Overuse Injuries in children and adolescents
By Jack Nuske
20/03/2023
Kids always love the school holidays, getting to hang out with friends and doing everything they don’t usually get to do while at school. I remember going out for surfs at dawn, playing around at the soccer fields, riding my bike from each mates house and back up a 1km hill home – and this was usually all in a days work. This was all on top of what I usually did while at school: swim training, soccer training and matches, cross country/endurance running, more surfing. That’s a whole lot of physical activity and exercise! Plus, a whole lot of extra time to sleep and recover from all that activity. On the flip side, some years I was even lucky enough to go away/overseas and then be doing very little exercise or physical activity.
While being physically active is great and we should encourage it – it’s common to forget that all this extra activity is physically demanding and can increase the risk of overuse injuries in growing kids. The same can be said for those that do very little activity during the holidays. It’s common to see children develop overuse injuries in holiday times, and particularly in those first few weeks of returning to school. Increased stress levels when returning to school, less sleeping/sleep-ins (or jetlag) and an increase in the frequency of structured training session are all factors that can further the risk of injury.
As parents, coaches and sometimes the proactive kid, it’s important to appreciate this increased risk and act accordingly.
- Coaches: planning lighter intensity or shorter training sessions, gradually increasing back to normal over a few sessions, having an appropriate warm up and recovery between training, and monitoring your players for niggles/injuries
- Parents: ensuring your kids get enough sleep, are eating enough (ideally healthy) foods, settle back into school and aren’t overtraining
- Kids/players: acting quickly on those injuries or slight niggles, managing how much you’re doing and when you feel it’s too much -> communicating with your parents and coaches
Getting on top of overuse injuries in their early stages is crucial as it can reduce or prevent how long they stick around for, and most importantly decrease the risk of missing out on playing the sports you love!
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