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Recommended: early sports specialization essay

Early specialization is a growing trend among youth athletes. Early specialization is when a young athlete practices one sport (and one sport only) in order to achieve the highest skill level. It is not always the athletes choice though. In many cases it is their parents who put them into the sport and continue to make them participate in it. There are many mixed opinions about whether or not specializing at such a young age is good or not. As with any sport injury is a risk that participants are must accept, but early specialization can lead to more frequent injuries as well as psychological problems. Young children who are specializing get frequent overuse injuries, may get lose interest in playing the same sport all year and dropout. Burnout is also a common reason that many young athletes drop out of sports. Burnout occurs from both physical and psychological factors over time.
In the article written by James Mandigo he mentions how specializing in a sport will make you miss out on all the other sports around you. As well it mentions some of the negative side effects that are common with early specialization such as burnout, social isolation, and overuse injuries just to name a few. It is also noted that many higher and/or elite level athletes participated in many other sports before they started to specialize in a certain area. The article is focused at a parental audience trying to inform them that it is okay for their child to be apart of multiple sports at a young age, which allows them to draw from a wider range of skills.
The journal article Early Sport Specialization: Roots, Effectiveness, Risks also mention the negatives of early specialization. Risks mentioned in this article include overdependence, manipulation, ...

... middle of paper ...

...op many different motor skills instead of just sport specific skills.

Works Cited

Malina, R. M. (2010). Early sport specialization: Roots, effectiveness, risks. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 9(6), 364-371. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uwindsor.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=caafbc2a-936b-4425-bcd7-c4befb4576bd@sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=103

Capranica, L., & Millard-Stafford, M. L. (2011). Youth sport specialization: How to manage competition and training?. International Journal of Sports Physiology & Performance, 6(4), 572-579. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uwindsor.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f3b4989f-f949-42d8-b6f0-1f0e000486c0@sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=103

Mandigo, J. (2013, April 02). Should kids specialize in one sport?. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/parents/2013/04/should-kids-specialize-in-one-sport.html

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