What Are The Negative Effects Of Back-To-Back Sports In High School

Though participating in three back-to-back sports in high school is exhilarating and entertaining, it can have many negative effects. For instance, running cross country, playing soccer, and running track back-to-back has had serious effects on a particular athlete. After participating in these three sports for about a year and a half, this athlete began to notice the effects during the second year of track. First, symptoms like fatigue and dizziness and loss of endurance appeared, but she blamed the fatigue on not sleeping enough, the dizziness on standing up too fast, and the loss of endurance on psyching herself out by thinking track was too hard, until she convinced herself it was true. These symptoms made track arduous, causing her to become worse at track. One day, after feeling like she could not handle it anymore because track stressed her out every day to the point of dreading and worrying about practice every second
of the day, she spontaneously walked off the track to her coach and quit. Not at all planning to quit, she came home to a rude awakening from her father. Despite everything she was going through, her father told her that she must keep the commitment she made when she joined the team. Reluctantly agreeing with her father, she arrived at school the next day planning to ask the coaches to rejoin the team, but the coaches were a step ahead, trying to convince her to rejoin. Now back on the team, she still had all of the problems she had when she quit plus some hip pain. Hoping the hip pain was the cause of not being able to run as fast or as long as usual, she went to the trainer. The trainer showed her stretches to do, but the pain became worse. She told the trainer about the pain, and he sent her to the orthopedic specialist. The specialist suspected that it was a small labral tear, but he would not know for sure until she had an MRI. With the MRI, she would get a steroid shot because that would be the first treatment, if it was torn, but the steroid shot would prohibit her from running for a week. Since it was the middle of track season and taking a week off would only make her slower, she decided she would wait until after track season. After all, it did not hurt during races, only during practice sometimes. After deciding to wait for the MRI and steroid shot, she continued to run.
At the next meet, she ran the 800 meter race like usual. She tried to stay with the people in the front, but at the last 200 meter stretch her legs just could not take it anymore and grew heavier and tired. She slowed down but knew she could not stop yet. People began to pass her. Finally, she crossed the finish line, but only after everyone had passed her leaving her in last place. After that horrible race, coaches kicked her off of the team. They said that she did poorly in the race on purpose because she wanted to run a different race. In truth, she had wanted to run a different race, but she would never lose a race on purpose. Feeling heartbroken as they told her how disappointed they were in her, she knew in her heart that they were also trying to do her a favor because they knew she was struggling. Although she never imagined they would kick her off the team, she felt extremely relieved that she would not have to endure all of the hardships of running
anymore. Eventually, she went to the doctor for her dizziness and found out she had iron deficiency anemia. At last, she had solved the enigma of her fatigue, dizziness, and loss of endurance. At last, she had found the reason she had become so slow and horrible at track. At last, she had found the reason she had lost the races. Wondering what caused the anemia, she researched and found that it is common in females athletes who excessively train in endurance. All of the non-stop training she has undergone through cross country, soccer, and track could have caused her to have anemia. After being diagnosed with anemia and not running for track anymore, she had forgotten about the hip pain. Then soccer tryouts and summer practices started. With every practice, her hip pain grew until she could not play anymore. Then, she decided it was time to do the MRI and steroid shot. The steroid shot did not help at all, and the MRI showed a labral tear. The doctor said that the tear is common in female runners and soccer players. It is common in these sports because labral tears are caused by sports that require repetitive twisting and cutting or require extremes of motion or require long distance running. Again, cross country, soccer, and track had negative effects causing her to tear her labrum. Since the steroid shot did not help her labrum, the doctor prescribed her with six weeks of physical therapy. Returning to the doctor after the six weeks, the doctor released her to play at her own risk, and if she still had pain, the next step would be surgery. After being released, she returned to all three of her sports. Since returning to the three sports, she has had other injuries and some reoccurring hip pain. Cross country, soccer, and track are amazing and exhilarating, but when someone plays them all back-to-back, they can cause anemia, which can cause embarrassment and disappointment in playing ability; a labral tear; other injuries; and reoccurring pain. Sports are all fun and games until someone gets hurt.