Sporting Scholars

Your adolescent athlete has weaker growth plates than ligaments. Fractures and growth plate injuries are more likely than a sprain at their age. Lingering soreness isn’t always just ‘part of the game’ or from ‘working hard’.

@NEsportsdoc Agree fully, but parents/guardians all focus so heavily on the physical which is important….but the mental aspect and what it means to overall health and physical performance and just happiness of our children is oft overlooked.

@SportingScholar Mental aspect is definitely one of them. This is an age where the competitive gap narrows. Parents are not just observer’s in their lives, they need to be well educated on the mental and physical aspects of the sport and teams they play for.

70% of kids are not dropping out of sports by 13. That’s a 40 year old statistic. Over 50% of HS kids are playing sports. Does that mean we shouldn’t be reevaluating youth sports? Absolutely not. Youth injuries are on a major upward trend. 🔥Kids are NOT smaller adults!🔥

@CoachMarcusHill Or parents/guardians are so over the top about winning it desensitizes youth athletes to just want the game over and to move along to something more fun

Room temperature take: today’s young athlete plays so many games that they rarely care much about losing anymore.

@Recliningdad @BradleyGloves This! ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

@BradleyGloves My response is who cares (normally in a polite way). The ages of 16-18 reveal a truth. Who is an athlete. Who has character. Who understands technique. Who didn’t waste time as their parents got drunk in a Hampton Inn lobby.

When a travel ball parent brags about their kid's team's amazing record, and how they're crushing the opposition, my response is always that they need to start playing teams that can beat them, even if that means playing up an age group.

It’s the culture of prioritizing parental dreams and desires above health and wellness of your youth athlete/child. Parents drive the youth sports machine financially, but fear of ‘falling behind’ and allowing other parents and youth coaches to sell upside in the overuse moments (ie: showcases and tournaments) as ‘opportunities’ needs to be better examined as parents/guardians in a risk-reward balance

This is the culture issue nobody wants to name directly. The same parents screaming about arm injuries are also screaming at coaches to throw Johnny more in the tournament. I've seen it hundreds of times. The arm isn't the problem — the culture around youth baseball has zero structure around load management.

I’d love to know how many of these baseball dads getting outraged about the Tommy John epidemic are the same ones paying hundreds of dollars a year for their 10 year old to go to showcases and pitch 4 games a weekend

@KCH_76 @JimA6to4to3 Only argument to this statement is they are injured chickens because their eggs are cracked as a youth so we know the order….egg well before chicken

@SportingScholar @JimA6to4to3 what came first the chicken or the egg?

@JimA6to4to3 @KCH_76 🔥🔥

@SportingScholar @KCH_76 Correct! Hence why I said more than once a pitcher only has so many pitches in his arm.

@DanJMasters @wrcoachtu87 @CoachReedLive To help me here, I can agree we can’t lump EVERY youth sports league into same silo….but how can we not say with certainty that money and illusions of grandeur are not running the youth sports landscape currently

@wrcoachtu87 @CoachReedLive I beg to differ. It’s not all lumped in at same thought. We found value in Club and travel sports.

I will die on this hill. I will argue till I’m blue in the face. I will produce the data. Participation in youth sports/activities is as important as many of the classes my kids take at school. Maybe more important.

@FlashPerform @DanJMasters I will start this off by saying I agree fully, but how youth sports is being run and handled as a whole through parents unreal demands and pressures is starting to diminish the value and lessons.

@DanJMasters I’ll die with you on this hill. And there is no maybe to it. Youth sports and physical education classes are two of the most important developmental things in a child’s life.

@FS_Rehab Agree with you fully, but unfortunately those are not going to show in ‘stat line’ and bring bragging rights so parents and many ignore their importance

@SportingScholar Looking at the athlete as a whole (sleep, recovery, workload, movement quality, nutrition, and so on) is what actually supports long term development and injury reduction.

Strength training is safe for kids when done right.

Sadly, over involved parents looking at close to unattainable pots of gold and succumbing to pressures from other parents and the proverbial ‘keeping up’ mentality. If we used skilled and respected facilities and instructors the right way, and competition came with an understanding of fun and sportsmanship (and appreciation for coaches), so much of this would be in a better place

@SportingScholar I would certainly agree that all these things are happening. Is the question why youth baseball can’t simply revolve around fun?

Recording a new episode of The Worlds Most Dangerous Youth Baseball Podcast today. Other than coaches fighting umpires and horrendous pitching workload abuse 🙃, anybody got anything else they want to talk about? Drop questions here and I’ll fire off some answers

@FS_Rehab Well stated and in 2026 we need to appreciate the holistic view of athlete growth and total body stress in a controlled manner

In fact, many injuries in youth sports come from poor movement patterns or lack of strength, not from structured training itself. The key isn’t avoiding resistance, it’s making sure it’s introduced in a progressive, controlled, and age appropriate way.

@CoachDHansen 👏🏻

The American Academy of Pediatrics SUPPORTS youth strength training (with proper supervision). Here's what research actually shows: Growth plate injuries come from contact sports & overuse—not the weight room Properly programmed lifting IMPROVES bone density. Light resistance training with correct form is completely safe for young athletes. Your athlete isn't too fragile for strength training. They're actually missing out on a foundation that protects them from injury.

@KCH_76 @JimA6to4to3 But….hang with me here….MLB is now inheriting these athletes who are of this new generation. Fair to say more injuries to the youth is going to find its way to the highest level as they enter the sport more and more injured annually?

@JimA6to4to3 yup and I was just pointing out MLB has taken a HUGE step backwards with injuries, not forward....so probably not the best of role models.....

@seclmw @IHateSoccerPod All 3

@IHateSoccerPod The most hidden aspects in youth sports are: (1) the real cost to participate; (2) injuries; (3) where the money goes; * * *

Just got a message. A parents club looked into their clubs finances being a 5013c and saw that between their Boys & Girls ECNL and RL teams… potentially 24 teams I guess… That club paid $440k to the ECNL in 2025.

@YouthSportsRx And it just creates good habits as they grow/develop! Great post….

📊 Proper neuromuscular warm-up programs reduce lower extremity injuries by 35% across all youth sports. Five minutes of prevention beats months of rehab. Source: Herman et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine (2012) #WarmUp #InjuryPrevention #YouthSports

But tendons are reliant upon stress, and if you believe the science then stress is what pushes tendon health to maintain and healthy collagen formation. Now, there are certainly other factors such as diet, medication, and underlying structural concerns that we could get into, but I struggle to blame sports specialization in youth sports as the driver of Achilles tearing….and I am someone who is 100% anti-sport specialization.

@FastbreakHoops5 Sports specialization in youth sports and over training is what is driving the Achilles tears

This is actually crazy when you think about it.

Most coaches treat youth athletes like small adults…they’re not! Adult training loads applied to a 12 year old don’t build toughness, they damage the tissue and developing bones increasing injury risk

If you bend a paperclip once, that’s not a problem. Bend it over and over and it snaps! Overuse injuries are turning your youth athletes body into that paperclip if you let damage accumulate and ignore rest/recovery.