You are correct. But not in the way that you're thinking. Athlete's are seeing more wear and tear earlier in their careers because of playing one sport for 8-9 months a year.
https://healthcarenews.com/too-much-too-fast-too-soon-overuse-injuries-are-common-in-young-athletes/
"You’ve seen him — or her. The promising young pitcher with loads of raw talent and parents who see a college scholarship down the road. So, after playing on both a school team and a city league in the spring, the kid signs up for a traveling summer league. And then a fall league. Can’t slow down — gotta keep those skills up.
Until the inevitable elbow damage requires Tommy John surgery.
“Each year, we see younger and younger kids specializing in one sport, spending more than eight or nine months playing one sport, focusing on it year-round, five or six years in a row,” said Dr. Zachary Schepart, who specializes in pediatrics and sports medicine at RiverBend Medical Group.
Indeed, a 2015 survey in the
American Journal of Sports Medicine found that 60{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of all Tommy John surgeries in the U.S. are for patients ages 15 to 19. “That’s amazing — or appalling,” Schepart said. “That’s a significant injury that results from repetitive use over time.”
By contrast, the former pitcher whose name became forever linked with the procedure — a then-groundbreaking surgical graft to repair a damaged elbow ligament — was 31 when he went under the knife. In response to the growing trend of Tommy John surgeries in teenagers, the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine launched the STOP (Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention) Sports Injuries campaign in 2010.
The broad topic of overuse injuries, especially among young people, is one that Dr. Julio Martinez-Silvestrini, medical director of Baystate Rehabilitation Care, has been talking about for many years.
“Overuse injuries are related to training errors,” he told
HCN. “One of the biggest problems we have is athletes specializing too early. It’s important for kids to participate in different types of sports, where each sport has different elements of strength, conditioning, aerobic capacity, coordination, explosive strength — all these things are different, so every sport is a little bit different.”
