Tennis, cross-country, gymnastics, swimming, volleyball: what do these sports have in common? They’re non-contact sports that still provide all the same health benefits without encouraging physical collision between players.
While any sport, full- or non-contact, can cause significant injuries to athletes, the physical benefits of the latter outweigh those of the former.
Most professional athletes across all professional team sports had to go through some type of organized league as children, whether it’s AAU (offers a variety of sports), Pop Warner (football and cheer) or Little League (baseball).
While most young athletes see these organizations as the gateway to their professional sports aspirations, there’s a steadily increasing number of parents who are hesitant about letting their children play full-contact sports, such as football, at such a young age.
According to a study done by the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine in 2014, it’s estimated that 44 million young athletes (between the ages of 6 and 18) participate in organized athletics.
Although youth sport participation can have many benefits like development of self-esteem and general health and fitness, there’s always been a lingering emphasis on competitive success for kids, driven by aspirations of collegiate scholarships and professional contracts.
This competitive drive ultimately can lead to an increased pressure to begin high-intensity training as opposed to skill development at young ages, which can ultimately lead to serious injury and burnout.
While this is a very possible fear for parents enrolling their children in organized sports, the debate of full- vs. non-contact sports will continue in earnest as new information enters the discourse.
Chase Ray is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
