sports injuries among young people are increasing as kids participate in sports year round this week on being well we'll learn more about sports conditioning for young athletes with my guests chat hopkins certified athletic trainer and jim donoso certified personal trainer and strength and conditioning specialists Chad and Jim will talk about ways to both prevent and treat common injuries associated with young athletes that's coming up next so stay right here Chad Jim thanks for joining us today obviously we're talking about youth sports conditioning let's discuss a little bit how you sports have changed in the last 20 years since we were all in high school yeah it's it's definitely changed since I was in high school I was in high school 20 years ago and you know it's their playing year around now you know when I was in high school when in sports summer was my time to be you know a kid and and now it's it's definitely there in something the whole summer and there's in sports all year around which is definitely more demanding on the body which the body really isn't you know suited to have all those demands on it but you know it's definitely changed in that respect there's just no offseason there's club ball and then there's the regular season and it's year round so it takes its wear and tear on the body and so it's just more competitive absolutely absolutely there's a lot of structure that wasn't there 20-30 years ago you know you can have a four or five year old kid get involved in a particular sport and specialize in it and you know go from five years old all the way up to high school and out to college so it's a it's much different than it was years ago well I think too you know it used to be you could play in sports in height you know through your school and maybe there was a summer rec program for four weeks six weeks and now there's traveling teams and there's all sorts of opportunities which is great but again you've got kids that are in the sport you're around so what kind of effects does that have on a young person to be in a sport continuously year round without any sort of break well like I said the body really isn't designed to have all that stress on it all the time so you know I'm seeing a lot more you know injuries at you know younger ages a lot more injuries other than knee ankle injuries I'm seeing a lot of stress fractures which is a direct result of you know training all you know year around a lot of stress fractures in the foot a lot of stress fractures in the lower leg and getting a lot more in the back as well so you know it's definitely a lot more stress on the body which you know it takes a toll a lot of kids coming in for performance training that have chronic pain low back ankle knee and they're carrying it with them all year and like I said there's no downtime and you know you add into the mix they parents are pushing for a strength conditioning program and it really doesn't add for our help the body much because there's just really no no time to recover none and what do you think would are the long-term effects as these kids get older and they're injured at a young age what are they going to be like when they're 30 40 50 years old I think that definitely plays a role if you're in you know if you're you start out at a younger age you have a lot of you know nicks and dings here but you get you've gotten some serious ankle injuries some serious you know knee injuries especially if you've had one or two surgeries before you get out of high school you know that definitely plays a role when you're 40 50 years old you're it speeds up the process of potentially having arthritis at an earlier age and you know so that's you know it's definitely you know affecting you as you as you get older so and that'll affect the performance of the activities of daily living to you know your quality of life will be much lower if you're in pain obviously so do you think there's a misconception that just because someone is a young athlete yeah they're not going to get injured or they can bounce back a lot faster yeah I think that is a is a concern you get a lot of let's say you know throwers baseball players if they're throwing at seven or eight years old well the thing well they're not going to throw their shoulder out at seven or eight well that's probably right but if they're throwing from seven years old and they throw tell that are 18 and then there well that's 11 years of throwing in the throat the throwing motion is is so such an abnormal and stressful event on the shoulder you know there's research that shows that every time someone throws a ball the show the rotator cuff should tear well it doesn't do that but that just proves that it's such a you know it's such a stressful event on the shoulder and if someone is throwing for 11 years well you know again when they get out into the workforce and they have to do overhead activities that definitely plays a big part so um dude young athletes who are injured do they tend to recover faster though than older athletes because they are young or not yeah well young athletes definitely recover quicker you know but that doesn't mean you can necessarily push him harder you have to get into their mindset that you know an injury could take six to eight weeks to really heal and that doesn't mean they're out for six to eight weeks they may have to rest from their activity for two or three weeks which they don't like to hear but you have to get into their mindset into the parents mindset that it takes this long and if we if we wait two or three weeks and then allow you to safely get back in it's not going to be an ongoing lingering injury so our youth sports injuries the same as adult injuries or do they how are they different in any way I would you know say there's similarities between the two but you just have to you know definitely you know treat them different as far as like I said getting their parents involved but you know we are seeing a lot more you know injuries in younger athlete especially like I said you know the stress fractures and that kind of thing where there's not as many may be an older the older population because they're not having those demands on the body but it's you know it's still a situation where like I said you just really have to educate them a little bit more than you know the older populations so so we've talked about injuries how do you prevent them in the first place and I Jim I know that's your area well we want to look at first if you're talking about athletics what are the most what are the injuries that are common to that sport and is the athlete playing all year round do they have any rest recovery time is there a true offseason and getting back to what we were talking about earlier there tends to be no more offseason anymore because there's club sports and baseball is a good example you know the kids are playing all summer you know they play through the school year and it just there's no downtime maybe maybe they're playing two sports you know they go from one sport to another and I think you need to educate the athlete and the parents that there is a necessary time for rest recovery and physical preparation to play your sport so some of the things we would do is look at for example in baseball if we know someone's coming in and they've pitched they've been pitching all here well chances are the shoulders been stressed so we want to do activities that are going to work the rotator cuff muscles that are going to kind of help prevent so when they do start throwing again they're less likely to get injured some of the exercises and drills will be very similar to what you know you would use in rehabbing an injured muscle we use them in in a prehabilitation type of context in the sense that we're doing them not necessarily because the athletes injured because we don't want the athlete to get injured so if you understand what muscles are stressed during the throwing motion for example in pitching then we can address that through training and then another important element is knowing really what drills or exercises are contraindicated for that particular athlete like for example if we know someone's coming off a long season or several months and they've been throwing we're not likely to do a lot of overhead work with them pressing movements things are going to stress the shoulder a little bit more will lay off that kind of thing and and do things that are going to kind of help the shoulder rest and recover in and get stronger for women are interested or want to get their kids involved in some sort of youth sports conditioning program what should that all entail the just weightlifting is it just cardio activities what does it what should it really involve in the end it all focuses on how well can the athlete move and how can we help lower the incidence of injury and so some of the things you'd want to look at is for example for an individual standpoint with the athlete is the athlete mature enough to be in the program if there are youth elite there can be a lot of variation between seven eight nine year old kids and we do have a lot of seven eight nine year old kids if someone really isn't physically mature to I'm sorry psychologically matured and they can't hold an attention span maybe it's best that they're not in the program right now they wait a little bit longer but if they can and they can work well in a group you know and these are things we like to sit down to parents and find out a little bit from the athletes that are kind of outside the context of just actually doing the exercise drills and things like that if they are once again in the program we can set up an age-appropriate you know program for them you've both talked about the need for rest and recovery and I know there's probably no magic number of days but in general do you have some recommendations on you know when your kids need to take a break or maybe some signs of when maybe they need to take a break from the sport as far as during like the high school year I know kids go right in from one to another there are some states that have a mandatory two-week rest period between one sport to another at currently Illinois does not have that you know it would it would definitely be a benefit if an athlete has at least two three weeks off between sports longer would be great but that time frame just isn't there from going from a football season to a basketball season there isn't that you know six week eight week 10 week period but I think there definitely needs to be a good two to three weeks off for kids just to kind of recover get their legs back underneath in order for them to safely go on to the next to the next sport as adults when we have a sports injury we usually know it's serious because we can't do our daily life activities or you know our job is hard to do but for kids you know they don't have it they don't have a job Ness maybe how does a parent know when maybe an injury is something more than that requires some sort of medical attention or physical therapy it's our way to know when it's just something minor and it or could it be something worse a lot of times in you know along a young athlete it's just a matter is it really affecting their daily activity as well not just you know can they run around the bases can they get up and down the court well can they get up and down the stairs at home are they getting out of bed and you know really limping to the bathroom can they are they having a hard time getting a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator you know all those are definite signs of there's something that we need to look at and you know it's like said you know the parents you know need to be really involved in their kids you know injuries and they need to you know be educated on you know you know like said maybe I should have this looked at instead of well they're young it'll get better so do you think sometimes because kids really love the sport that they may not own up to witness really hurts more than I kind of want to lead on do you see that we see that a lot of athletes come in and I always ask them are you sore anywhere are you hurting oh no I'm okay I'm okay and then you'll watch them do some of the drills or exercises and you know that they're not performing them the way that they were before and then you'll you probe a little bit more and say well I have a little bit of pain but it's okay and we tend to see that and more of the competitive athletes that more the Type A personalities they and probably what's made them good athletes is also you know one of their best assets but it can also be one of the worst enemies if they're not willing to pay attention their bodies and so we always tell them look we can always modify you can always do things a little differently and still try to accomplish same goal without increasing the stress on the body and you know causing an injury to become worse and then sometimes they just need time off you know there's just some times when they just need downtime and you know as a coach you have to be able to weigh those things and and know what to do but yeah I see that I see them not wanting to own up to it and then another aspect is the parents sometimes think well you're in the program you're just going to do it or you're going to play and so there's a lot of pressure from the outside so the athlete tens maybe to not own up to maybe feeling sore or you know saying that there's something wrong so let's talk a little bit about weightlifting because that's you know clearly a big part of conditioning athletes of any age and and sometimes when you talk about weightlifting and young people that maybe raises some red flags that that may not be so good for young students what what's your thoughts on that or research there is research out there that shows that with proper supervision and the right coaching weight training is completely appropriate especially with athletes I can help them prevent injuries help them get stronger perform better so the research is out there the problem is the qualified instruction and you know we see many times that if someone gets injured lifting a weight they think well it's the weight training that's bad when in fact they may have been used in too heavy a load they may not have had the proper supervision and they may they should you know maybe they shouldn't have been doing that particular driller exercise in the first place so you see a lot of that but there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with athletes you know doing resistance training the benefits are are great for children just like Dara with older adults are just trying to stay fit again the problem the problem tends to be with lack of instruction or not getting the proper instruction I would say this much it's funny because if you put a barbell or dumbbell in some of these hands especially a younger kid everybody thinks oh no this is bad but yet coaches will take young kids and strap on a football helmet or you know put them on a ice rink and have them check or crash into each other and tackle and they see nothing wrong with that even though they're the trauma and the forces to the neck and the head and and you know the knees and the body are greater than they are and any type of weight training so it is appropriate it's just you have to put it in context and educate people but and also obviously finding exercises that are age-appropriate absence you don't apply the same program to a ten-year-old that you do to an 18 year old exactly you know we see a lot of you know younger athletes maybe girls more than boys who but it's it's in both a lot of knee crashing well if you're out on the basketball court the volleyball court and your jump and in your knees are crashing all the time that's just signs of weakness in your quads a lot of weakness in your hips so that's where you know weight training and just doing exercises to it to isolate those muscle groups to prevent all that crashing because that knee crashing results in you know serious knee injuries well that's what we're trying to prevent so definitely isolated strengthening weight training to prevent that is is key so let's talk about advice for parents because clearly they are very important in this picture what kind of advice do you have for parents when it comes to and getting their kid into sports or if they're already into sports you know and there's there there child is really into it but maybe pushing it a little too too much what advice do you have I would say definitely be involved and you know be educated on on what your child is doing you know let's say over the summer during baseball if your child is in three different leagues you need to kind of monitor how many times they're pitching during the week you know 11 league could pitch one day a week 1 League can pitch 2 days a week that means there could be pitching three or four days a week so you know the parent needs to be involved you know not just show up at the games and you know kind of watch they need to really be involved and really watch their watch their you know their child are they you know are they coming home and you know like said are they just really tired are they really you know those are all just signs of the of the child being kind of rundown and fatigued and Vincent need to be educated so and just educating the parents to understand that it's not good that they play all year round and that's a hard message to bring that message many times and a lot of times the parents think if my son or daughter is not playing in every tournament every league in every day of the month for 365 days a year that somehow they're going to lose their skill and that's just simply not true they need to have a time where they can rest recover they can physically prepare to play their sports so that they don't get injured because many times what we see is athletes starting at a young age and this cycle repeats itself for years and years and by the time ten years goes by they're still young maybe they started seven or 17 and they have chronic overuse injuries psychologically they're burned out they have no desire to play into the sport anymore so in the long run if you can educate the parents that hey give them some downtime let them physically prepare give them a break where they're not playing all year the kid will have probably a greater love for the sport and less likely get injured i think i think that message will resonate and it does often times and it's positive it's a win-win for everybody so it's just education and you know you want that you want the kids parents involved in the sport and in the with the kid's life but you just have to educate all right well we're out of time I want to thank you so much for sharing great information for with us and our viewers and hopefully kids will enjoy the sport for many years to come we'll be right back with more being well after this check out all the episodes as well as demonstration segments from the being wild series visit us on youtube.com slash weei UTV coming up next sports trainer Chad Hopkins will show us some preseason exercises that are good for any type of overhead activity sports like baseball volleyball and tennis today we're going to show you some exercises that I like to do a good six weeks before season starts particularly baseball throwers volleyball players and tennis players any overhead activity sports that are good to do like I said six weeks before it prepares the shoulder for the rigorous strain that gets caused on the shoulder during that activity so first exercise we like to do is called internal and external rotation at zero degrees I'm going to make sure and keep your elbow towards the body and you rep out 15 and external rotation a little faster and then jump right into internal rotation without any rest he would normally do three sets of 15 each direction so he's doing three sets of 15 internal three sets of 15 external rotation all in one setting without rest the next exercise we want to do is internal and external rotation but at 90 degrees so the shoulders at 90 degrees he's just spinning around his elbow again we'll do 3 sets of 12 this way do 12 and then spin around and then 12 external rotation shoulders at 90 spinning up to 90 degrees of it at the elbow the next exercise we like to do is called a row and a pinch it's designed to help strengthen muscles between the shoulder blade in order to get the shoulder blade to be able to be stable to with stand throwing so he's going to row this back and pinch his shoulder blades together if you had a nerf ball between your shoulder blades you would just pinch it he's going to do three sets of 12 next exercise is similar to the one before this time he's going to row back and tell his elbows hit his body and then he's going to flare out it really activates the posterior shoulder muscles when you do the flare again it's three sets of 12 the last exercise I'd like to do is a diagonal pattern what you do is you start with your thumb on your opposite leg you come up at an angle like your pull pulling a sword out of its sheath and as you pull out you're rotating your thumb up and as you go down you're rotating your thumb back down again you're doing three sets of 10 this time so again these are some exercises that you can do in order to strengthen your rotator cuff and scapular muscles you can easily do them with thera-band or tubing you can wrap those around your doorknob and do the strengthening that are good to do a good six weeks before your season starts I hope these are some exercises that are beneficial and hope that you stay safe through your sporting events thanks for watching this episode of being well and don't forget if you have questions or comments about the show please email them to us at weei you at wiu net we'll see you next time you