Parents of athletic children can protect them from injury by encouraging them to try out a wide variety of sports, a new study says.

Repetitive stress from focusing on one sport at a young age increases an athlete’s risk of injuries into adulthood, according to a pair of new studies presented this week at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ annual meeting in New Orleans.

One study found young athletes specializing in one sport were more likely to need treatment for hip or groin pain during college and to quit their sport entirely due to injury.

The other found that players who made it to the National Football League (NFL) had up to a 24% lower risk of injury if they had engaged in other sports during high school.

“These findings suggest that encouraging young athletes to diversify their sports participation may help reduce injury risk and improve long-term musculoskeletal health,” Gnaneswar Chundi, lead researcher on the NFL study, said in a news release. He’s a third-year medical student at Rutgers New Jersey School of Medicine in Newark.

Young athletes often decide to specialize in one sport, to increase the odds of landing a college scholarship or professional career. However, such focus can increase the risk of burnout and injury.

For the first study, researchers surveyed more than 1,000 students between 18 and 22 years of age attending one of five universities. The participants reported their sports participation between ages 8 and 14, as well as any injuries they’d had.

Results showed that young athletes who specialized early were more likely to suffer from hip or groin pain (63% versus 53%), and were more likely to quit their sport due to injury (68% versus 55%).

Among those with hip or groin pain, early sports specialization was linked to higher rates of surgical treatment, 21% versus 12%, the study found.

Female athletes were especially vulnerable to the negative effects of specialization, researchers said.

They had a higher rate of hip or groin pain than males, 59% versus 53%, and were more likely to need non-surgical (58% versus 45%) and surgical treatment (6% versus 2%) for hip pain.

“During critical growth years, the developing hip is highly sensitive to repetitive loading, especially in sports with deflection or instability events,” said lead researcher Dr. Michael Willey, an orthopedic surgeon at University of Iowa Health Care.

“Over time, this can cause the hip socket to remodel to accommodate the abnormal impingement,” Willey said in a news release. “While this may be asymptomatic early on, it can lead to impingement, labral tears, cartilage damage and even early arthritis later in life.”

In the second study, researchers analyzed more than 2,500 NFL players drafted between 2011 and 2023.

Results showed that those who participated in multiple sports during high school had significantly lower rates of injuries.

Overall, they had a 20% lower risk of any injury, and a 24% lower risk of major injuries, researchers found.

“This has important implications, especially as year-round training is often required of athletes for a specific sport,” Chundi said. “Athletes, parents, coaches and athletic trainers all need to be aware of these risks.”

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.