Why Young Athletes Get Hurt More During Puberty And How Parents Can Prevent It

We explore why injuries spike for young athletes during puberty and how parents can adjust training to protect long-term growth. Marina shares lessons from two climbers, the cost of overload, and how rest and coach quality change everything.

• puberty-driven mismatch between rapid bone growth and slower tendon adaptation
• common injury sites in climbing, especially fingers, shoulders, and elbows
• sudden training load increases after “getting serious” at 14
• comparison traps fueled by highlight reels and silence around injuries
• practical load management during growth spurts and using rest days well
• smarter alternatives on rest days like core, cardio, technique
• how to vet coaches and spot red flags in programming
• differences between a late starter and an early trainer through puberty
• parent roles in monitoring soreness, frequency, and recovery
• community learning through shared experiences and honest feedback

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About This Podcast

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Transcript

Why Puberty Increases Injury Risk

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why do kid athletes get hurt more often during growth spurts and puberty than they would when they were smaller or when they have passed the puberty age? Find out because that's what we're going to be talking about today and how you can be there to fully support your child to continue in their full potential without getting injured. I'm Marina, your host, mother of two aspiring rock climbers and wife to extreme athlete. And we're going to be talking all about injuries, especially during growth spurts. Look, injury, especially in extreme sports, especially in rock climbing, this is the norm. This is the norm. I know that it sounds crazy, but it is. It's part of being an athlete, and especially when you are in extreme sports, getting injured is really normal. And I mean, just my own experience with my sons, with all their friends, their climbers, my husband. We have seen quite a lot of injuries. A lot of times, obviously, you cannot avoid it because it's falling incorrectly or something like that. But then there are the major injuries, and that usually happens with muscles, with tendons, with elbows, with shoulders, and with rock climbing, in particular, fingers, right? Like the pulleys, the muscles. And there's quite a few times that you will see relatively young athletes, probably between the ages of 12 to 18, that have this a lot more common than when they get older. Usually, when they get older, it's just from laziness, lack of warming up properly, or other things. However, during those vital growth, those growing years, those puberty years, that time when your child is growing, this is when injury, when they are much more prone to those massive injuries. And the main reason is especially if so, I am in the position when I have two sons that are both very into rock climbing. And my oldest son began his climbing, I guess his climbing athletic journey during his puberty years, right? He was 14 years old when he really started to take it very seriously. And when you start to take a sport really seriously, that means your training completely changes, right? There are massive changes that happen with your training. And when your child has never truly been very athletic as far as disciplinary, as far as consistent training, their bodies are not prepared for the new load of training that they are about to put their bodies through to start that training for whatever your sport is, especially for extreme sports. So what happened with my oldest son was when he began, he had a lot of problems, especially in his shoulders. I mean, he was constantly not able to climb for long periods of time, he was constantly taking time off so that he could recuperate his injuries or the process of healing and even recovering after certain training sessions. For him particularly, it was with the shoulders and also with his fingers, because with climbing, so much of it is with this muscles that are in your fingers. I'm not gonna get really technical about this, right? If you want to get technical, obviously you could go and speak to your physiotherapist, you could go and talk to a professional about that. The goal here is as a parent, you need to understand what to do, right? So on top of dealing with their frustration and their adversity and just like their whole mental situation, which by the way, I have an entire podcast talking all about how to handle their frustration during these times, during injuries. This is more about focusing of understanding how to help your child with the training process. So, what particularly happened with my oldest son, which we did not understand at the time, was it was too much all at once. His body, his muscles, his tendons, they weren't prepared for this new load and for this consistent load. And when you're training, it is, you know, several times per week, and at times it could even be five times per week when you don't have the proper understanding of a good training strategy. And normally in the beginning, you will not simply because you're not prepared to understand all that goes with it, correct? Again, I have many podcasts talking about training programs, understanding how to find the right team, how to find the right coach, because that is all going to work really importantly in the whole training process. However, this is what happened with our child, right? With our oldest son, is that he it was just too much. It was too much overload. And what also led for him is to constantly be in comparison mode, saying, Well, these athletes never, you don't, you don't see them going through this type of injuries. Why is it always me? You know, this constant why me, this constant sadness as well. There's a couple of reasons for why we don't know about those other athletes. A lot of them don't talk about it, right? Like, I have an entire episode about death to YouTube because we only see the good stuff. We don't hear about the really hardcore stuff. So when I've been interviewing a lot of these well-known athletes' parents, that's when it comes out. Some of these athletes, they they have like they have to rest six months out of the year because of an injury, because they weren't in the proper understanding of how to work their muscles, especially in the beginning stages. And that's completely understandable, correct? Especially when you are starting this new sport. And for my oldest, he had massive injuries for his fingers. Now, what happened with his fingers was a little bit different than what happened with his shoulders, right? Because the finger strength that certainly starts to come in right away, but you do a lot of other exercises, especially in rock climbing, that involve you to load up your entire body weight onto, you know, these smaller exercises, these smaller hand exercises, and that really start to use muscles that you have never even thought of using. So you have to understand what is that load? Why make sure that you are not loading that much onto your child from the beginning. Now, a lot of times, what also happens, and this is what we are now starting to recognize with our younger son, because he actually has been training now since he was about eight or nine years old. So, way before the growth spurts, and when you're that tiny, you don't do a lot of the hardcore stuff that you're going to be doing in your 15 and 16 years of age simply because it's pretty much almost forbidden. Obviously, if you don't understand that and don't have a good coach or are not, you know, being logical, your kid could definitely mess himself up or her, but chances of that happening are really slim versus when you know they've been training from a younger age and their muscles are developing as they are growing. However, when they are going through their growth spurts, especially during puberty, there is a lot of shifts, right? A lot of movements going on. It's kind of like that continental shift of you know, of earth. When that continental shift happens, we get earthquakes, right? We get these weakening points, these faults. And it's very similar to when your child is growing, these growth spurts, they really could happen rapidly for some, not rapid enough for others. Every kid is totally different. However, when they are in that age period and they're starting to feel it, and you normally have some indication, right? You are outgrowing some clothes or your child is feeling some growing pains or whatever. This is when you have to understand you cannot load up your exercises. Your coach, your trainer also needs to be very familiar with this time because this is when a lot of injuries can happen. And if they are not taken care of properly, this could be almost a dead end to the career of your child if they are not properly handled. And in climbing, it is very, very much more seen in fingers, especially in their finger muscles. And everything happens when climbing is with your fingers, correct? With your hands. Obviously, your entire body supports all that. But if you are one, if you have one injured finger, you could be out for a long period of time. However, understanding that you cannot load up, you cannot continue with that same hardcore training during these times. You need to start to go back, you need to train less days. This is all part of that training strategy that you need to discuss with your coach. You need to also understand that your coach understands this because a lot of people today are saying that they're coaches without the proper training and they could really screw things up for your child. When we were living in Guatemala, we have seen this one coach, he had the probably the top line athletes, but when they started to hit their growth spurts, they were all consistently injured. And we are talking like massive injuries to the point where they needed surgeries on their hands because he did not have proper training. He did not understand what was going on, and he kept on pushing them at the same way as he was before they were going through those spurts, before and understanding that they cannot train five days a week. They need to train maybe only two days with their fingers and maybe do other training the other days if he still wants to continue that training. So this was this is something that is really important. And right now, my oldest son has passed that growing, uh, that growing time, that adjusting his muscles. You know, it was a very difficult couple of years, but with that, he has learned that it's all about how you train. And now watching his younger brother, who has had that training all along and is now going through the gross parts, he is the first one to jump in and be like, he cannot train this much, he needs to take his days off, even though sometimes I, who am ignorant at times, because I too get sucked into watching these videos on YouTube or other videos that my kids watch all the time, watching these professional athletes. And I get sucked in because you hear only their best moments, and then I'm like, oh, maybe you know, Keanu needs to go and train a little bit more. And my oldest is like, no, he needs to rest. This is a rest day. If he's bored, fine, he could do core, he could go do some cardio, he could do other stuff, but he cannot do any actual climbing. He needs to take that rest off, he needs to take that day off, and that is has been revolutionary for me. First of all, seeing because my oldest son is just as committed to the training, to becoming a professional rock climber, and understanding what he sees and what he has been through has been absolutely remarkable and is truly helping our younger son. Gratefully, we are in a location where our coaches are trained properly, they all have really good understanding. They were all climbers themselves, so that really makes such a difference. But a lot of times you will not be in that position. So, you as a parent, you need to understand what to watch out for, what to look for, and understand not to push your child that hard because it could totally work against everybody, and they could stop their entire career simply because you did not understand how to manage this particular time in their growing period. Now, I would love to hear your feedback. Have you guys experienced this? Have you seen this? And it's not only for rock climbing, this is for any sport overall, especially in extreme sports, when we, when the athlete really depends all on their entire body, right? So it's very important to understand. And what have you had? What other what have your kids gone through? How have you managed it? Which injuries have you noticed through that? Have you had experiences with the coaches when they weren't familiar with this information? Please let us know because the more we could share, the more we understand really can make a difference for the rest of our, you know, the rest of the people because we are all on the same journey together, learning and really are here to be able to support our child as best as possible. So remember, please leave me comments, subscribe, and leave a review, especially if you enjoyed this episode. And I'm excited to hear more from you.