Young Athlete Program

If you have a young athlete in your life, or you’re a young athlete yourself, you’ve come to the right place. The Young Athlete Program at UPMC Sports Medicine helps active youth continue the activities they love.

We focus on treating young people as athletes first, just as we would any high school, college, or professional athlete who walks into our clinic.

Young athletes now participate in competitive sports and specialize earlier in life, sometimes training year-round. This makes it important for young athletes and their families to have a true sports medicine partner.

As your young athlete's partner, we’ll treat their injury. But we’ll also help rehabilitate and train them to return to their sport as strong as they were preinjury — or stronger.

Our program offers access to all of our sports medicine experts under one roof. You can see them at either UPMC Rooney Sports Complex or UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. We also have physical therapists specializing in the needs of young athletes at more than a dozen UPMC Rehabilitation Institute locations.

Contact the Young Athlete Program

To make an appointment or learn more about the Young Athlete Program at UPMC Sports Medicine, please call 1-855-937-7678 or complete our contact form.

What Youth Sports Injuries Do You Treat?

We treat every injury in every sport.

Some of the injuries we most commonly see in young athletes are:

ACL tears — Any sport that moves quickly and involves jumping, twisting, and landing can lead to an ACL tear. We see them most commonly among football, basketball, and soccer players.
Concussion — Concussion can happen in any sport, but it’s most common in contact sports like football, hockey, basketball, and soccer.
Knee pain — Knee pain is most common in sports that require repetitive motions and jumping, such as basketball, gymnastics, running, and volleyball.
Shin splints — Any sport that involves running can cause shin splints. Soccer players and cross-country and track athletes have a particularly high risk for shin splints.
Shoulder and elbow problems — Sports that use repetitive arm motions, like baseball, volleyball, and swimming, can cause tendonitis, rotator cuff problems, and shoulder impingement. Esports can also cause certain elbow and wrist problems.
Sprains and strains — Nearly all sports put athletes at risk for sprained ligaments and strained muscles. A sprained ankle is the most common basketball injury, but we also see them with football, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, and soccer.
Stress fractures and broken bones — Overtraining can cause stress fractures (very small cracks in the bone). We often see wrist fractures among gymnasts and skateboarders and broken fingers in contact sports.

Sport-Specific Injury Prevention

We want to help young athletes in every sport recover quickly and return to sport. To do this, we use science-based treatment methods specific to each young athlete’s activities and goals.

Want to know more about how sports medicine experts can help with your specific activities? Choose the sport or sports your young athlete plays to learn more about common injuries, prevention methods, treatments, and return-to-play protocols.

Services We Offer at the Young Athlete Program

We have a large team of experts, all with specific training in caring for young athletes. Our experts include:

Athletic trainers.
Mental health experts.
Neuropsychologists.
Nutritionists.
Orthopaedic surgeons.
Performance coaches.
Physiatrists.
Physical therapists.
Primary care sports medicine physicians.
Radiologists.

Together, we provide complete care for young athletes, personalizing everything we do for their sports and goals. Among key services are:

Injury evaluation

We use specialized imaging to diagnose injuries accurately. We also offer many innovative technologies, including:

An antigravity treadmill.
Instrumented muscle strength machines.
Video analysis for running, cycling, golf, baseball, and softball.

As your partner in recovery and injury prevention, we offer a full range of surgical and nonsurgical sports medicine treatments. Our goal is to help young athletes get back to the activities they enjoy.

Sports rehabilitation

Our primary care sports medicine doctors and orthopaedic surgeons work with physical therapists to tailor a custom program for each young athlete. Physical therapy can help young athletes:

Restore function.
Decrease pain.
Improve performance and recovery.
Return fully and confidently to their sports and activities.

Our rehab team has young athletes perform the specific movements their sport requires. This helps ensure they're in better physical and mental shape when they can take the field again.

Concussion diagnosis and treatment

Our Sports Medicine Concussion Program was the first of its kind when it opened its doors in 2000. Since then, we've become a global leader in sports-related concussion testing, diagnosis, treatment, and research.

With expertise in the different types of concussions, we can assess, manage, and treat concussions in young athletes. We also have a specific baseline testing tool called ImPACT that helps with return-to-sport.

Return-to-sport testing

We’ve developed return-to-play testing and protocols for many of the injuries most common in young athletes, including ACL injuries and concussions.

Our team conducts a series of tests to ensure a young athlete is ready to return to play, with minimal reinjury risk. We send athletes back to play with the confidence they need to get out there and give it their all.

Sports nutrition

Young athletes have specific nutritional needs. If they don’t eat right, it’s hard to train, perform, and recover at the levels they need. This is where our Sports Nutrition program comes in.

We help athletes of all ages understand that proper fueling and hydrating are important pieces of the performance puzzle.

Mental health and wellness

We work to assess all aspects of a student-athlete's health, including their mental health. We want to provide support if they find themselves in a time of need.

UPMC Sports Medicine, in partnership with UPMC Western Behavioral Health, offers mental health and wellness education and resources for all athletes. We're here to help young athletes perform their very best in sports, school, and life.