Noted: The prime injury culprits are specialization — which the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health defines as participation in a single sport for more than 8 months of the year — and overtraining.
A groundbreaking 2017 University of Wisconsin study of 1,544 Wisconsin high school athletes found that those who specialized were 70% more likely to sustain a lower extremity injury than athletes who played multiple sports.
“Should we really be asking our young kids to do what we’re asking our collegiate athletes?” asked David Bell, associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Wisconsin Injury in Sport Laboratory.
“Kids aren’t programmed to do a single sport for 15 to 20 hours a week for the entire year.”