Any player’s health is important while they’re on the court, and your child ranks at the top of that list. But health is a finicky thing and can be difficult to maintain. If your child is having trouble staying on the court, take a look at their practice schedule for answers.

Overtraining and Its Effects

If your child is practicing for more than ten hours a week and regularly competing in tournaments, it’s a very real possibility that they might be overtraining. If your player has experienced a recent explosion in the amount of work they’re putting into their sport, that’s a good thing- but it can also be a bad thing. Overtraining can lead to more common injuries like tennis elbow, but it can also lead towards worse injuries down the road, especially depending on just how much you’ve been overtraining.

Mitigating The Risk

But now that you know overtraining is a thing, how do you prevent it? There are several ways. First, you can take a look at how long your player has been practicing- that’s a very telltale sign of overtraining. For the more industrious parents, there’s also several mathematical formulas on the internet detailing how to find the ‘sweet spot’ and how to keep your kid healthy.

However, if you’re looking for something a little less intensive, you can stay on the slightly easier path. Avoiding sudden spikes in the level of training your child is doing and instead choosing to gradually increase their workload will help a lot, as well as carefully planning and scheduling practice times to ensure that your child isn’t overworking themselves. Furthermore, make sure that everything is working out with the rest of your child’s life- they’ve still got schoolwork and a social life to maintain, and they can’t spend every extra hour of the day practicing unless they really want to. Give them some time to also be themselves, and they’ll perform better on the court because of it.