Playing through pain

I was just watching the news the other day and saw a story about how overtraining for athletes has become more and more of a problem. As a result of this overtraining, these athletes are ending up with stress fractures and long-term injuries. It is not unheard of for a young adult to have had multiple knee surgeries by the time they have graduated from college. Similar to the sentence used in the previous post about how Bynum has, "learned to play with the pain and its limitations," countless other athletes are learning to do the same, although at a much younger age. The number of children who start giving up their passions in order to focus on just one at such a young age is incredible. Their participation on multiple teams, of the same sport, starting in the early teenage years, forcing them to practice more days throughout the year than not has led them to overtrain, ending up with knee injuries as well as stress fractures. As a college student, I am able to see this problem of overtraining with my friends who participate on varsity athletic teams that practice six days a week. But, just like Bynum, they have learned to play through the pain. While practice is supposed to make perfect, I think that it is necessary for athletes of all ages to take a break every so often in order to reduce the number of injuries due to overtraining. Another suggestion the news clip offered was to take a few days to practice a different sport other than the one you are focusing on in order to give your body the chance to do different exercises. Do you think the pressure parents and coaches are putting on the athletes is what is causing them to keep quiet about any pain the athlete is experiencing? Or do you think it is the individual motivation that lies in the athlete, causing them to ignore the pain to make sure they don't lose any playing time during an important game?

I was just watching the news the other day and saw a story about how overtraining for athletes has become more and more of a problem. As a result of this overtraining, these athletes are ending up with stress fractures and long-term injuries. It is not unheard of for a young adult to have had multiple knee surgeries by the time they have graduated from college. Similar to the sentence used in the previous post about how Bynum has, "learned to play with the pain and its limitations," countless other athletes are learning to do the same, although at a much younger age. The number of children who start giving up their passions in order to focus on just one at such a young age is incredible. Their participation on multiple teams, of the same sport, starting in the early teenage years, forcing them to practice more days throughout the year than not has led them to overtrain, ending up with knee injuries as well as stress fractures. As a college student, I am able to see this problem of overtraining with my friends who participate on varsity athletic teams that practice six days a week. But, just like Bynum, they have learned to play through the pain. While practice is supposed to make perfect, I think that it is necessary for athletes of all ages to take a break every so often in order to reduce the number of injuries due to overtraining. Another suggestion the news clip offered was to take a few days to practice a different sport other than the one you are focusing on in order to give your body the chance to do different exercises. Do you think the pressure parents and coaches are putting on the athletes is what is causing them to keep quiet about any pain the athlete is experiencing? Or do you think it is the individual motivation that lies in the athlete, causing them to ignore the pain to make sure they don't lose any playing time during an important game?

There have been several reports about Andrew Bynum, the LA Lakers center, over the past couple weeks (read an article from today's Boston Globe here).

Bynum has a partially torn meniscus, which has been giving him trouble during the finals and has raised doubts about his ability to play.

I am always careful to avoid injury when participating in athletics, and this sentence from the Boston Globe article really stood out for me: Bynum has a history of knee problems, and he has gotten used to playing with pain and its limitations.

I guess a professional athlete has to make concessions like this, especially for important games. But I wonder if it's really OK for Bynum to continue playing despite pain. Isn't he cutting his career short and setting himself up for a retirement full of medical problems by not giving his torn meniscus a chance to heal?

What do you think?