Is early sports specialization hurting our kids? (Part I)

[Peak PT Administrator 0]

by Karen Napierala, PT, AT, MS, CAFS

I vividly remember pick-up baseball. Hockey in the street. That one season where we were unstoppable. Maybe watching from the sidelines while the rest of the team slayed their opponent. Do those great memories of youth energize you? Have you thought about why you want your own kids to play sports?

Are you looking to instill toughness, teach life rules? To buuild friendships, gain prestige? Maybe it's to keep them active and out of trouble, or maybe even earn a scholarship? These are all worthy goals. But why do our kids play sports? Simple...Because they love playing sports! 

Reality check: Only 6% of high school athletes go on to play college sports. The odds of winning an NCAA athletic scholarship are 2% and many of those scholarships are not full scholarships. Only 2% of all youth go on to professional sports.Why is it that 90% of parents believe that their child is in that 2%? And, a U.S. poll shows that 70% of kids actually quit sports for life after age 13. This trend is happening all around us. WHY? Here are a couple of possible reasons: 

The “adultifying” of sports. Many kids are being forced at a young age to play the sport for 9 to 10—even 11 months—a year. Even professional athletes take off 1 to 2 months from their sport every year to recharge mentally and physically! Parents can get caught up in thinking that their kids will be “behind” if they don’t play year round and on travel teams. A new study of more than 3,000 athletes ranging from high school to professional revealed that those who played only through high school began to specialize at  an average age of 12.7, while collegiate and professional athletes specialized when they were over 14!

Kids' sports are big business. Parents can and do drop thousands of dollars per year on travel sports. In 2015 it was a 15 billion dollar business!

So, is early sport specialization eroding youth? Let me share my experiences and perspectives, both as a professional physical therapist and as a parent of four athletes. 

Kids who are self motivated may do well. These are the kids who are willing to go out and practice on their own just because they truly love the sport (maybe 10% of kids!). The ones who are shooting around outside until you make them come in when it gets dark! I have seen these kids, but they are far and few between and a coach's dream.

Overall physical literacy has declined. Playing one sport develops a pattern of movement specific to that sport alone. For example, tennis develops specific muscles and patterns necessary for only tennis...which would not help with gymnastics or swimming. On the other hand, a sport like tennis can help with volleyball or throwing sports. Not only do they use complementary muscles, but the patterns between sports are similar, and the development of visual tracking can also cross over between sports. Coaches are calling for kids to just “play” or participate in multiple sports through the high school level to develop different muscles, hand-eye coordination, depth perception, and reaction times.

Stay tuned...I'll share the rest of my thoughts on early sports specialization in Part II next week!

Karen