Preventing Injury in Youth Sports

Fitness is essential to kids’ present and long term physical and mental health. Exercise is known to decrease depression and improve mental performance. Having a sport helps kids have a sense of identity and purpose too.

Be consistent

Injury happens when we push our body harder than it can handle. That can be from too quickly increasing volume of exercise (going from couch potato to an hour every day is a huge stress on your body), intensity of exercise (pushing yourself really hard in a workout), or simply from doing an exercise wrong which puts excessive load on structures that aren’t ready for it.
 

Proper Form

Exercises should feel natural and pain-free aside from the “pain” from pushing your muscles. If a movement feels awkward, learn more. ask your coach, your chiropractor, or do research online and check yourself in a mirror. Don’t push through injuries or you can cause permanent problems. If you repeatedly get an injury see your chiropractor to figure out why and prevent permanent problems.

 

Safely Increasing Volume

Avoid letting your child skip practice. Coaches train kids to perform well and safely, but if your kid misses that training their body may not be able to handle the strain when competition comes around. If your child gets sick make sure to ease back into exercise as illness weakens the body beyond just missing practice. Discuss with a healthcare professional if you want to have more instruction on how to apply this, or any of these principles to your circumstances.

Safely having high intensity days

The best prevention is working as hard in practice as you do when performing. This way big days won’t be that big of an increase in intensity. Listen to your body and it it is screaming it needs a break, do a different activity until your body is ready for it.

At every age, make sure you are doing something physically active for at least 30 minutes at least 3 times a week. It'll give you more energy and increase motivation and enjoyment of life.

Photo by Attareza Naufal