Know the signs of overuse
Traumatic sports injuries — like broken collarbones, torn ligaments and concussions — sideline countless student and professional athletes. But acute injuries are only one side of what Silvis sees on a regular basis.
“Overuse injuries are really predictable,” Silvis said. “We use the ’rule of toos’ — too much, too fast, too often. When kids are in the position to overuse certain muscle groups or joints, that’s when they start to break down and have injuries.”
Silvis said that he seldom sees student-athletes at the time of their injury. Instead, they’ve typically experienced soreness or aching for weeks or months, which then develops into enough pain to indicate an injury. He said that many parents and coaches mistakenly attribute this pain to normal "growing pains," but Silvis warned that dismissing these concerns can lead to more serious injuries.
“It’s likely not a growing pain. It’s the onset of an overuse injury, and when that happens, eventually the student athlete can’t participate in their given sport,” Silvis said.
One way parents and coaches can identify injuries is to know what to look for. Signs of injury can include:
- Swelling of joints or soft tissue
- Tenderness in a specific point of the body
- Missing practices due to pain
Listen and act early
One of the best ways parents can help their kids stay in the game is to listen to their concerns and act early, Silvis said. With swift attention to pain and discomfort, he said student-athletes can often continue to play while healing, while ignoring pain for too long may mean they have to take a break from sports completely to heal.
“Anchoring coaches and parents to sport guidelines can really help. Take baseball, for example. If we follow USA Baseball's recommendations for pitch counts, we can avoid overuse injuries to the shoulder or elbow,” he said. “We might recommend runners decrease the number of miles they run by 50% until their overuse injury starts to heal, and they no longer have discomfort. But that way, they still get to participate, and they can be social with their friend group.”
Avoid same sport stress
Olympia, like many student-athletes, pushes herself to excel, and what was once an annual season for volleyball has now become a year-round pursuit. Pediatric specialization, or letting a child under age 12 focus on one sport for more than eight months a year, can lead to overuse injuries. Fortunately, Silvis said there’s an easy way to avoid those injuries — parents can encourage their kids to diversify their activities to work their bodies in different ways.
Silvis co-authored a 2018 study on pediatric sports specialization in elite ice hockey players. His research found that top-level players usually started specializing in that sport at age 14. Early specialization didn’t increase their odds of excelling and can increase risk of overuse injuries.
That doesn’t mean that students have to sit out a season altogether. The key is to use different parts of the body throughout the year.
“It's not a problem if the sports are different. If you golf in the fall, play basketball in the winter and run track in the spring, you're using different parts of your anatomy,” Silvis said. “It's a much bigger problem if you're playing the same sport year-round. So the diversity in the balance of activities is really the key.”