Kids get hurt playing sports. It’s part of the deal — bodies collide, ankles twist and young muscles get pushed. Most of these bumps and bruises heal on their own within a few days, but some injuries show up again and again across youth sports. Many of them are preventable when you take the right precautions before the first whistle blows.
Whether a child plays soccer on weekends or trains year-round for competitive gymnastics, knowing which injuries are most likely to sideline them helps parents spot trouble early and take steps to avoid it altogether. Growing bodies present a set of challenges since bones, muscles and connective tissue are often still developing. That is part of why certain injuries recur among young athletes, regardless of the sport.
Below are seven of the most common injuries young athletes face, along with practical ways parents, coaches and kids can lower the risk. None of these strategies requires expensive equipment or a personal trainer — most come down to small, consistent habits built into practice routines.
1. Sprains and Strains
Sprains and strains top the list for a reason, and understanding what sets them apart makes it easier to spot each one early.
Sprains happen when a ligament stretches or tears, usually from a sudden twist or a rolled ankle. Strains involve muscles or tendons instead, often from overstretching during a sprint or an awkward landing.
Growing bodies add another layer of risk to the equation. During growth spurts, bones can lengthen faster than the muscles and tendons surrounding them, leaving joints temporarily less stable and more prone to rolling or twisting under stress. Sprains and strains show up across nearly every youth sport.
They’re part of why so many kids eventually step away from organized athletics altogether — over 60 million children and teens play organized sports in the United States each year, and 70% of them stop playing entirely by age 13, often influenced by a combination of injury, burnout and lost interest.
Most sprains and strains fall into mild or moderate categories and heal within a couple of weeks with rest, ice and a gradual return to activity. However, repeated sprains of the same joint, especially the ankle, can lead to chronic instability over time if they aren’t properly rehabilitated each time. That makes prevention worth the effort even for injuries that seem minor in the moment.
How to Prevent Sprains and Strains
Parents and coaches can lower the risk by making stability and preparation part of every practice.
- Make sure footwear fits the sport and the child’s foot shape, with solid ankle support for cutting sports.
- Build a dynamic warm up into every practice or game, rather than relying on static stretching alone.
- Strengthen the muscles around the ankle and knee with simple balance drills like single-leg stands.
- Tape or brace a previously sprained joint during the return to play.
2. ACL Tears
ACL tears carry higher stakes than a typical sprain, which makes understanding the risk factors especially worthwhile for parents of kids in high-intensity sports.
The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, connects the thighbone to the shinbone and keeps the knee stable during pivots and landings. ACL tears are among the more serious injuries a young athlete can sustain, often requiring months of rehabilitation and sometimes surgery to repair. They show up most often in sports with a lot of jumping, cutting and sudden stops, including soccer, basketball and volleyball.
Girls face a notably higher rate of ACL injuries than boys in similar sports. A recent analysis found that high school girls’ ACL injury rates climbed 32% from 2007 to 2022, more than double the 14.5% increase seen in boys’ sports over the same period. Researchers are still working out exactly why, pointing to a mix of growth-related changes in strength and coordination during puberty rather than a single clear cause.
That doesn’t mean girls should shy away from high-intensity sports. It means coaches working with young female athletes may want to place extra emphasis on landing mechanics and lower-body strength training.
Proper technique and conditioning go a long way toward preventing ACL injuries, and gear that actually fits matters just as much. A shoe that’s the wrong size or lacks adequate traction for the playing surface can leave a young athlete less stable during a cut or landing. After all, ill-fitting equipment can be as ineffective as not wearing any at all. Taking the extra few minutes to get sizing right, rather than sizing up a pair of cleats a child will “grow into,” is a small effort with a real payoff.
How to Lower the Risk of an ACL Tear
The best prevention habits focus on safer movement patterns, stronger support muscles and properly fitted gear.
- Incorporate neuromuscular training that focuses on proper jumping and landing mechanics.
- Have a coach or trainer confirm that cleats and shoes fit properly and are appropriate for the playing surface.
- Build hamstring and glute strength to support the knee joint through cuts and pivots.
- Avoid rushing back to full-intensity play after any knee soreness or swelling.
3. Concussions
Head injuries deserve a different level of caution than most sports injuries, since the consequences can follow a child well beyond the season.
A concussion is a brain injury caused by a blow to the head or a hard hit to the body that jolts the head. Young athletes are especially vulnerable in part because their brains are still developing, which makes them more susceptible to the effects of a head injury than a fully matured adult brain.
A second concussion sustained before the first has healed carries extra risk too — a child’s brain is still healing and more vulnerable to another injury during that recovery window, which is why return-to-play decisions shouldn’t be rushed.
Concussions show up across nearly every sport, but contact sports carry a disproportionate share of the risk. Kids 17 and under account for roughly 7 in 10 emergency room visits for sports-related brain injuries and concussions, and football, basketball and soccer together make up 45% of those visits.
How to Reduce Concussion Risk
While no strategy removes concussion risk completely, these habits can make contact and collision sports safer.
- Make sure helmets fit snugly and meet current safety standards for the sport.
- Teach proper tackling, heading or contact technique before increasing intensity or contact drills.
- Enforce a strict “sit out and get evaluated” rule for any suspected head injury, no exceptions.
- Build age-appropriate neck strength through conditioning, since a stronger neck helps absorb impact force.
4. Growth Plate Injuries
Not every injury comes from a single bad landing or collision — some build slowly, in the parts of a child’s skeleton that are still under construction.
Growth plates are areas of developing cartilage near the ends of a child’s bones. Cartilage is the last part of a bone to harden, so it’s more vulnerable to injury than the bone around it. Injuries here — including Osgood-Schlatter disease in the knee, or Little League elbow and shoulder in young throwers — tend to develop gradually from repeated stress rather than a single hit or fall. Because the pain often builds slowly, kids sometimes play through the early stages without realizing anything is wrong.
These overuse injuries most often affect the lower leg. While many clear up within a few weeks of rest, recovery time varies widely depending on how early the problem is caught. In a recent study of young professional soccer players, researchers tracked 813 players ages 10 to 18 over a single season. They documented 62 growth-related injuries during that time, underscoring how frequently developing bodies face this particular risk.
Sports that involve repetitive, single-direction movements, like pitching in baseball or tumbling in gymnastics, carry a higher risk than sports with more varied motion, since the same joints and tissues absorb stress over and over, with little variety to balance the load.
How to Protect Growing Joints
Protecting growth plates starts with managing repetitive stress and taking early pain seriously.
- Follow age-based guidelines for repetitive movements, such as pitch count limits in baseball.
- Watch for early complaints of pain during or after activity, rather than waiting for a limp.
- Build in rest days between high-intensity training sessions to allow developing tissue to recover.
- Encourage multi-sport participation over early specialization in a single repetitive movement pattern.
5. Stress Fractures
Stress fractures are similar to growth plate injuries, but they hit the bone itself rather than the cartilage at its edges.
A stress fracture is a small crack in a bone caused by repeated impact rather than one big trauma, most often turning up in the shin, foot or lower back. They tend to develop in athletes who ramp up training volume too quickly, especially runners, dancers and gymnasts working through preseason conditioning. Unlike a sudden break, a stress fracture builds over days or weeks of cumulative wear, which makes it easy to dismiss until it’s already a real problem.
Because the pain often starts mild and worsens gradually, a stress fracture can go unnoticed until it sidelines a kid for weeks at a stretch. Catching the early warning signs, like soreness that doesn’t ease with rest or pain that shows up at the same point in every practice, makes a real difference in how long recovery takes.
How to Lower the Risk of a Stress Fracture
Parents can help by watching training load, footwear and nutrition before minor soreness becomes a bigger issue.
- Increase training volume gradually — most guidance suggests no more than a 10%-20% jump in weekly mileage or repetitions.
- Rotate footwear and check that shoes aren’t worn down in ways that change how force travels through the foot.
- Make sure young athletes are getting enough calcium and vitamin D to support bone health.
- Take any persistent, localized pain seriously instead of encouraging a child to push through it.
6. Shin Splints
Shin splints are often the body’s early warning system, appearing well before a more serious overuse injury develops.
Shin splints cause pain along the inner edge of the shinbone, usually after a sudden jump in running or jumping activity. They’re common in soccer, basketball and track, especially early in a season before kids have built up their conditioning. Hard playing surfaces, worn-out shoes and flat feet can all make a young athlete more prone to developing them.
Unlike a stress fracture, shin splints involve inflammation of the muscles and tendons around the bone rather than an actual break. However, ignoring the pain long enough can eventually lead to one. The fix usually starts with backing off intensity for a stretch rather than playing through the discomfort.
How to Prevent Shin Splints
A gradual approach to conditioning can keep shin pain from becoming a recurring problem.
- Ease into a new season with a gradual conditioning ramp-up instead of jumping straight into full-intensity practice.
- Choose supportive shoes appropriate for the playing surface, and replace them once the cushioning wears down.
- Add calf and ankle strengthening exercises to the regular training routine.
- Rest at the first sign of shin pain rather than playing through it.
7. Heat-Related Illness
Not every injury on this list involves bones or joints — heat is its own kind of hazard, and one that’s easy to underestimate until it becomes serious.
Heat exhaustion and heat stroke happen when a young athlete’s body can’t cool itself fast enough during intense activity, especially in hot or humid weather. Researchers still debate exactly how a child’s ability to regulate body temperature compares to an adult’s, but the practical takeaway holds either way. Heat illness escalates quickly once it starts, and young athletes may not recognize or report early symptoms as reliably as adults do.
Early signs include heavy sweating, dizziness, headache and fatigue. Left unaddressed, heat exhaustion can progress to heat stroke, which is a medical emergency that requires immediate attention.
How to Keep Young Athletes Safe in the Heat
Heat safety depends on planning ahead and responding quickly when warning signs appear.
- Schedule practices during cooler parts of the day when possible, especially during preseason conditioning.
- Build in regular water breaks rather than waiting for kids to ask for one.
- Watch for early symptoms like dizziness or unusual fatigue, and pull a child from play immediately if they appear.
- Ease into hot-weather practice gradually — sports medicine guidelines recommend limiting full-gear, full-intensity practice for the first 7 to 14 days of preseason.
Keeping Young Athletes Safe All Season
Most youth sports injuries share similar underlying causes — insufficient conditioning, gear that doesn’t fit quite right and bodies pushed past what they’re ready for.
None of that means kids should play less. It means parents, coaches and athletes all benefit from paying attention to the basics — proper warmups, well-fitting equipment, gradual training increases and a willingness to sit out when something doesn’t feel right.
Sports offer real benefits for kids, from building confidence to learning teamwork. Those benefits are worth protecting rather than avoiding out of caution. The more realistic goal is to stack the odds in a young athlete’s favor. A little planning before the season starts, paired with a little vigilance once it’s underway, goes a long way toward keeping kids on the field and off the sidelines.
