While geared to sports medicine professionals, the 2014 position statement from the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (DiFiori JP, et al.) provides helpful guidance to sports parents on the causes, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment of burnout in youth athletes.

Response to chronic stress

Burnout is considered a response by a young athlete to chronic stress in which he or she ceases to participate in a previously enjoyable activity, withdrawing from the sport because they perceive it is not possible to meet the physical and psychological demands of the sport. 

Burnout is considered by experts to be part of a spectrum of conditions that includes overreaching and overtraining syndrome.

Overreaching may either be functional or nonfunctional:

As a recent Aspen Institute research paper notes, just about every signal parents and youth athletes receive today from the prevailing youth sports culture supports the idea that high doses of one sport at an early age is the only pathway to athletic stardom. 

Well, not every signal.

We at MomsTEAM, for one, have been fighting that culture, and trying for the past 15 years to debunk the many myths that have grown up around the supposed need for kids to specialize in a single sport before adolescence.

Repetitive stress on muscles and joints without adequate rest and appropriate conditioning can result in chronic or overuse injuries in athletes of any age. Experts believe that overuse injuries account for fifty percent of all youth sports injuries, but half may be preventable.

Children are especially vulnerable during the growth spurt at the beginning of adolescence.  The growth process can result in a unique set of injuries among young athletes, including Osgood Schlatter's disease and Sever's disease, Little League elbow, patellofemoral pain syndrome; and stress fractures caused by overuse and/or repetitive stress over time.

Here are five ways parents, coaches and athletes can help to reduce the number of repetitive stress injuries in children and adolescents.

1. Proper education and supervision.

While much is known about the causes and risk factors associated with overuse injuries and burnout, more research is needed, concludes a new position statement from the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. (DiFiori JP, et al 2014)

"The position statement provides a nice review of the literature that is available," says Jennifer M. Weiss, MD., an orthopedic surgeon with the Southern California Permanente Medical Group at the Los Angeles Medical Center, who was not involved in the preparation of the statement.  

"We do not know how many children and young athletes are affected by overuse injuries. Adolescent girls may be at the highest risk for overuse injuries. Early specialization in sports may put young athletes at risk for overuse injuries, and doesn't necessarily lead to long term success in their sport," says Weiss. 

Are athletes whose families can afford the high cost of today's increasingly specialized and expensive youth sports paying another price - in higher rates of injury?

The answer appears to be yes.

New research presented at the International Olympic Committee World Conference on Prevention of Injury & Illness in Sport in Monaco in April 2014 for the first time links overuse injury rates in young athletes with their socioeconomic status.  

Researchers at Loyola University Medical Center found that the rate of serious overuse injuries in athletes who come from families that can afford private insurance is a whopping 68 percent higher than the rate for lower-income athletes whose families have public insurance (Medicaid).

As a recent Aspen Institute research paper notes, just about every signal parents and youth athletes receive today from the prevailing youth sports culture supports the idea that high doses of one sport at an early age is the only pathway to athletic stardom. 

Well, not every signal.

We at MomsTEAM, for one, have been fighting that culture, and trying for the past 14 years to debunk the many myths that have grown up around the supposed need for kids to specialize in a single sport before adolescence.