We all know it is important to keep our youth athletes safe and healthy. This is especially important as they all seem to be involved in more sports for more of the year than ever before and the level of competition is ever increasing. April is National Youth Sports Safety Month and good time to remember and reinforce some safety basics.
National Youth Sports Safety Month is apparently one of those highly underpublicized campaigns that has a good message to spread but is probably underfunded to deliver it. So here is my free plug to the NYSSF on the web at
http://www.nyssf.org. I've never heard of the NYSSF or the National Youth Sports Safety Month until I read about it in this article
http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070401/LIFESTYLE/704010323/1024/CUSTOMERSERVICE02 and I don't know of anyone else who knew about this article either. They do hilight some important points in the article though.
- Make sure that you coordinate with the coaches if your athlete is training in multiple sports
- Don't overplay
- Train year round, not just before the season starts
- Eat right and sleep right
The article does seem to miss one important part that I have heard a lot of trainers and coaches talk about and that is to try and play sports that focus on different body parts and skills. For example biking and hockey or soccer and baseball. These will prevent particular joints and tendons from wearing down and the focus, conditioning and strengthening of the rest of their body will make them stronger and better in the sport(s) that they focus the most on.
