February 14th, 2008

Time

It ought to be hard to take the fun out of play, but if you're an overambitious parent or coach with a young athlete in your charge, you may have managed to do it. Weekly sessions of intensive muscle-strengthening, grueling push-up regimens and long intervals on fast-paced treadmills are becoming common for grade-school kids. Elite training centers that promise to give young athletes an edge during the off-season have been popping up since 2000, especially in affluent sections of New England and the Midwest. 

To sports-medicine professionals, that's a worrying trend. Hard-core training can do kids more harm than good--particularly if they're under 12. As more children are pushed beyond their physical limits, sports injuries once reserved largely for the pros are turning up in the playground set.

A young body that's worked too hard can suffer in a lot of ways, but it's the bones that take the worst pounding. Activities like skating uphill on a Plexiglas surface, which allows skaters to strengthen their strides, or doing the explosive muscle-building movements known as plyometrics can wreak havoc on the skeletal system, particularly the epiphyseal plate, or growth plate, which is essential in bone development--a process that is not complete until the late teens.

Read on...