Shoes that are loose, not suited to the sport or not broken in can cause injuries to feet, knees and ankles. Brain injury is the leading cause of sports-related injury, and a helmet can greatly reduce the severity of injury. Helmets are recommended or required for a variety of sports, including in-line skating, baseball, bicycling, softball, rugby, wrestling, lacrosse, football and skiing. While the proper equipment can help prevent acute injuries, such as broken bones and dislocated joints, it's also important to pay attention to chronic repetitive injuries, or overuse injuries. Overuse injuries such as stress fractures and muscle tears are caused when actions like running, throwing a baseball, or flexing the lower back are repeated over and over again.
Kids are particularly at risk for overuse injuries because their bones are still growing.
To help prevent overuse injuries, kids generally shouldn't spend more than five days a week playing any one sport. And, year-round specialization in a single sport is not recommended. Overuse injuries may be less likely to occur in kids who participate in two or more sports over a year. Mark Moran, M.D. is a board certified pediatric orthopedic and scoliosis specialist. He has been in practice with the Parkview Musculoskeletal Institute-the team group that provides orthopedic services to the Chicago White Sox, since 1994.