Early sports specialization

Early sports specialization is the phenomenon of a child or teenaged athlete intensively pursuing a single sport or athletic activity year-round, instead of participating in a wide variety of activities. Premature emphasis on a single sport is associated with physical injuries, mental health problems, and psychosocial harm to young athletes. Many young athletes who are pushed to excel in a single sport quit playing prematurely, or are forced to stop because of injuries. Early sports specialization and the intensive training that accompanies it is associated with sports injuries, especially overuse injuries, and a higher rate of serious or career-ending injury among teenagers and young adults compared to multi-sport athletes. In addition to overtraining, early sports specialization risks burnout and a refusal to continue playing. Multi-sport youth athletes also have more fun playing sports, and once the young athlete becomes a teenager, are more likely to enjoy their sports activities and are less likely to quit than those who specialized early. Early sports specialization is often motivated by a mistaken belief that starting early will result in better performance as a young adult. However, most successful elite athletes did not specialize until at least the middle of adolescence, and some remain multi-sport athletes. Long-term athlete development programs encourage young athletes to develop the ABCs of physical literacy (agility, balance, coordination, and speed) by playing a variety of different sports. Playing a variety of sports before specializing (if wanted) in the late teens increases the likelihood that the youth athlete will experience a lifetime of sports and physical fitness. Early sports specialization is associated with shorter athletic careers. Early sports specialization is part of the increasing dominance of adults in children's leisure activities. Early sports specialization is opposed by many sports and medical organizations, including the International Olympic Committee and the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine.