As youth become more specialized in their sport the demands for competing continuously year-round are extreme. I know this personally as transitioning to collegiate athletics required multiple surgical procedures to have the chance to continue to compete. It is understandable that you must sacrifice to put yourself in the best position to be seen, recruited, drafted, and achieve your goals, but there is a cost and a fine line between pushing yourself and pushing it too far.
Knowing that a potentially under-developed body is going to be pushed to its limits, youth athletes must try to get ahead of the game. Begin building up support strength and endurance in sport-specific high-use areas. For instance, shoulder stability, core strength and stability, and sprint power in baseball as well as tennis. Golf athletes should continuously improve on trunk stability, core strength, and flexibility to support and prevent lower back injuries. Athletes must listen and respond to their bodies, not ignore signals our body sends to us in response to what we put it through.
Additionally, parents of youth athletes should take it upon themselves to continuously get honest feedback on their child’s health status and responses to play. From a developing athlete’s perspective, knowing your parents care more about your health than the wins and losses on the playing field can have many positive side effects.
Effort in the beginning is key and pays off in the end. Rehabilitation and injury-prevention exercises are tedious. However, take the opportunity to make it a challenge for yourself, monitor your self-talk and make thought changes to help stay positive, motivated, and process-oriented. Like I always say, find the fun! Get support by having teammates complete exercises with you. Get your family involved and challenge them to complete as many reps as you. Do what you can, while you can to get ahead of continuous breakdown on the body. Take care of what you have to adapt and accomplish!
Let it fly,
TK
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