation above and this athlete should be getting at least 95 ounces of water on a day they practice or compete.

Other recommendations say an athlete should get 150-300 ml (5-10 ounces) of fluid for every 15-20 minutes of activity. Water is usually enough for activities of about 60 minutes or less. For longer activities or those taking place in hot or humid weather, more fluid and electrolytes are usually needed. This is where an electrolyte drink or supplement like Nuun can come into play. 

Reducing Injuries Is Pretty Simple, But Not Easy

I know there is a lot of information here, but overall it is pretty simple.

• Strength train regularly with a good program and coach

• Play multiple sports (or be deliberate about time off)

• Sleep 8+ hours per night

• Eat a balanced diet with plenty of calories

• Hydrate well

Doing these things will set a young athlete up for success and make it less likely they will get injured. As with most things, doing the basics well is your best bet. 

If you have any questions about these recommendations or anything else about injuries and performance in youth athletics, contact us. We're experts in this area and specialize in keeping young athletes healthy and in the game. 

References:

Strength training:

• Lloyd et al. Position statement on youth resistance training: 2014 international consensus. Br J Sports Med. 2013; 0: 1-12

• Zouita etc al. Strength Training Reduces Injury Rate in Elite Young Soccer players during one season. J Strength Cond Res. 2016; May; 30(5) 

• Paul Ford , Mark De Ste Croix , Rhodri Lloyd , Rob Meyers , Marjan Moosavi , Jon Oliver , Kevin Till & Craig Williams (2011) The Long-Term Athlete Development model: Physiological evidence and application, Journal of Sports Sciences, 29:4, 389-402

Sport specialization:

• Myer et al. Sport Specialization Part 1: Does early sport specialization increased negative outcomes and reduce the opportunity for success in young athletes? Sports Health; 7(5): 437-442

• Myer et al. Sport Specialization Part 2: Alternative solutions to early sport specialization in youth athletes. Sports Health; 8(1):65-73

• Myer GD, Faigenbaum AD, Edwards N, Clark JF, Best TM, Sallis RE. Sixty minutes of what? A developing brain perspective for activating children with an integrative exercise approach [published online January 23, 2015]. Br J Sports Med . doi:10.1136/bjsports-2014-093661.

• Post et al. High School sport specialization patterns of current Division I athletes. Sports Health. 2017 Mar/Apr; 9(2) 148-153

• Buckley et al. Early single sport specialization: a survey of 3090 high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. Orthopedic J Sports Med. 2017 Jul; 5(7) 

Sleep: 

• Milewski MD, Skaggs DL, Bishop GA, Pace JL, Ibrahim DA, Wren TA, Barzdukas A. Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes. J Pediatr Orthop. 2014 Mar;34(2):129-33. doi: 10.1097/BPO.0000000000000151. PMID: 25028798.

Calories/hydration:

• Smith JW, Holmes ME, McAllister MJ. Nutritional Considerations for Performance in Young Athletes [published correction appears in J Sports Med (Hindawi Publ Corp). 2017;2017:6904048]. J Sports Med (Hindawi Publ Corp). 2015;2015:734649. doi:10.1155/2015/734649 Link:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4590906/

• Purcell LK; Canadian Paediatric Society, Paediatric Sports and Exercise Medicine Section. Sport nutrition for young athletes. Paediatr Child Health. 2013;18(4):200-205. doi:10.1093/pch/18.4.200 Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3805623/