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Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization

Academic literature and sport policy documents have cited concerns about an increasing prevalence of early sport specialization, with associated burnout, dropout, and injury. However, evidence to support such statements is limited. Definitions of early specialization vary, but a common criterion is...

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Autores principales: Larson, Heather K., Young, Bradley W., McHugh, Tara-Leigh F., Rodgers, Wendy M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10530013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37756317
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292038
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author Larson, Heather K.
Young, Bradley W.
McHugh, Tara-Leigh F.
Rodgers, Wendy M.
author_facet Larson, Heather K.
Young, Bradley W.
McHugh, Tara-Leigh F.
Rodgers, Wendy M.
author_sort Larson, Heather K.
collection PubMed
description Academic literature and sport policy documents have cited concerns about an increasing prevalence of early sport specialization, with associated burnout, dropout, and injury. However, evidence to support such statements is limited. Definitions of early specialization vary, but a common criterion is continued participation in a single sport, prior to adolescence. We explored the prevalence of single-sport participation and other patterns of sport involvement from ages 6–12 in a Canadian swimming sample using retrospective longitudinal methods. Parents of 236 competitive swimmers (ages 12–17) completed surveys on their children’s sport backgrounds, including the number of sports participated in annually from age 6–12. A cluster heat map elucidated single- and multi-sport patterns over time. Mixed analyses of variance tested for differences by gender and club type. Fourteen percent of our sample showed stable participation in either one sport or multiple sports per year over time, 25% decreased their annual number of sports, and 60% increased. This trend of increasing, rather than decreasing the number of sports in their annual activity roster when approaching age 12 was particularly pronounced for girls. Only 10 participants (4% of the sample) consistently engaged in a single sport each year from age 6–12. Summer (seasonal) swimmers consistently did more sports than year-round swimmers. Overall, our findings showed highly idiosyncratic longitudinal patterns of sport participation that did not easily conform to current sport activity guidelines. We also found similar idiosyncrasy in an ad-hoc analysis of participants who had dropped out of swimming a year later. If single-sport participation is considered a key criterion for defining early specialization, our findings suggest the prevailing narrative around early specialization may be overstated in relation to the number of single-sport athletes. Alternatively, other components of early specialization may be more prevalent and deserving of attention due to possible associations with harmful outcomes.
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spelling pubmed-105300132023-09-28 Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization Larson, Heather K. Young, Bradley W. McHugh, Tara-Leigh F. Rodgers, Wendy M. PLoS One Research Article Academic literature and sport policy documents have cited concerns about an increasing prevalence of early sport specialization, with associated burnout, dropout, and injury. However, evidence to support such statements is limited. Definitions of early specialization vary, but a common criterion is continued participation in a single sport, prior to adolescence. We explored the prevalence of single-sport participation and other patterns of sport involvement from ages 6–12 in a Canadian swimming sample using retrospective longitudinal methods. Parents of 236 competitive swimmers (ages 12–17) completed surveys on their children’s sport backgrounds, including the number of sports participated in annually from age 6–12. A cluster heat map elucidated single- and multi-sport patterns over time. Mixed analyses of variance tested for differences by gender and club type. Fourteen percent of our sample showed stable participation in either one sport or multiple sports per year over time, 25% decreased their annual number of sports, and 60% increased. This trend of increasing, rather than decreasing the number of sports in their annual activity roster when approaching age 12 was particularly pronounced for girls. Only 10 participants (4% of the sample) consistently engaged in a single sport each year from age 6–12. Summer (seasonal) swimmers consistently did more sports than year-round swimmers. Overall, our findings showed highly idiosyncratic longitudinal patterns of sport participation that did not easily conform to current sport activity guidelines. We also found similar idiosyncrasy in an ad-hoc analysis of participants who had dropped out of swimming a year later. If single-sport participation is considered a key criterion for defining early specialization, our findings suggest the prevailing narrative around early specialization may be overstated in relation to the number of single-sport athletes. Alternatively, other components of early specialization may be more prevalent and deserving of attention due to possible associations with harmful outcomes. Public Library of Science 2023-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10530013/ /pubmed/37756317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292038 Text en © 2023 Larson et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Larson, Heather K.
Young, Bradley W.
McHugh, Tara-Leigh F.
Rodgers, Wendy M.
Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title_full Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title_fullStr Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title_full_unstemmed Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title_short Visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: Implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
title_sort visual representations of single- and multi-sport participation in a youth swimming sample: implications for definitions and discussions of early specialization
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10530013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37756317
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292038
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