Young Athletes Struggle With Overuse Injuries

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Track athlete Karissa Coffield said she was on her 'last legs' with calf tightness and pain.

"My legs were really starting to hurt at the end. Once I started racing in racing season, sometimes I like couldn't even finish, it was so bad," she said.

This senior had run track since 7th grade.

"She really enjoys it, loves the sport, and it was hard to see her struggling," her mother Debbie Coffield said.

Karissa was diagnosed with an overuse injury.

"They all have one thing in common, and that's playing one sport for most of the year," said Frank Velasquez, Jr., with Allegheny Health Network Sports Performance.

Overuse or repetitive trauma injuries are half of all pediatric sports-related injuries.

"Youth sports is at an all-time high right now. With that comes the increase in soft tissue and traumatic injuries. If I take a stick and bend it enough times, it's going to break," Velasquez said.

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Young muscles and bones are particularly vulnerable.

"They're just not strong enough to withstand the volume and the intensity of the activities and they break down," Velasquez said.

The damage can go beyond bone and muscle.

"In a bone you get stress fractures. In tendons, muscle, you get tendinitis. You get muscle pulls. In your heart and lungs, you can't perform to the level you need to, and your performance starts to dip," said Dr. Edward Snell with Allegheny Health Network Sports Medicine.

Depending on the injury, the child may need bracing or surgery, or rest and rehab with a gradual increase in the activity. Switching sports in the off season can help, too.

"Elite athletes will take an eight to twelve week period in the year, and that's two to three months, where they put the balls and bats down, and the soccer balls and the basketballs, and they devote that time to strength training," Velasquez said.

The toughest challenge in preventing overuse injuries is discouraging early specialization. The pressure for scholarships and making the A team keeps kids playing the same sport year round, using the same muscles over and over, when rest is really what they need.

Karissa has been strengthening and running with special equipment and has returned to competition.

"She's doing much better, she'd come here every day if she could," her mother said.

"My goal is to make it to states in track this year in the two mile. So I 'm hoping that with this I can get there," Karissa said.