Introduction
Juniors are not immune to injuries. Especially when a junior is performing at a high level of competition, these athletes are almost more susceptible to injuries. The increased load of training and possible inefficiencies in technique (biomechanics) can significantly increase the risk of injury. Below I will be discussing injuries that I see most commonly in juniors aged 14 and under.
What should I look out for?
Ankle Sprains
The ones we see most relate to rolling the ankle or spraining the ankle. However, the rehab time for this injury is usually relatively short. That being said, proper rehab must be done to prevent the injury from happening again or from getting progressively worse which could lead to being out of the sport for 4-6 months.
Lower Back Pain
We also see a lot of issues with lower back pain that starts just before or during the major growth phase. When juniors grow rapidly, they can sometimes lose the technique that they’ve practiced when they were a certain height. Also, the increased load of training, combined with inefficient technique can increase the chance of lower back pain. We want to go back and emphasize technique when this occurs, so we don’t cause the most common type of back pain in juniors. The areas we see have the biggest issues is pain around L4,L5, S1 area of the spine. The severe cases end up being stress reactions or even stress fractures. Many of these are overuse and technique caused injuries. Many of the these are highly preventable with the right technical adjustments as well as effectively structuring load using a periodization plan specifically designed for the age and stage of the athlete.
Knee Pain
Knee related growth pain is one of the most challenging of all growth related pain that is seen in junior players. The reason is that it is rarely completely debilitating, but it provides enough pain and discomfort to reduce training, limit movement and just reduce the optimization of training. Many different types of knee pain occur, but most are related to tightness of the quadricep, lack of strength and stability in the hamstring, glute muscles and the speed of growth that the body has not yet been able to adjust to.
Shoulder Pain
Finally, shoulder pain can start to emerge in juniors who demonstrate poor technique, poor posture or excessively train at a level above and beyond what the body can handle. This should be remedied by focusing really carefully on the technique to prevent the malingering shoulder pain.
Here is a great shoulder exercises that can be incorporated 3-4 days per week to help with prevention of shoulder related injuries. This movement trains the decelerators of the shoulder. The decelerations are the muscles that help slow the arm down.
Insert 90/90 Shoulder Self Throw & Catch. Mp4
One of our partners at the Kovacs Institute is Dr. Neeru Jayanthi who is the Director of the Tennis Medicine Program at Emory Medical Center. We work closely with Dr. Jayanthi and his team on many aspects of youth sport training and research. Learn more about Dr. Jayanthi below:
Dr. Jayanthi leads Emory’s Tennis Medicine program and is considered one of the country’s leading experts on youth sports health, injuries, and sports training patterns, as well as an international leader in tennis medicine. He is currently the President of the International Society for Tennis Medicine and Science (STMS) and a certified USPTA teaching professional. He has also been a volunteer ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) physician for 15 years, serves as a medical advisor for the WTA (Woman’s Tennis Association) Player Development Panel, and is on the commission for the International Tennis Performance Association (ITPA). He has been selected to the board of directors for the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) twice, and serves as a Consultant for the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, Aspen Institute Sport and Society Program, and Mom’s Team. Dr. Jayanthi has won multiple AMSSM Foundation Research Grants for his collaborative research on early sports specialized training and overuse injury in young athletes. He previously was the medical director of primary care sports medicine at Loyola University Chicago for 12 years where he was voted a “Top Doctor” in the Chicagoland Suburbs prior to being recruited to Emory.
Here are a few articles that may be of interest:
Sport Specialization Recommendations – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1941738112464626
Training Risks of Sport Specialization – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0363546514567298
Injury profile in junior tennis players: a prospective two year study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20238099
Risk factors for injuries in elite youth tennis players https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/4/402.3
Interested in learning more about injury prevention? Check out the courses at https://kovacsinstitute.learnworlds.com/pages/courses for more information on how to improve your game!
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