Sports Injuries

Strains happen when muscles or tendons get stretched too far or partially torn. Sprains happen when ligaments are stretched or torn. In tendonitis, a tendon becomes swollen and painful.

Often you can take care of minor strains and sprains or tendonitis at home. But it’s important, especially with sprains, to check for broken bones or other problems and make sure the damage heals well.

Read more about:

• Ankle sprains (PDF) (Spanish)
• Achilles tendonitis (PDF)
• Patellar tendonitis (PDF)
• Rotator cuff tendonitis (PDF)

When children or adolescents sprain ligaments, break bones or have other sports injuries, they may damage their growth plates. 

Growth-plate injuries can permanently stop a bone’s development and change how the bone functions. If only part of the growth plate is damaged and stops working, the bone may grow in an uneven way. Read more.

A concussion is a brain injury caused by a bump or blow to the head or body that makes the brain move back and forth quickly inside the skull. Athletes do not have to lose consciousness or be “knocked out” to have a concussion.

If your child returns to play before the brain heals, another bump or blow can cause more damage.

Read more about concussions and our Concussion Program.

Many motions in sports can strain, twist or compress the neck or back in ways that may cause pain. When athletes run into each other or fall down, the impact can injure the neck or back too. Overuse injuries, like a stress fracture in the low back (spondylolysis), can also happen.

Read more about back pain and spondylolysis.

Throwing or reaching overhead, as in swimming, shooting a basketball or playing baseball, can cause a sudden injury, or a problem can form slowly from moving the same way again and again.

Shoulder and arm problems from sports may include:

• Shoulder instability
• Separated shoulder
• Little League shoulder (PDF) (Spanish)
• Rotator cuff tendonitis (PDF)
• Little League elbow
• Osteochondritis dissecans of the elbow
• Ulnar collateral ligament injury

The hip joint takes a lot of stress in sports that involve running, jumping or stopping and starting quickly. Tight or strained muscles in the hip or leg may cause pain around the hip joint. The hip may be injured during a fall too.

Read about Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease (PDF) and hip fractures.

Your child’s or adolescent’s iliotibial band (ITB) is a long tendon on the outside of their thigh. It connects the muscles around their hip and buttocks to the bone just below their knee.

Pain may start at the outside of the knee where the tendon rubs over the bone. Sometimes the pain goes up the side of the thigh too. Often this problem happens from stressing the band over and over, such as by running.

Knee pain can happen for many reasons.

• The kneecap can get pulled to the side so it does not line up well with the knee joint (patellofemoral syndrome, PDF) or tight muscles on the front or back of the thigh can put pressure on the knee.
• Swelling and pain can develop in the kneecap tendon or where the tendon connects the thigh muscles to the kneecap (Sinding-Larsen-Johansson syndrome, PDF) or to the shinbone (Osgood-Schlatter disease, PDF).
• In jumper’s knee (patellar tendinitis, PDF) your child’s or adolescent’s kneecap tendon gets inflamed from being stressed over and over.

Other problems with bones or ligaments in the knee can cause pain too. These include patellar dislocation and osteochondritis dissecans. Read more.

These are injuries to knee ligaments – the bands that keep your child’s or adolescent’s knee from wobbling or giving out when they move.

When the knee is forced out of place, a ligament can tear partially or all the way. Tears often happen when children stop or change direction all of a sudden, or when they twist their knees or bend their knees sideways.

Read more about:

• Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries
• Medial collateral ligament (MCL) injuries
• Posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) injuries

The meniscus is a pad of tissue in your child’s or adolescent’s knee that absorbs shock. It lies between their shinbone and their thighbone.

Most of the time, the pad tears when a child twists their knee all of a sudden. Read more.

Shin splints are pain in the muscle on the front of your child’s or adolescent’s lower leg.

Shin splints often happen after running on a hard surface or in shoes that do not absorb shock well. Training too hard or for too long, instead of building strength slowly over time, can cause shin splints too.

This is pain, swelling and sometimes other symptoms (like numbness or weakness) in muscles in 1 part of the body brought on by repeated movement. It happens when pressure goes up in a group of muscles wrapped by the same tissue (fascia). Often it affects the lower leg in athletes who run.

Typically symptoms get worse as your child exercises. They go away after your child stops and then come back when your child does the same type of exercise again.

Sever’s syndrome is pain at the back or bottom of your child’s or adolescent’s heel. It happens because the growth center of the heel bone gets irritated. The growth center is the place where new bone forms. It’s weaker than the rest of the bone, and it can get injured if stress is put on it again and again. Read more (PDF).

Fractures are cracks or breaks in bones.

Most fractures are traumatic – meaning they happen because of an injury, such as falling while running, pedaling a bicycle or riding a skateboard. The bone simply gets more force than it can handle and it breaks.

Stress fractures can happen when an athlete repeats the same position or motion over and over for a long time. The shinbone is a common place for stress fractures in activities that involve running or jumping.

Read more about fractures and our Fracture Program.