Youth Sports Specialization and Its Effect on Professional, Elite, and Olympic Athlete Performance, Career Longevity, and Injury Rates: A Systematic Review.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Systematic review of predominantly retrospective and survey-based observational studies
PubMed 36353394 · doi:10.1177/23259671221129594
What was done
A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines examined literature from 1990 to 2021 on youth sports specialization among professional, Olympic, and elite athletes. The authors evaluated six objectives: definitions and age of specialization, motivations, athlete perspectives, performance data, injury risk, and career longevity.
What was found
From 8,756 articles, 29 studies met inclusion criteria, 17 (58.6%) of which were survey-based. All 8 articles addressing injury risk found reduced injury risk in athletes who delayed specialization. For performance, 7 of 9 articles reported benefits with later specialization, while 2 showed benefits with earlier specialization (in marathon runners and soccer players). For career longevity, 5 of 9 articles found no association with sports specialization.
Why it matters
This review indicates that multisport participation during youth does not impair reaching the highest competitive levels and is consistently associated with lower injury risk compared to early single-sport specialization.
Limits
The underlying evidence is limited by retrospective and survey-based study designs subject to recall bias. Standardized definitions of specialization were lacking across included articles, and no pooled effect sizes were calculated.
Cited by
- supports A study published in Science found that early athletic or creative specialization on average leads to poorer peak adult success compared to participating in diverse activities during youth.