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The Epedemic Ruining Youth Sports

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    #16
    For my money, the real epidemic is ACL/MCL injuries. Especially among young women.

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      #17
      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
      Growing kids would benefit from dedicated downtime. Multiple sports is best and skipping indoor winter soccer entirely is a great idea. Plenty of options for distraction and allow healing.
      Agree on all fronts, especially resisting the temptation to play/train indoor soccer. Bad surfaces, lots of pressure from clubs and coaches to play, and doesn't translate well to the real game.

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        #18
        So yeah, this is all on the parents for sure. If you read carefully the doctors comments, kids some time ago might play sports year round, but typically it was a different sport per season which stressed the body parts in different ways and most kids didn't do organized sports in the summer. These days, kids might play soccer pretty much year round plus other sports throughout the year. Parents need to read what is going on with their kids bodies and not let them overdo it, and reign them in when you see issues. Kids won't stop on their own. On my son's club team this year one of the boys had issues with OS...he not only plays club soccer, but also town soccer, rec basketball, competitive basketball, and club lacrosse. He is only twelve and had some bad knees this year. My son developed some nasty heel pain during the fall season, and his pediatrician ordered two weeks of rest with zero athletics including gym class at school. She read me the riot act about excess activities at such a young age and the ortho told me the same thing. So we now take the summer off completely and make sure that he has no sports at least 2-3 days per week. To each his own, but I don't want to see long term injury.

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          #19
          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
          So yeah, this is all on the parents for sure. If you read carefully the doctors comments, kids some time ago might play sports year round, but typically it was a different sport per season which stressed the body parts in different ways and most kids didn't do organized sports in the summer. These days, kids might play soccer pretty much year round plus other sports throughout the year. Parents need to read what is going on with their kids bodies and not let them overdo it, and reign them in when you see issues. Kids won't stop on their own. On my son's club team this year one of the boys had issues with OS...he not only plays club soccer, but also town soccer, rec basketball, competitive basketball, and club lacrosse. He is only twelve and had some bad knees this year. My son developed some nasty heel pain during the fall season, and his pediatrician ordered two weeks of rest with zero athletics including gym class at school. She read me the riot act about excess activities at such a young age and the ortho told me the same thing. So we now take the summer off completely and make sure that he has no sports at least 2-3 days per week. To each his own, but I don't want to see long term injury.
          I agree that parents own a large part of the responsibility to make sure kids rest. But keep in mind some kids are unstoppable. Some just have high pain thresholds, or are so mentally tough that they push through it. Doesn't help that in the media they receive all kinds of messages about being tough, from Gatorade to Nike ads, ESPN.

          But what really doesn't help is that youth sports has pushed into this quasi professionalization, where they're pushed as young as 10-11 years old to pick one sport and train almost all year round. Most sports run almost all year round and coaches are often completely inflexible in allowing kids to miss practices or games because of another sport. So then choices have to be made and kid lose the physical and emotional benefit of playing different sports. If their kids are being pushed to chose either outright or because of the constant conflicts, take a step back and have multiple heart to heart discussions with their children. Maybe stepping down a level in one or more sports would be the solution. Parents should also have frank discussions with coaches about trying to find solutions if possible (we've found a few over the years willing to work with us, even if it meant not starting games etc). Parents have to remember that in the long run the likelihood of their kid going pro or even playing a sport in college is incredibly low. If your really have a Pulisic in your house? Ok. But you most likely don't. Kids only have one chance to be kids.

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