Discouraging Specialization: A Double-Edged Sword - Part 1

Over the last couple of decades, across the board, we have seen an increase in the professionalization of youth sports - increased participation on expensive select teams, traveling across the country regularly for tournaments, local and national player ranking systems down to 8 or 9 years old, and so on. A natural byproduct of this is more and more kids (and their parents) deciding they need to focus solely on one sport at younger ages than what would typically be seen in the past - this is commonly referred to as “specialization”. At the opposing end of this, we commonly see pediatricians, orthopedics, physical therapists, and other health professionals preaching to no end that kids should not be specializing at young ages, citing numerous studies that show increased injury rates in kids that opt to play one sport at an earlier age. While this is good-intentioned advice, my personal belief and experience are that we are not serving our kids the best by simply saying “Play as many sports as long as you can”. In this article, we will discuss other factors that both clinicians and parents need to consider when deciding when is the time to go ‘all-in’ on one sport for their child.

Let me start by saying, yes for numerous reasons, in a vacuum, playing multiple sports is better long-term for kids' athletic development and health than choosing one sport from an early age. Each sport has its unique athletic qualities that are biased during training and competition. Via the SAID Principle (Specific Adaptation To Imposed Demands) the more exposure a kid gets to that quality, the better they will become at it. Unfortunately, no sport covers every quality evenly, and as a result, those attributes can become lacking in an athlete if they are ignored in their development for a long period. Further, while at earlier playing levels kids can have plenty of success relying just on one or two attributes that they are good at, as they move up in levels having a well-rounded plate of athletic qualities becomes increasingly important - soccer players are stronger, baseball players have higher top end running speed, football players have better hand-eye coordination, and so forth. At the end of the day, being a better athlete becomes more of a requirement to move up through the playing ranks. So while you may have greater short-term success by focusing more on a singular sporting skill, in the longer term, your child, from an athleticism standpoint will be falling behind their more athletic counterparts. 

This of course is only looking at the benefits of playing multiple sports from a performance standpoint. From a health perspective, it is well documented that kids who specialize early on are more likely to sustain an overuse injury. This often is the primary focal point for healthcare providers when they are giving recommendations to patients and their parents about playing multiple sports.

So it’s simple, right? Have your kid play as many sports as they can for as long as they can and they will be great athletes and never sustain an injury. Not quite. As I stated earlier, the benefits of non-specialization exist in a vacuum where we don’t have to take into account other factors that could (heavily) influence those benefits. Just like everything else, this is where it gets a bit tricky and we need to have more nuance in our discussion with our athletes and parents:

What is the year-round schedule like for each of the sports?

I would argue this is the most important factor that needs to be taken into consideration. We are far past the times when each sport a kid could play would fall nicely into a 3-6 month period of the calendar year with minimal overlap with other sports. Each sport, even at a young age, often requires 8-9 months of commitment that can range anywhere from 2-6x/week and then some type of tournament on the weekend. Last time I checked, you can’t fit multiple 8-month commitments into a 12-month calendar year without significant overlap.

A common counter-argument to this is stating that kids can just play in rec leagues for whatever their secondary sport is. While I agree that rec leagues are a great lower-commitment alternative, there still needs to be consideration of what is going on, schedule-wise, with the child’s main sport. Are they practicing 1-2 times a week with minimal games? Or are they up to 2-3 practices with games on the weekend?  This can often lead to kids having some type of athletic activity going on 5-7 times a week even during ‘offseason’ periods from their primary sport if they are also involved with another activity. As much as it is perpetuated that kids have a ton of energy and can constantly be on the go without much rest, they still need to have some type of recovery from higher-stress activities which games and practices can typically be classified as. So while we may be avoiding a sport-specific overuse injury by not specializing, we are likely substituting it with another overuse injury because we are simply putting more on a kid’s plate than what they can recover from.

The financial aspect of playing multiple sports

A secondary aspect of playing multiple sports throughout the year is the weight, financially it can carry for a family. You’re probably well aware that the cost of select teams is usually high, but even at the rec league level, there are still fees for the league, equipment, team outings, instruction, etc. Spread this across multiple sports (and perhaps siblings) throughout the year and the price can add up. While this is less likely to have a direct impact on the child itself, this is a discussion worth having to explore all options potentially available for a family.

Does the child want to play another sport?

Another part of the equation, and one that doesn’t seem to be taken into account enough is the preference of the child. I’ve worked with plenty of children throughout my career who from a young age only wanted to play one sport, whether that be it was because they were extremely passionate about it or because it was the only sport they didn’t dislike playing. Both of these scenarios are ok. While, I still believe encouraging a child to play another sport, especially one that may have less time and financial commitments, is more ideal, it’s not the end of their health or physical development if they decide at an earlier age that only one sport is for them. There are certainly other avenues to develop the physical qualities that I talked about earlier without having to sign them up for an activity they may despise.

Reps still matter

This will seem in direct conflict with what I discussed earlier about improving overall athletic development being a key factor in a child moving up levels throughout their playing career. But at the end of the day, getting repetitions in, and a lot of them, are also extremely important for being able to improve at whatever sport your child is playing. Just as you can have a ceiling on your career if you are a highly skilled player with relatively mediocre athleticism, you will also have a cap on your potential if you are a really good athlete with average skills (I would still argue that the latter scenario will take you further, but that’s another debate). In many regards then, getting a lot of exposure to the skills that lead to success in a sport, whether it is through practice, games, or another activity carries a lot of value. Our main issue with the youth sporting model, however, is that we put too much emphasis on the development of the skill side, not enough on the athletic development side, and end up running our kids into the ground with sport-specific overuse injuries. Be that as it may, there are plenty of scenarios, where an athlete needs to become less of a generalist in the sense of continuing to play multiple sports and spend more time developing their skill set in whatever sport they are hoping to further their career in. This is certainly a more complex situation that has its own unique set of variables that need to be taken into account before giving a further recommendation.

Taking these factors into account, it becomes apparent that it is not black and white that we should give the blanket recommendation of “Don’t specialize” to all young athletes. Rather, each scenario has its specific variables that need to be considered before making a decision that is best for the athlete and their family. This wraps up part one of the two-part series. In part two, we will discuss several options for parents and coaches to implement for youth athletes who have opted to specialize in their sport to continue to improve their overall physical development as well as keep them healthy.