From baseball to basketball to football, many young athletes love to get active.
"Sports teach you a lot of life lessons," said Dr. Anthony Yu, an Orthopedic Sports Medicine Surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in Fresno. "About life, about how to interact with the team, about leadership, about being a teammate."
With spring coming up, it's time for them to think about the spring sport season, whether it's swimming, track and field, or another activity.
"Conditioning, training, the gradual build-up to full speed competition is always a good idea," said Dr. Yu. "I think every coach out there is going to train his or her athletes to do that."
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 60 million kids and teens participate in organized sports.
While there are many benefits to sports, there are also some risks.
"When we don't condition the body, we're setting ourselves up for both acute injuries," said Dr. Yu.
"Ones that can happen, you know, with a sudden burst of energy when the body's not trained to handle something like that."
Health experts say more than 3.5 million children under 14 sustain some sort of sport-related injury.
But another major concern is the phenomenon known as sports specialization.
"Where at a young age an athlete selects one sport and only one sport," said Dr. Yu. "They just play that year-round with very little breaks. That can be a little bit dangerous."
That can lead to burnout and stress. Doctors say to watch out for any signs of physical pain and look out for their mental well-being.
"The athlete will send you signals, especially a child athlete," said Dr. Yu, "that maybe this activity is not as fun anymore and they're not as engaged or enthusiastic."
That's why health experts say it's important to know when you need to call a time-out.
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