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From Overuse Injuries and Burnout in Youth Sports: A Position Statement from the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine[i], medical professionals teamed up to determine the risk factors of overuse injuries in young athletes.  There are two main groupings of factors that play into an overuse injury including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Every sport and athlete is different, therefore it is important to note that some risk factors are modifiable such as strength and neuromuscular function and others are not such as age, gender, and prior injury.

Intrinsic factors are those that include variations in growth and development, anatomic alignment, muscle-tendon imbalance, flexibility, conditioning, biomechanics, and a history of prior injury.  Extrinsic factors include workload, sport technique, training environment, and equipment.  Generally, multiple risk factors combined may lead to overuse injuries in youth athletes.

From the lists above, Physical Therapists can play a vital role in sport readiness and injury prevention through their knowledge and expertise of  anatomic alignment (via potential use of orthotics), muscle-tendon balance (flexibility), conditioning (endurance and preseason preparation), and biomechanics to ensure our future generations of athletes are sport ready and preventing injury.

For more information on what PRO can do for young athletes see our page regarding our Sports Medicine services!

[i] DiFiori, J.P.; Benjamin, H.J.; Brenner, J.; Gregory, A.; Jayanthi, N.; Landry, G.L.; Luke, A. Overuse injuries and burnout in youth sports: A position statement from the american medical society for sports medicine. Clin. J. Sport Med. 2014, 24, 3–20.