Sports Injuries

      Sports strengthen your cardiovascular system, as well as improve your flexibility, balance and coordination. However, they can also result in sports injuries to your soft tissues (muscles, tendons and ligaments), bones and joints.

      Since teen bodies are still growing, you are vulnerable to unique kinds of sports injuries. The bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints are not fully developed until the end of puberty (typically age 15 for girls and age 17 for boys). Because sports injury or pain in these "growth sites" can lead to permanent injury, persistent pain around joints should never be ignored or dismissed as "growing pains."

This section covers sports injuries you may develop, and how to prevent them.

Prevention

Often times, many are injured from sports, because they didn’t know how to prevent it. Some common mixed up injuries are sprains and strains.
Sprains: injury to a ligament
Strains: injury to a muscle or tendon

Here are some tips to help prevent injuries:

• Always wear the correct gear. Players should always wear appropriate and properly fit protective sports gear such as pads (neck, shoulder, elbow, chest, knee, shin), helmets, mouthpieces, face guards, protective cups, and/or eyewear.
• Increase muscle strength
• Increase flexibility. Stretch!
• Use the proper technique.
• Take rests.
• Follow the rules and play safe.
• Stop the activity if there is pain.
• Keep hydrated.