Youth Sports Injury Prevention Tips | Epperson Physical Therapy

Beat the Bench: How to Keep Your Young Athlete Off the Injury List This Season

Cleats are being dug out of closets, water bottles are being filled, and tryouts are almost here. Fall sports season is one of our favorite times of year, but it is also when we see the most young athletes walk through our door with an injury that could have been avoided.

Here is the good news. Most of these injuries follow a pattern, and once you know the pattern, you can dodge it.

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Why the First Few Weeks Are the Danger Zone

Kids spend the summer relaxing, swimming, maybe shooting hoops here and there, but not training like they will once the season starts. Then tryouts hit and suddenly they are sprinting, jumping, and cutting at full speed, several days a week. That jump from zero to sixty is exactly when injuries happen.

About one in five high school athletes gets hurt playing sports each year, and the first few weeks of a new season are consistently the riskiest stretch.

The Two Big Culprits

Overuse injuries. Think shin splints, achy knees, sore heels. These build up slowly from doing the same motion over and over, especially in kids who play one sport all year with no real break. Overuse injuries make up close to half of all youth sports medicine visits, and kids are especially prone to them because their growth plates (the soft spots near the ends of growing bones) are weaker than the muscles and tendons pulling on them.

ACL tears. These are the big scary ones, and they are becoming more common in teen athletes, especially girls playing soccer and basketball. Here is the part that matters for parents though: a lot of ACL injury risk comes down to how well the muscles around the hip and knee control landing and cutting. That is trainable. It is not just bad luck.

A Quick Gut Check on Training Load

A handy rule from pediatric sports doctors: weekly training hours should not exceed your child's age. A 12 year old? Cap it around 12 hours a week, across every team and practice combined. If your kid plays club and school ball at the same time, add up the hours. You might be surprised.

The Fix Is Simpler Than You Think

Ten to fifteen minutes of the right warm up work, focused on landing mechanics, balance, and strength around the hip and knee, can meaningfully cut down ACL injury risk. It is not a huge time commitment, it just has to happen consistently, ideally starting before the season, not after an injury.

At Epperson Physical Therapy, we offer a quick preseason movement screen that checks how your athlete squats, jumps, lands, and cuts, so we can catch weak links before they become a torn ligament.

What You Can Do This Week

Ease back into full speed rather than diving in on day one. Build in at least one rest day a week, and a longer break from a single sport somewhere in the year if you can swing it. Listen when your kid mentions the same ache more than once, that is different from normal soreness. And if they are juggling multiple teams, do the math on total hours.

When to Bring Them In

If pain sticks around more than a few days, changes how they move, or you just want peace of mind before tryouts, get them checked out. A quick screen in August beats a long rehab in October.

Questions about getting your athlete evaluated before the season kicks off? Reach out to our team. We would much rather help you prevent an injury than treat one.

Sources: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (OrthoInfo), American Academy of Pediatrics (Pediatrics, 2024), American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (2023 Clinical Practice Guidelines).