growingpains orsporting INJURY?

YOUNG CHILDREN PLAYING SPORT IS GREAT FOR EXERCISE AND LEARNING THE MEANING OF WORKING TOGETHER, BUT HOW MUCH SPORT IS ENOUGH? NELFRIE KEMP DISCUSSES KEY ISSUES

3 Factors Contributing To The Pain

Entrance level shoes: No-name brand entrance level shoes are perfect for children if they are simply exploring a sport. However, when they start playing seriously for the A team and for a club and/or extra coaching, they need to get proper shoes.

Sport surfaces: The impact on your body when your foot hits the ground is three to five times your body weight. Over time, repetitive impact can lead to injury, and the surface you train on can contribute to your injury and pain.

As an example, dancing and gymnastics should be done on a sprung floor, while indoor hockey and soccer on astro.

Barefoot rugby: This sounds great, but it can lead to a lot of tears. The level and intensity at which kids play rugby these days is harsh on the developing body and leads to injury.

I’ll leave you with this thought. In my practice there is a definite pattern in the amount of children I treat with sports injuries/growing pains during the relevant sporting season. During the two-year lock-down period I hardly treated children with “growing pain” injuries. I’m not against sport or activity, but are we pushing our children too much? *

FOR MORE INFO

Nelfrie Kemp: www.nelfriekemp.co.za; @nelfriekemp W @nelfriekemp