Specializing into sports too early could be causing young athletes to get injured and put their health in danger and their athletic goals out of reach.
Channel 2 Sports Director Zach Klein spoke to trainers and doctors and dug into the emerging research to learn what parents and athletes can do to protect themselves and their future.
No matter the sport, overtraining injuries can be a massive setback to athletes.
Delaney Bruening lives for dance, competing at the highest levels.
Now 17, she’s been in and out of the studio since she was two years old.
“I lived in Orlando, had a little purple costume and a tutu,” Bruening said. “I stood on stage and watched the demonstrator because I did not know that dance at three years old.”
Nearly a decade and a half later, she teaches others to dance at the same studio.
“I’ll get here at four, teach until seven, have class from seven to 9:30,” Bruening said. “Do it again the next day.”
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Her commitment has pushed her to excel, winning multiple championships at national dance adjudications.
But a knee injury almost brought her dance career tumbling down. After surgery and time off, she was ready to bounce back.
“I was back for about a month and a half,” Bruening said. “Then it happened again.”
Her second injury pushed her to take the recovery slower to protect her chance of dancing again, taking every day one step at a time for months.
Injuries like Bruening’s are becoming more common across the country as more young athletes put their focus into one sport rather than multiple.
“Doing the same thing over and over, seven days a week, you’re going to set yourself up for one of these overuse injuries,” said Dr. Matthew Vosters, a pediatrician with Children’s Health of Atlanta.
He works with young athletes to help them get back in the game when they get injured, and he says part of the reason these injuries are happening is because their bodies haven’t had a chance to finish growing.
“A lot of the overuse injuries that kids have are because they’re kids,” Dr. Vosters said.
Medical research has been building evidence of the risks for years.
In baseball, a 2024 study in the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine shows elbow surgeries for high-speed throwing are more common than ever for teens.
And another study in the Journal of Athletic training shows running sports are even more at risk than popular sports like football and men’s basketball: men’s track athletes get overuse injuries nearly three times more often, while girls cross-country athletes see over six times more overuse injuries.
Injury rates could be even worse, with some never getting reported.
“The communication barriers between all of these spaces, the coach, the PT, the trainer, it feels siloed nowadays,” said Gabriel Blanco, a trainer who works with elite athletes in Marietta, Georgia.
Blanco has worked with some of the best athletes in the world, and he says communication between athletes and their coaches is a key factor in avoiding injuries. He says parents pushing their kids need to be aware of the risks.
“You can do a lot of work to try to mitigate some of the injuries kids are seeing,” Blanco said. “The onus is on you to inform yourself as much as possible about how the body works.”
And there’s simple ways to help young athletes stay healthy, starting with rest.
“The science speaks for itself, right?” Blanco said. “You don’t sleep, injury rates go up.”
Even though it’s tough to balance sleep with studies, sports and staying active socially, pushing too hard hurts all three.
“That’s not just missed time training,” Dr. Vosters said. “That’s missed time around their friends, missed time doing the things that they enjoy doing.”
When Bruening hurt her knee, that was the first thing she thought of.
She remembers telling her surgeon the procedure had to go quickly so she could make it into the studio by six.
“He was like, oh you’re not going to dance tonight,” Bruening said. “I was like, what?”
Throughout the months of recovery, she spent as much time as she could with her team.
“That’s how it was every day since then,” Bruening said. “I got to go get there and sit down, and I would literally just sit at the front to watch my team.”
She says in the process, she still was able to learn and grow thanks to the support of the other dancers at the studio.
“They’re supportive,” Bruening said. “They’re like, if you’re not ready do not come back, and if you don’t want to come back, don’t. Don’t feel pressured.”
Despite their concern, Bruening trusted herself, saying she listened to her body to know when it was time to step back into competition.
“I just love it,” Bruening said. “I have loved it since I was two years old. I wouldn’t change for the world.”
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