Reply to Do you worry about injuries?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are acute injuries which can be hard to avoid in a contact sport, especially when some referees and coaches can be lenient about hard tackles and the kids are more aggressive/faster as they grow.

A few things that we've done to address and prevent chronic pain/overuse issues (daughter is 11):
- Strength training, especially body weight-based core and lower body exercises to build muscle (routine part of another sport's practices but hopeful it will help with preventing soccer injuries too)
[b]- Turf shoes (post-game ankle pain was generally resolved after switching from cleats to turf shoes when playing on synthetic turf)[/b]
- Post-game stretching (hard to remember to do this when everyone is ready to get in the car, but trying to encourage 5-10 minutes of cool down)[/quote]

I make a real effort to search for and purchase Artificial Grass (AG) cleats because my kids play mostly on artificial grass fields.

Apparently, there is some evidence to support the idea that cleats made for Firm Ground (FG) (i.e., grass) have stud shapes that may provide TOO MUCH grip when used on artificial grass fields.

Many of the major brands have tried to create hybrid "FG/AG" cleats, which is what you usually find the most of; the theory is that it supposedly has stud shapes made for both (and also apparently due to the higher heat generated on artificial grass fields, there is also some tweak they make to account for that in terms of durability). But when you think about it, this FG/AG cleat does not really address the potential increased injury risk that comes with using FG boots on AG fields, because the FG/AG cleats still have at least some of the stud patterns that work well on FG but are potentially more dangerous on AG.

So you really want to try to find a dedicated pair of pure "AG" cleats for your kid. Sometimes I can find them here, sometimes I've had to order them from Europe. But I have opted for the "less grippy" pure AG cleats in the hopes that it reduces the injury risk.

This video explains it better than I did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkmcg7ET8j4

Turf shoes, which have even less grip than AG cleats, might be good for some very worn-down artificial grass fields around here. I suppose there's a point where the lack of grip/traction could itself create increased risk of injury, so I wouldn't recommend everyone use turf shoes on all artificial grass fields (and definitely not on real grass fields), but when in doubt I think erring on the side of "less grippy" is probably a good rule of thumb to reduce the risk of some injuries.[/quote]

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