Hoopers heed these words

      It jumped out at me like a 7-footer playing in a middle school basketball game. With the first high school football game in Indiana about three weeks away, prep basketball players are still playing Amateur Athletic Union games.

LeBron James of the
Miami Heat ices his knees and ankles.

    When I think of obsessively playing a sport out of season without giving a young body a chance to rest before injuries take over, I think of Greg Oden.
     Remember Greg Oden?
     Oden is the former Craig Middle School, Lawrence North, and Ohio State University basketball star. He dominated at Craig, led LN to three straight state titles, dominated AAU games as a teen, and starred at OSU before being a No.1 draft pick of the Portland Trailblazers of the National Basketball Association.
     Oden appeared to live on a basketball court.
     Portland knew that Oden was an awesome 7-foot talent, but the  Trailblazers didn’t realize that “over-use injuries” would have his NBA career dangling by a few surgically repaired knees. At the age of 23, Oden has had three knee injuries and a foot injury since becoming the No. 1 overall pick in 2007
     In my opinion, the oft-injured Oden suffered from “over-use injuries” from playing too many basketball games as a youth.
     Unless you’re 7-0 and 285 pounds like Oden, parents I strongly suggest that you monitor and limit how often your child is playing basketball. Think of the pounding that the legs take on a young teen-age basketball player:

     n  Lay-ups are jumped off one leg at full speed.
     n  Knee-to-knee injuries occur often and hurt like . . .
     n  And driving to the basket, hanging in the air, leaves a player vulnerable to a bad landing or an overzealous defender.
     Girl basketball players are especially vulnerable to knee injuries because studies have shown that females’ hips are made for child-bearing, forcing the knees to bow out slightly, making their knees vulnerable to knee injuries. Look it up!
     Rob Conatser of Sierra Strength and Speed, said overuse is a problem in sports, especially basketball.
     “I feel that what we are seeing in terms of overuse is too much of one sport, too much one dimensional movement, and too much one-dimensional modes of practice,” said Conatser, whose company is located in Nevada and is devoted to personal training and injury prevention in sports like basketball.
     “Basketball year round, performing 5-6 games per weekend with the thought that the only way to improve our basketball athletes is with more and more basketball,” he said.
     He said overload leads to “jumper’s knee” problems in basketball.
     “Overload is the way in which these young athletes are jumping, landing and playing in poor position,” Conatser said. “Their body position is not only very poor for performance but is of great stress to the knee, ankle, and hip -- and the poor ability to put the necessary stress into the muscles to allow them to function and perform.”
     He follows up by saying young athletes need time to rest and recover. He emphasizes quality over quantity.
     But in the long run, athletes can still work hard to get their Division I scholarship or maybe even make it to the NBA. However, they should monitor their games and take care of their bodies, so that if they attain their goals, they can be healthy enough to enjoy it.