Student Athletes and Technology

by Brian Dorfman

I've worked with many student athletes in the past few years and it's obvious to me that these young men and women are in a very different situation then we were 10 or 20 years ago.  The student athlete of 2014 is up against hurdles I myself never saw as a young athlete.  Now, the training for many high school athletes is comparable to those doing college level sports.   There are often more coaches and more outside groups providing more input and more rigorous training.  But even more relevant, across the spectrum of experience for young athletes, is the impact of the technology.

It's clear that there is a big change in the type and frequency of injuries for student athletes today and I believe much of this difference is the byproduct of spending so much time using computers and cell phones and just sitting a lot while using the computer and the phone.  It's not that athletes are sustaining more or worse injuries than non-athletes due to today's extreme reliance on electronics, but rather, that athletics tends to highlight low-grade imbalances.

For example, a 16-year-old starting pitcher recently came to see me because he had pain and discomfort in his elbow and it hurt him to throw a ball. I quickly discovered that the root of the problem was tight biceps caused by the rigid position of his arms while texting.   Instead of keeping his elbows close to his body in an ergonomically correct position, he was raising his elbows up and away from his body. This common misalignment shortens the biceps and will cause problems for the musculature of the arm if it becomes habitual. So although pitching didn't cause the problem, it brought it to light very quickly, because he had to straighten his arm and extend the muscle significantly. Fortunately we were able to resolve the problem in one appointment by correcting his biomechanics, doing hands on massage and teaching him a few relevant stretches.

Here are some numbers I just pulled off the web which are pretty astonishing and really back what I've been seeing in my clinic with regard to postural and repetitive motion related pain and injuries. A 2009 study by the Pew Research Center found that on average teenage boys send and receive 30 texts a day while the average girl is up to 80 texts.    More than 30% of the subjects reported sending and receiving more than 100 texts per day!   On top of all this texting, on average, teens spend 31 hours a week on the computer, sending emails, surfing the web, visiting Facebook, MySpace and YouTube or playing games.  Thirty-one hours of sitting on top of the sitting they are doing each week during school.     And, to finish it all off, kids aren't walking anymore.  They are driving to and from school, to meet up with friends and for sporting events.  Even more sitting.  While texting perhaps.  Or playing video games on an i-Phone or hand held device. (For a more in depth discussion of the negative effects of too much sitting check out my piece on Resolving Lower Back Pain.) 

Fortunately these young athletes respond quickly to the right treatment and it's amazing how a painful elbow can become a perfect elbow again.  It's really remarkable.  For me, it's great to be able to see a case resolve in one or two appointments. 

So if you or your child or someone else you know is a student athlete with an injury of any kind, it is vital to consider the effects of technology when seeking a solution.  An evaluation of biomechanics and posture when using electronic devices must be included in any true assessment of the condition.  Correcting these imbalances will help student athletes feel better forever, and go a long way toward allowing them to play, train and compete for the years to come.