
Right Moves: A LiiNK Center for Healthy Play Podcast
The Societal Pressures Pushing Youth into Sport Specialization Too Early
Youth sports in the US have become increasingly competitive and expensive especially since kids are becoming more specialized making it earlier in their elementary school years. What is the drive behind this? With only 1% of youth athletes playing at the college and professional levels, and many youth athletes quitting their sport by the age of 13, we have to ask ourselves where this immense pressure to enroll our children in sport early and specialize in a single sport is coming from? Dr. Rhea brings back Dr Sophia Ulman from the Movement Science Lab at Scottish Rite Hospital in Frisco to share her lab’s research findings on the “why” behind parent’s decisions to allow their kids to specialize in sport at earlier ages. Listen as they discuss these findings and what they mean for how parents and coaches make decisions with the child’s health in mind. Sophia Ulman, PhD, is the Division Director of Movement Science at Scottish Rite for Children, where she leads a motion capture laboratory focused on identifying biomechanical risk factors in sports medicine patients and healthy athletes to address clinical questions related to rehabilitation, recovery, and injury prevention. Her research broadly focuses on lower-extremity injuries and conditions, injury risk-reduction strategies, and risk factors specific to female athletes. Dr. Ulman holds faculty appointments at UT Southwestern Medical Center as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the School of Health Professions. She teaches in the Prosthetics-Orthotics Master’s Program and advises clinician scientists pursuing PhDs in Applied Clinical Research. She also serves on the Board of the Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine Society and has received national recognition for excellence in teaching and research.






