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By Christina Dunmyer
April 5th, 2008
JOHNSTOWN — Veteran coaches know that the most frequent youth athletic injuries occur in football, gymnastics and hockey. Many even know that 52.4 percent of all skin infections occur in wrestlers. But that didn’t stop them, and younger coaches, from attending the Regional Resource Trauma Center at Memorial Medical Center’s Health and the Youth Athlete clinic Saturday.
“The reason I have my whole football staff involved is education,” said Windber head coach Phil DeMarco, who enters his 24th season in the fall. “We have heard several of these topics in the past, but we are always trying to protect the kids. That is the No. 1 priority. I made a few notes that I would like to address with the great training staff we have at Windber.”
Tom Causer, Trauma Coordinator for the event said, between 160-170 youth and junior and senior high coaches and officials, from several counties, attended the five hour clinic.
Dr. Lee Miller, Trauma and Critical Care Surgeon, and speaker on brain and nervous system injuries said, “We’re very happy with the turnout. We didn’t expect quite this many people.”
By the Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue's Community Relations Team
April 8th, 2008
Spring has arrived! And as the weather becomes nicer, individuals are spending more time outdoors enjoying a variety of outdoor activities and sports especially our youth. And although being active is healthy for the mind, body and soul you are susceptible to injuries as well.
According to Safe Kids USA, each year, more than 3.5 million children, in the U.S. under the age of 15 are treated for sports injuries. Older children are more prone to sports-related injuries because they are larger, faster and more competitive. This particular age group, 5 to 14, account for nearly 40 percent of all sports-related injuries treated at emergency rooms.
In team sports, the majority of injuries (62 percent) occur during practice, not games, with the extent of those injuries ranging from heat illness to traumatic head and neck injury (21 percent of all traumatic brain injuries are sports or recreation related), with cardiac disease being the number one cause of death among athletes.
| Krista Charke |
| The Daily News |
It used to be that children would change sports with each season or balance two or more sports at the same time.
Nowadays, it's more common for children as young as five years old to train in one sport year-round.
Rick Bevis, sports psychologist and professor of sport, health and physical education at Malaspina University-College, thinks parents are the main force behind the growing trend.
"Parents have stars in their eyes. They treat their kids like little professionals," said Bevis.
What the parents aren't taking into consideration, Bevis says, are the technical, physical and psychological damages limiting a child to one sport can cause.
Early specialization can lead to physical and psychological burnout, loss of transferable athletic skills, a greater risk of overuse and repetitive stress injuries, higher levels of pre-competitive anxiety and difficulty coping with athletic failure.
"Children who play one sport for a long period of time don't get to use different muscle groups, obtain an uneven body balance and their movement patterns become rigid and uniform," he said.
The Journal of the American Chiropractic Association says that the period between the ages of five to 13 should be "sampling years." A time when children can try a variety of sports with a de-emphasis on competition and winning.
February 14th, 2008
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.
| Adirondack CC | 4/1 & 4/8 |
| Broome CC | June 7, 2008 |
| Cayuga CC | Fall 2008 |
| Clinton CC | May 27, 2008 |
| Corning CC | |
| Columbia-Greene CC | July 19, 2008 |
| Dutchess CC | May 18, 2008 |
| Erie CC | TBA |
| F.I.T. | TBA |
| Finger Lakes CC | June 11th, 2008 |
| Fulton-Montgomery CC | May 15, 2008 |
| Herkimer CC | June 17th 2008 |
| Hudson Valley CC | May 6, 2008 |
| Jamestown CC | March 2008 |
| Jefferson CC | May 21, 2008 |
| Mohawk Valley CC | March 29, 2008 |
| Monroe CC | TBA |
| Nassau CC | 3/1 & 3/11 |
| Niagara CC | June 18, 2008 |
| Onondaga CC | April 26, 2008 |
| SUNY Orange CC | TBA |
| SUNY Rockland CC | May 6, 2008 |
| Schenectady CC | Summer 2008 |
| Suffolk CC | June 6, 2008 |
| Sullivan CC | TBA |
| Tompkins Cortland CC | May 5, 2008 |
| Ulster CC | October 7, 2008 |
| Westchester CC | 6/9, 7/16, and 8/14, 2008 |
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