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- Why kids get injured
What causes most childhood sports injuries?
Most child and teenage sports injuries that do not involve a collision or fall, usually occur when children exceed the current capacity of the muscles, tendons, or bones. They occur when what they do exceeds what they have trained for, or the body’s capacity to do that amount of activity has dropped due to factors like poor sleep, nutrition, or illness.
- Parent Guide
Are injuries caused by doing too much?
We can all recognise that if we tried to run a marathon without training or went to the gym 7 days a week after an absence of many months, we would be asking for trouble. Children are just the same. They need time for their body to adapt to what they do.
How do I know if my child is doing too much?
Think of a child’s energy like a phone battery or fuel tank. When it’s full, they’re unstoppable. But growth spurts, busy sports schedules, poor sleep, illness, stress, or not eating enough for what they do can drain that energy fast. This often shows up as aches, sore throats, moodiness, lack of motivation, or irregular periods in girls. If they seem run down or ill, let them train but at lower intensity focussing on tactics or technique, or better yet, skip training and recharge with an early night, or a relaxing movie at home.
Do growth spurts cause injuries in children?
Some children are more vulnerable to injury during growth spurts. It takes time to adjust to longer limbs and they become less coordinated for a time. Patience is key in giving them time to adapt to their body. Growth also creates greater tension and compression at the site where the muscle attaches via a tendon to the bone causing traction type injuries such as Sever's or Osgood Schlatter's. A sudden spike in activity can exceed the capacity of the tendon attachment to the bone and causes irritation of the growth plate and soft tissues. This results in pain local to the point of attachment of the tendon, (not the tendon itself) and is aggravated when they run, jump and hopping and settles with rest. These injuries are known as an apophysitis.
Heel Pain
Where the Achilles tendon attaches to the heel bone. This is called Sever’s. Download the e-book
Knee Pain
Just below the kneecap where the quadriceps muscle attaches to the top of the shin bone. This is called Osgood Schlatter’s and results in pain on jumping, running, kicking, squatting and kneeling. They often get a small swelling over the attachment from the repeated traction forces. Download the e-book
Do children get stress fractures?
It is not uncommon for children to get a bone stress injury (often called a stress fracture), especially during the big adolescent growth spurt when bones get longer, and yet for a short time, the bone is not as strong or able to tolerate sudden changes in activity.
The body is clever. In response to a sudden change or spike in activity, the bone gets “bruised” and recognises it needs to make itself stronger. But that process takes a few weeks. During that time, the new, immature bone is more vulnerable to injury. These can occur in the shin, hip bone or lower back bones. The child may experience intermittent, niggly pain, stiffness or an ache on activity, but it quickly settles when they stop. Provided it has time to do so, the bone adapts to the new activity level and the bone bruise settles down.
If the pain is ignored, and the bone does not have the chance to adapt, it may develop a small hair line crack in the outer surface of the bone. These are not serious but do require a period of prolonged rest and rehabilitation often lasting 4-6 months. The sooner, we identify the bone is being “stressed” beyond its capacity, the less chance of a stress fracture occurring and the misery of months out.
- Low Back Pain
Sporty children with low back pain should not play with pain and rest for 2 weeks. If their pain recurs, they need assessing by a healthcare professional.
Bone stress injuries are the most common cause of low back pain in sporty children, especially in those who do repetitive sports involving arching the lower back like bowling in cricket, tennis serving, gymnastics and kicking a ball.
Early diagnosis is essential to ensure that these injuries do not progress from a bone bruise to a hairline stress fracture. At the first sign of low back pain or stiffness whilst playing sport, children should stop playing sport for 2 weeks to allow the bone to adapt. If the symptoms recur on returning to activity, it is essential to get an assessment from a healthcare professional who has the necessary training in younger athletes to accurately diagnose your child and give them the right advice. These types of conditions are not taught to health professionals at undergraduate level so do check they have undergone further training in this field.
