Be Your Best: High school sports a time of transition physically for incoming freshmen

(Dr. Brian Sokalsky, DO, is at the helm of Jersey Shore Sports Medicine in Ocean City and is a board certified family physician with special training in sports medicine. Once per month, Glory Days Magazine publisher Dave O’Sullivan will talk with Dr. Sokalsky about various sports injuries, treatments and prevention methods.) For young athletes, stepping up to the high school level is not easy. The demands are higher, the workouts more intense, and there is more strain on growing and developing bodies. For incoming freshman, the level of physical activity involved in high school fall sports such as soccer, field hockey, cross country and football can be a little bit of a shock to the body. “Parents should keep a close eye on their son or daughter and look for signs if they are overworking themselves or signs of overuse types of injuries. Ideally, at this point, they would have some kind of conditioning program over the summer, whether it is something the coaches gave them to do on their own or a program you find at some of the local gyms like Athlete’s Arbor or the Bullpen over in Egg Harbor Township,” Sokalsky said. “But if they haven’t been doing that, they are kind of at the mercy of the schedule of the coaches and it’s a matter of keeping an eye on them over-doing it.” Sokalsky said a factor in some overuse injuries isn’t necessarily extended overuse over time, but rather overuse during a specific time frame. For instance, a practice that includes a lot of conditioning is stressing the body, as athletes not only are performing drills to improve their technique, but also working in conditioning drills during the same practice. Brian Sokalsky is a doctor specializing in sports medicine. His office is located in Ocean City. To contact Dr. Sokalsky, call 609-545-8553 “The repetitive nature and the constant use combined with the drill work where I see the injuries, rather than that explosive, traumatic type of injury such as a hamstring pull,” Sokalsky said. “Over the course of the first week or two they are running a lot every day and going from drill to drill. It adds up over the first couple of weeks when they don’t have the kind of rest they would normally have a day or two after a game. But if an athlete is properly prepared for the stress of the workouts through travel ball or a training program, they should be fine.” When dealing with freshmen, what can make it tough for a coach to gauge the right amount of training is the fact that at that age, size and strength are so varied. “At that age, there is a lot of variability from athlete to athlete, for both boys and girls, in terms of where they are in their development. Some kids at age 14 look like men while some look like they still have a lot of growing to do and haven’t developed as much muscle mass. There’s nothing uniform at that age, everyone sort of progresses at their own speed,” Sokalsky said. “For the most part, what we see is the overuse type of stuff, the stress fractures, shin splints, things like that. Particularly for kids who are actively going through growth spurts. They tend to be more tight in their tendons and they tend to suffer tendinitis and fractures more easily.” Shin splints can be a major headache for cross country runners. High school cross country demands a heavy workload of mileage, something young legs might not necessarily be accustomed to. “Shin splints are primarily an inflammation of the lining of the shin bone. It’s caused by overuse and tight muscles pulling on the lining of the bone. That’s what causes the inflammation and pain,” Sokalsky explained. “The freshmen who have never run like this before, if they’ve done any running before high school it’s probably been only a couple of miles at a time. To suddenly increase their mileage so drastically, those are the ones who are particularly susceptible to those types of injuries.” Sokalsky said that, generally speaking, when an athlete gets to be a junior and senior, he or she has gotten used to what it takes to get physically prepared for their chosen sport. It’s the younger athletes who may have a harder time adapting and be at a higher risk of injury. “Where we tend to see injuries isn’t at the high level of varsity, but more the kids who are just getting into high school or the JV/marginal varsity player who is just playing a sport just to play it and it’s not something they are playing year-round. They go out and do everything that everyone else is doing without any pre-conditioning and they tend to get tendinitis and overuse injuries because their bodies just aren’t used to it,” Sokalsky said. “This is the time of year when everybody is trying to make an impression on the coaches, so nobody wants to miss a practice or a workout. It’s hard to treat an overuse injury whose primary treatment is rest when the athlete doesn’t want to rest because they don’t want to lose their spot on the team. So that is the most difficult thing, trying to heal them without them missing an extended period of time.”