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Mend Physical Therapy Blog and Injury Information

Overuse Injuries in Adolescent Athletes

August 20, 2015

High school fall sports are around the corner. Recently sports medicine professional have noticed an increase in the rates of overuse injuries among adolescent (13-17 y.o.) males and females. Growth factors; lack of cross training and increased volume of training may contribute to this increase in injuries. In particular, these last two factors may allow clinicians to identify individuals most at risk for overuse injury and loss of practice and competition time. A recent article in the Journal of Pediatrics (Schroeder et al. 2015) analyzed athletes in 20 sports over a 7 year period and found females were found to be a greater risk of injury than males and in particular female track and field hockey athletes were at the greatest risk of overuse injury. Half of these injuries resulted in greater than 1 week off of training and competition. For more information on how to prevent adolescent overuse injuries contact the experts at MEND.