Disadvantages Of Sports Specialization

Words: 1118
Pages: 5

Throughout the world, sports specialization, or the focus on one athletic goal while excluding all others, is slowly becoming the norm for athletes aspiring to reach the collegiate or professional level. The success of specialized athletes in former communist countries of Eastern Europe has contributed to a widespread notion encouraging the need for early specialization. It commonly has been perceived in the West that systematic training in Eastern Europe began at early ages and involved year-round participation, which has become the respective beginning for sports specialization. The relatively young ages of competitors in several sports were highlighted by the media in world sports events and reinforced early specialization as a requisite for success. While it has the possibility for social, physical and economic benefits, sports specialization is a detriment for young athletes looking to rise to an elite level. Sports specialization does have a number of crucial benefits, such as economic help within college attendance and access to scouts. Despite sports specialization appearing as beneficial, many parents, athletes, and coaches mis-interpretation of the odds of receiving college scholarships and …show more content…
If an athlete has the talent, specialization can be a critical life decision that will improve opportunities, but the odds of an athlete with great talent succeeding is very low, despite the common, contradicting view. Notwithstanding unencouraging statistics, if an athlete possesses the ability to reach the professional level and they made the decision to ignore the physical issues, there are many risks to specialization socially. As sports specialization is becoming continuously more popular and common, it is critical that the chance of injury and physiological issues are able to be combated, as those issues will become more