Sex Differences in Youth and Young Adult Sport Training Patterns, Specialization, and Return to Sport Durations.

Background: Young female athletes may have higher rates of overuse injuries and sport specialization than male athletes. The association of sports specialization and return to sport (RTS) timeframe is also unknown.

Hypothesis: Specialized female athletes will have more intense, year-round training patterns, more overuse injuries, and longer RTS times than male athletes.

A Risk Tool for Evaluating Overuse Injury and Return-to-Play Time Periods in Youth and Collegiate Athletes: Preliminary Study.

Background: Overuse injuries in youth athletes are associated with risks, including sports specialization, biological maturation, female sex, and workload measures. As no assessment tool exists to evaluate risk accumulation, we developed a novel risk factor scoring system (Sport Training Assessment of Risk [STAR]) to assess participants' risk of overuse injury and explore association with return-to-play (RTP) time periods.

Hypothesis: (1) STAR will reach an acceptable predictive threshold in the assessment of overuse injury in youth athletes.

Feasibility of the pitch efficiency rating: A novel tool for systematic assessment of pitching mechanics in developing throwing athletes.

Background: Injuries in younger baseball athletes continue to increase despite work characterizing risk factors. Three-dimensional (3D) motion capture may identify suboptimal pitching mechanics that predispose an athlete to injury, but 3D-motion analysis is often inaccessible. Thus, there is a gap between the current biomechanics literature and its practical application in young athletes.

The Effects of Injury Type on Health-Related Quality of Life in Youth Athletes: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.

Objective: The relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and injury type has not been analyzed for young athletes. We hypothesized that there would be no difference in HRQoL between injured athletes, injured nonathletes, and normative data for healthy youth (NDHY) or among athletes with acute, overuse, or concussion injuries.

Design: Cross-sectional clinical cohort.

S.P.O.R.R.T.-A Comprehensive Approach to the Assessment and Non-Operative Management of Overuse Knee Conditions in Youth Athletes.

Purpose Of Review: The evaluation of a young athlete with an overuse injury to the knee involves a comprehensive approach. There are a number of elements to consider including assessments of skeletal maturity (biologic maturation), workload (training load + competition load), sport specialization status, and biomechanics. The type of injury and treatment, as well as future prognosis, may be influenced by these and other factors.

Differences in Lower Extremity Coordination Patterns as a Function of Sports Specialization.

The practice of early sport specialization, defined as intense year-round training in a single sport at the exclusion of others, is increasing in youth athletics. Despite potential benefits, sport specialization may be detrimental to the health of young athletes, as specialization may increase the risk of musculoskeletal injuries-particularly overuse injuries. However, there remains limited knowledge about how sports specialization uniquely alters underlying sports-related motor behavior.

Movement Regularity Differentiates Specialized and Nonspecialized Athletes in a Virtual Reality Soccer Header Task.

Background: Young athletes who specialize early in a single sport may subsequently be at increased risk of injury. While heightened injury risk has been theorized to be related to volume or length of exposure to a single sport, the development of unhealthy, homogenous movement patterns, and rigid neuromuscular control strategies may also be indicted. Unfortunately, traditional laboratory assessments have limited capability to expose such deficits due to the simplistic and constrained nature of laboratory measurement techniques and analyses.

Differences in career longevity before and after implementation of the Women's Tennis Association Tour Age Eligibility Rule and Player Development Programmes: a 25-year study.

Objectives: To assess differences in career longevity, as a potential marker of athlete well-being, before and after the 1995 implementation of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Age Eligibility Rule (AER) and Player Development Programmes (PDP), which focused on organisational, physical and psychosocial education, skill building and support for adolescent athletes (≤17 years).

Methods: Career longevity data were collected through 2019 on adolescent players who began professional tournament play between 1970 and 2014 and reached a WTA singles ranking of 1-150 for a minimum of 1 week during their careers. Players were separated into pre-AER/PDP and post-AER/PDP groups, consisting of those who played their first professional events (FPE) before or after 1 January 1995.

Brain Activity During Experimental Knee Pain and Its Relationship With Kinesiophobia in Patients With Patellofemoral Pain: A Preliminary Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation.

Context: The etiology of patellofemoral pain has remained elusive, potentially due to an incomplete understanding of how pain, motor control, and kinesiophobia disrupt central nervous system functioning.

Objective: To directly evaluate brain activity during experimental knee pain and its relationship to kinesiophobia in patients with patellofemoral pain.

Design: Cross-sectional.

A preliminary investigation of the effects of patellar displacement on brain activation and perceived pain in young females with patellofemoral pain.

Objectives: To identify the neural substrates of a clinician-based test and associated pain perception in young female athletes with patellofemoral pain.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Methods: Females with patellofemoral pain (n = 14; 14.

Age and Gender Differences in Injuries and Risk Factors in Elite Junior and Professional Tennis Players.

Background: Elite tennis athletes experience injuries throughout the entire body. Impairments in trunk stability, lower limb flexibility, and hip range of motion (ROM) are modifiable risk factors that can impact injuries and performance. Information on nonmodifiable risk factors such as age and gender is limited.

Systematic Review of Health Organization Guidelines Following the AMSSM 2019 Youth Early Sport Specialization Summit.

Context: Youth sport specialization may place young athletes at increased risk for negative impacts to their physical and/or psychological health. In response to these health concerns, several health organizations have created guidelines and position statements to guide parents and practitioners toward best practices for management of the young athlete.

Objective: To systematically review and synthesize current organizations' recommendations and guidelines regarding youth sport specialization.

Current Sport Organization Guidelines From the AMSSM 2019 Youth Early Sport Specialization Research Summit.

Context: Youth athletes may be at elevated risk for adverse health due to sport specialization. Sport organizations have developed guidelines for participation during growth and development.

Objective: To assess youth sport development guidelines using a 15-item framework across sport organizations and governing bodies in soccer, basketball, ice hockey, and swimming.

Defining a Research Agenda for Youth Sport Specialization in the United States: The AMSSM Youth Early Sport Specialization Summit.

Sport specialization is becoming increasingly common among youth and adolescent athletes in the United States and many have raised concern about this trend. Although research on sport specialization has grown significantly, numerous pressing questions remain pertaining to short- and long-term effects of specialization on the health and well-being of youth, including the increased risk of overuse injury and burnout. Many current elite athletes did not specialize at an early age.

Defining a research agenda for youth sport specialisation in the USA: the AMSSM Youth Early Sport Specialization Summit.

Sport specialisation is becoming increasingly common among youth and adolescent athletes in the USA and many have raised concern about this trend. Although research on sport specialisation has grown significantly, numerous pressing questions remain pertaining to short-term and long-term effects of specialisation on the health and well-being of youth, including the increased risk of overuse injury and burnout. Many current elite athletes did not specialise at an early age.

Exercise-Associated Muscle Cramps in the Tennis Player.

Purpose Of Review: Better define the proposed etiologies, risk factors, and treatment plans for exercise-associated muscle cramps in the tennis player.

Recent Findings: While no one theory has been able to fully explain the etiology behind exercise-associated muscle cramping, further classification of acute localized cramping and systemic or recurrent cramping may help guide future treatment and prevention strategies. Neuromuscular fatigue more than electrolyte deficit or dehydration is believed to play a large role in development of exercise-associated muscle cramps.

Risk of Injuries Associated With Sport Specialization and Intense Training Patterns in Young Athletes: A Longitudinal Clinical Case-Control Study.

Background: There are no clinical longitudinal studies exploring the associations between sport specialization and intense training patterns and injuries in young athletes.

Purpose: To prospectively determine the relationship between young athletes' degree of sport specialization and their risk of injuries and reinjuries.

Study Design: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 2.

Editorial Commentary: Considering Fatigue When Assessing Athletes for Dynamic Knee Valgus: Is This the Next Big Step in Identifying Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Risk?

Excessive dynamic knee valgus during jumping is a poor movement strategy that has been well-documented as a risk factor for anterior cruciate ligament injury. Yet, there has been little progress in the translation of findings from high-tech motion capture laboratories to clinically applicable settings. One barrier to widespread use is expensive technology that requires time; therefore, field-based efficient assessment tools that can be used by several types of clinicians are desperately needed.

Impact of youth sports specialisation on career and task-specific athletic performance: a systematic review following the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) Collaborative Research Network's 2019 Youth Early Sport Specialisation Summit.

Objective: The impact, positive or negative, of youth sport specialisation (YSS) on short-term and long-term performance is not fully understood; however, the desire to maximise performance goals is generally considered the primary reason children and adolescents specialise at a young age. We performed a systematic review of original research to establish the association of YSS and task-focused or career-focused performance outcomes.

Design: Systematic review.

Health Consequences of Youth Sport Specialization.

Sport specialization is a training method now commonly used by young athletes who hope to achieve elite-level success. This may be defined as (1) choosing a main sport, (2) quitting all other sports to focus on 1 sport, and (3) year-round training (greater than 8 months per year). A number of sports medicine organizations have published recommendations based on the limited evidence available on this topic.

Sport Specialization and Coordination Differences in Multisport Adolescent Female Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball Athletes.

Context: Early sport specialization, or the participation in 1 sport year-round to the exclusion of all others, is a growing concern in youth athletics because of its possible association with musculoskeletal injury. The underlying injury risk may be the result of coordination differences that sport-specialized athletes have been speculated to exhibit relative to multisport athletes; however, little evidence exists to support or refute this notion.

Objective: To examine relative hip- and knee-joint angular-motion variability among adolescent sport-specialized and multisport female adolescent athletes to determine how sport specialization may affect coordination.

Sports Specialization Is Not Associated With Greater Odds of Previous Injury in Elite Male Youth Soccer Players.

Objective: To determine the relationship between sport specialization and previous injury in elite male youth soccer players.

Design: Retrospective survey.

Setting: U.