Back to School: Protecting young athletes during growth spurts

“It just felt like a sharp pain, like pinch, kind of [near] my lower back,” Micah Guay said.

That pinch was a sign of something serious.

“That was a difficult moment for all of us,” Heath Guay said.

Within months, 15-year-old Micah Guay was facing back surgery.

“Nobody wants to see their kid have to have surgery, especially a spine surgery,” Heath said.

Micah had a lumbar stress fracture, a crack in the bones of the lower back, often triggered by repetitive motion in young athletes.

His surgeon, Dr. Michael Staff at UMass Memorial Medical Center, says growth spurts can make young people especially vulnerable to injuries.

“It has to do a lot with the growth that’s occurring at a fairly accelerated rate,” Dr. Staff said. “As kids start to go from these, 9, 10, 11, 12, when they’re playing sports, into their middle adolescence where they’re starting to reach the end of their growth potential, they’re bigger, stronger, faster, and all of those things make injuries more likely.”

The surgery sidelined Micah for two seasons, a crushing setback for a teen with dreams of playing college ball.

“I was pretty bummed out,” Micah said. “I thought it was gonna be like, really hard to impossible to get back and even try to go to college for baseball.”

With fall sports kicking off, doctors warn these injuries aren’t rare. The risk increasing as kids push their bodies.

“Fall is when a lot of new sports are starting,” Dr. Staff said. “Their bodies might be seeing different stresses and I think it’s important for people to think about as they are using new muscles, doing new maneuvers, maybe training in different ways, and certainly in contact sports as well.”

Simple steps can keep kids safer like warming up and stretching before practice, not ignoring persistent or recurring pain, and getting enough rest and recovery.

The setback force Micah to slow down, but he will be back on the field.

“Definitely to not really get upset at where you are, and just focus on where you can be and how you can get there,” Micah said.

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