Youth sports injuries on the rise: What to know

Whether you’re a professional athlete or a weekend warrior who participates in a recreational soccer league, playing sports comes with an implied injury risk. That risk is also growing more prominent among younger athletes.

According to the National Safety Council, 1.5 million children went to the emergency room for a sports-related injury in 2024. From ACL tears among girl high school soccer players to epicondyle apophysitis in Little League baseball pitchers, the injuries can be painful and season-ending. Some need surgery before they return to play, and many require extensive rehabilitation.

Why are so many children and teens getting hurt playing the games they love? As it turns out, the answer is multifaceted — much like the field of orthopedics itself.

Youth sports are becoming more popular

The one trend in youth sports that almost no one is complaining about is increased participation. As the federal government's Healthy People 2030 program works to boost youth sports participation to 63 percent within the next five years, it appears that the country is moving in the right direction.

According to the Aspen Institute's annual “State of Play" survey, children are playing sports at the highest rate since 2015. In fact, in 2023, more than 27 million youth ages 6 to 17 either participated in an organized sports team or took lessons in a sport outside of school.¹ The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that a record high of nearly 8.3 million students participated in high school sports in 2024-25.²

Also factoring into the popularity of youth sports is growing interest in new or alternative offerings like pickleball, martial arts, and flag football. For children and teens who might be discouraged by the competitive culture surrounding traditional sports, participating individually or playing on a team where winning isn't the focus may be seen as a great opportunity to learn new skills and make friends.

At the same time sports participation is increasing, more youth are playing fewer sports... With [this] increased participation and specialization, there's also been an uptick in youth sports injuries.

How specialization could be fueling the trend 

At the same time sports participation is increasing, more youth athletes are playing fewer sports, and more are playing a single sport year-round. One recent survey by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association found that youth athletes ages 6 to 17 regularly played 1.63 sports, on average. That was down from an average of 2+ sports a decade ago.³ 

Early sports specialization, or “ESS" as the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) calls it, has historically been common in individual sports like gymnastics, dance, and tennis. But now the trend has expanded to athletes in team sports as well. Especially in sports like soccer and baseball, children can now travel to tournaments, play on multiple teams, and train indoors when seasonal changes make outdoor competition impossible. Many young people choose to specialize for the love of the game, while others do so to gain a competitive edge or at the urging of their parents.  

Explaining the uptick in repetitive stress and overuse injuries 

With increased participation and specialization, there's also been an uptick in youth sports injuries. Pediatricians have observed a recent spike in overuse and repetitive stress injuries in children and adolescents, and have noted that female athletes and endurance sports athletes — as well as those with a prior history of injury — seem to be most at risk.⁴ 

Among the most common injuries in this category are tendinopathies, patellofemoral pain, and growth-plate conditions like epiphysiolysis. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) highlights baseball pitching, repetitive jumping, and swimming as frequent causes of such pathologies, and notes that injury risk overall increases with overtraining, inadequate rest, and the muscle imbalances that can result from concentrating on only one sport.

What’s more is how specialization in youth sports may impact athletes later in life. National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner Adam Silver spoke about the rise in Achilles injuries among players during the 2025 NBA draft in June. According to Silver, many experts in a panel conducted by the league suggested that single-sport specialization and the stress put on bodies from the ages of 10 to 19 may play among the biggest roles in determining wear and tear.

Also worth mentioning — and the subject of much research — is the rise of ACL injuries among young female athletes. Studies have found that girls are up to eight times more likely than boys to tear their ACL in high-impact sports like soccer and volleyball.⁵ Combine that with increased female participation in such sports — nearly 493,000 girls played high school volleyball in 2024-2025, up almost 3 percent from the previous year — and the average annual ACL injury rate for high school athletes has been climbing steadily for years.

How sports medicine can respond to the demand 

All of this means that orthopedic practices should anticipate seeing growth in their youth caseloads over the coming years. Expect to see more children with overuse injuries, and to field questions from parents about balancing sports schedules. 

At the same time, it's likely that demand for specific orthopedic services will ebb and flow with the school sports calendar, from MCL sprains and ACL tears in the fall to shin splints and musculoskeletal injuries like plantar fasciitis and elbow ligament damage in the spring. 

Ways orthopedic providers can adapt clinical and business processes 

For orthopedic practices, the growing youth sports market presents a clear opportunity to deliver pediatric orthopedic care, but it could also introduce workflow challenges for those that aren't adequately prepared. To keep up with demand, clinics will need to: 

• Leverage technologies that help drive efficiency, simplify processes, and facilitate communication with patients and their families
• Partner with other providers, including physical therapists, to quickly return athletes to competition
• Turn to tools that enable easy referrals and care coordination
  athenaOne® for Orthopedics offers orthopedic practices a fully integrated solution that helps simplify the process of getting paid, no matter how complex the reimbursement landscape becomes.

Our foundational Advanced Intelligence Layer enables native AI to continuously learn from updates across the network – from patient data to changes in payer requirements. The Advanced Intelligence Layer is complemented by AI-powered tools across clinical and practice management workflows.

Chart Assistant with Sage™ can help reduce charting time and preparedness by pulling updated patient data from disparate sources and responding to clinician inquires. Updates to ChartSync help automate the deduplication of external data for a consolidated view. Soon, Data Explorer will offer AI-powered Quality Measure Result Insights, which can pull patient measure stats and non-compliant patient results to assist in closing care gaps. These updates will continue building on athenaOne’s excellent MIPS performance specific to the orthopedic space—72.09% of eligible athenaOne orthopedic clinicians reporting traditional MIPS achieved positive payment in PY2023 with an average MIPS score of 85.93 compared to the national rate of 58.53% and a national average score of 74.63.⁶

During the revenue cycle process, Express Authorizations help to automate prior authorization determinations; agentic AI conducts payer research and other end-to-end AI revenue cycle management (RCM) capabilities in areas like coding and write-off advice. These capabilities work together and can help orthopedic practices get paid while avoiding administrative headaches, allowing clinicians to place more time and investment in patient care.

No matter where the injury trends go next, orthopedic practices that pair clinical expertise with technology-driven efficiency will be positioned for success. For solutions, explore athenaOne for Orthopedics.