pitchers were “putting wear and tear on those ligaments,” Dr. Atanda says. In addition to baseball pitchers, he says, many other young athletes overstress their bodies by playing too often and joining too many teams. The stress makes it easier for injuries to happen. Usually the athletes can heal with rest and small changes in the workout routine, Dr. Atanda says. But because he wants to prevent those injuries, he encourages children to limit their participation in any single sport to eight months a year—or less. If they choose to be involved athletically year-round, he suggests practicing a different sport for the other four months. When you play the same sport all the time, he explains, you are always using the same muscles and ligaments, which can lead to problems without appropriate rest. He also says that children should not train more than four days a week. Dr. Atanda knows that some children like their sport so much that they join two or more teams to boost the time they spend playing. He tells his patients they can take a pointer from professional players. For example, a baseball player wouldn’t play for both the Phillies and the Mets. So why would kids play for more than one team? If kids “feel pain or fatigue, they need to stop and rest,” he says. “Take care of your body. ... You Alfred Atanda Coaching young athletes on injury prevention Dr. Alfred Atanda sees children with sports injuries every day. It’s his job to help them recover. Most of the time they can return to the playing field. But Dr. Atanda, who specializes in sports medicine at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, also looks for ways to prevent those injuries from happening in the first place. For instance, he has done research on how young baseball pitchers can avoid damaging their elbows. Because baseball pitchers throw over and over again, they can weaken a ligament that connects a bone in their lower arm with one in their upper arm. Over time, the ligament can tear and, if that happens, the player may need elbow surgery. In his research, Dr. Atanda and his colleagues examined the elbows of 102 healthy young baseball players. He recorded how often the athletes played, and he used technology that could detect even the smallest changes in their ligaments. The study concluded that the 6