Seasonal Pressure

Seasonal

Pressure

By Sophia Poehlein, Guest Writer

Lebron James was exceptional in both basketball and football before he was forced to choose one. Bo Jackson, a professional athlete, played NFL football and MLB baseball for a year before he suffered a career ending injury. Sophomore Mia Schmidt, plays two sports at the same time, club lacrosse and school soccer in the fall; she also plays school lacrosse in the spring. “I get injured pretty often just because I’m in so many different things and I use so many different parts of my body,” Schmidt said. “But it’s super fun and I love being around such encouraging people. My mom has always influenced me to stay in as many things as I want to.” Multi-sport athletes are often compared to single sport athletes; the argument being that playing multiple sports is more beneficial for an athlete than playing a single sport year round. According to ZCS athletic trainer Gavin Page, it all depends on how one defines “multi-sport.” An athlete who plays a different sport each season, known as a multi-season athlete, might have fewer injuries. “If you’re doing two or three sports all in the same season at once, you probably will have more injuries,” Page said. “Or if you only train the same one sport all year round, you might have more injuries.” Senior Cho Dull plays football and rugby. Because his sports are in different seasons in the year, he is a multi-season athlete. Dull plays football in the fall and rugby in the spring, allowing him to “do a lot of recovering at home” to get ready for the next season. An athlete who takes time between sports to rest and work different muscles reduces the chances of strain and injury. “We’ve seen associations where people who tend to do only one sport also tend to train more hours,” Page said. According to a study by Bradford Strand, professor of health, nutrition, and exercise sciences at North Dakota University, “training more hours in the week with the same movements is not beneficial for the body, and the risk is even worse now that the younger kids are being exposed to harder trainings in their specialized sports.” “Today, athletes often go from organized play to individual training sessions, to travel leagues, to school play, and back to some league play,” Strand adds. “This repetitive amount of stress on the psychological and physical aspects of athletics has caused many cases of burnout and injury.” The general recommendation for young athletes is that they spend less time putting stress on their body, and more time having fun in their sport. Limiting your sports when you’re a kid is good, but as you get older, at the college level, specialization is the path that is typically better for the individual. “For youth and high school age, diversifying the sports you do is the better choice,” Page said. While some single sport athletes play another sport when their main sport has a break, others, like freshman soccer player Chloe Himmell, are satisfied with their choice to limit activity. “I’d probably consider playing softball or volleyball again, just because it was fun,” Himmell said. “But I love soccer, so I’m happy with my decision to just do that.” Athletes, no matter if they are single-sport, multi-sport, or multi-season, have a limited amount of free time for academics and their personal life. This can also be stressful. “I need to have school come first and really focus on that and my grades,” Schmidt said. “But I think I’ve really started putting sports over my soul, which is not what I should be doing. But I only really have time for sports.” Dull said between sports and academics he has almost no free time. “During study hall, I get a lot of my homework done,” Dull said. “After football practice, I can go home, eat, shower, and just rest.” While most want to say that one type of athlete is better than the other, it is unique to each sport and individual. “The only times single-sport is as beneficial as multi-sport, are those artistic, more performance type sports. And that’s just because of the nature of those sports,” Page said. Over-training in physical activity is what injures most athletes, no matter how many sports they play. “I think where some people may get confused or are misunderstanding the guidance is that multi-sport is best,” Page said. “They are still training during the other seasons as offseason training. It’s too much, so over-training is a problem regardless of if you’re one sport or multi-sport.”

Cho Dull, a multi-season athlete, poses with his rugby ball and in his football jersey. photo by Sarah Maniscalo Sports 7