Evidence Hub
Evidence-based articles on youth rehab and performance.
Evidence-informed summaries of what the research actually says about adolescent injury, rehabilitation and strength & conditioning - written for parents, coaches and athletes.
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24 articles
Why Do Growth-Related Injuries Happen?
Growth-related injuries are not bad luck. They are the predictable result of demand outrunning capacity at a specific point in development.
How Growth Spurts Affect Strength, Speed and Sports Performance
A growth spurt temporarily scrambles coordination and can flatten performance for months - then hands back a bigger, more powerful athlete if training is handled well.
Can You Prevent Growth-Related Injuries in Young Athletes?
You cannot prevent growth. You can meaningfully change the odds, and the things that work are simpler and cheaper than most parents expect.
Adolescent Knee Pain: Red Flags That Need Assessment
Most adolescent knee pain is load-related and self-limiting. A short list of features should prompt clinical assessment instead.
How Much Sleep Do Children and Teenagers Need for Sports Recovery?
Most teenage athletes get well under the recommended amount, and the association between short sleep and injury in this group is one of the more consistent findings in youth sport research.
Growing Pains or a Sports Injury? How to Tell the Difference
True growing pains and sport-related growth plate injuries look nothing alike once you know what to compare, and the distinction changes what you should do.
How Long Does Osgood-Schlatter Disease Last?
The honest answer has two parts: how long until your child is playing comfortably, and how long until the condition is gone for good.
Knee Pain in Children: The Common Causes and What to Do Next
Where the knee hurts tells you most of what you need to know. This is the parent's map of the four or five things that account for the vast majority of knee pain in young athletes.
Growth Spurts and Sports Injuries: Why Do They Happen?
A growth spurt changes an athlete's body faster than their tissues or their coordination can keep up. Injuries cluster in that window for good reason.
Why Do Growing Children Get Knee and Heel Pain?
Knee and heel pain cluster in growing athletes for a specific, well-understood reason - and once you understand it, the management makes sense.
Osgood-Schlatter Disease: What Is It and Can My Child Still Play Sport?
Osgood-Schlatter is the most common cause of knee pain in growing athletes - and in most cases, stopping sport completely is the wrong answer.
Growth Spurts and Injury Risk: Why Injuries Cluster at Peak Height Velocity
Injury rates rise sharply around peak height velocity. Understanding the mechanism lets you adjust training before symptoms appear.
How to Manage Training Load When Children Play Multiple Sports
Multi-sport participation is good for development, but only if someone is adding up the total. Usually nobody is.
How Much Training Is Too Much for a Young Athlete?
There is no universal number - but there are reliable thresholds, warning signs and a simple way to keep track.
Returning to School Sport After the Holidays: How to Safely Build Training Back Up
The first three weeks back are the highest-risk period of the school year. A short ramp-up before term starts changes how that period goes.
Rest vs Load Management: Why "Just Rest It" Fails for Apophysitis
Complete rest settles pain and then hands it straight back on return to sport. Progressive loading is what builds tolerance.
Recovery for Young Athletes: The Best Strategies After Training and Competition
Sleep, food and rest days do almost all the work. Ice baths, compression garments and foam rollers do far less than the marketing suggests.
Knee Pain in Young Footballers: Common Causes and What to Do
Football concentrates kicking, sprinting and cutting into the same knee, week after week. Here are the causes that actually turn up, and how to tell them apart.
From Injury to Performance: A 3-Phase Approach to Youth Athletic Development
The same three-phase structure takes an athlete from painful to playing, and then from playing to performing better than before.
Strength Training During a Growth Spurt: What Should Change?
A growth spurt is not a reason to stop strength training. It is a reason to change what you emphasise within it.
Osgood-Schlatter Exercises: Where to Start and How to Progress
The exercises that help Osgood-Schlatter are not complicated. What matters is starting at the right level, progressing in the right order, and judging the dose by how the knee feels the next morning.
When Is a Young Athlete Ready to Return to Sport After Injury?
Time since injury is the least useful readiness criterion. These are the tests that actually tell you whether a young athlete is ready.
Growth vs Maturation: What's the Difference and Why Does It Matter in Youth Sport?
Growth is how big a child is getting. Maturation is how far through the process they are. Confusing the two is one of the most common mistakes in youth sport.
When Do Growth Plates Close? What Parents and Young Athletes Need to Know
Growth plates close at different ages in different bones, and the window before closure is when most growth-related sports conditions appear.