Video: Know the risks of overtraining

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MARYSVILLE, Wash. - Sports help kids keep fit and build skills.

But when is it too much of a good thing?

Seventeen-year-old Jack Opel is a high school player who dreams of going pro.

And his mom will tell you, this family loves sports.

"My husband loves to watch his kids play sports as well as me, so he buys every picture that they take of our kids," said Fran Opel, Jack's mother.

Jack hasn't stopped at baseball.

"I've swam, I've wrestled, I've played basketball, played baseball and played football," he said.

It was going up for a football pass that landed him in the hospital.

"When I came down I got hit from either side and it caused the tibia to actually pop out and crack," he said.

Even after ankle surgery, Jack says he continued to push.

"I kind of under-exaggerated the pain that I was feeling, so that I could come back earlier," he said.

He didn't know that training through the pain would lead to overuse injuries in his second ankle, his elbow, and shoulder.

"A risk factor for overtraining is really someone who's highly motivated, goal oriented, and puts a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed," said Dr. Brian Krabak, of Seattle Children's Hospital.

Krabak treated Jack at Seattle Children's Hospital.

He's says in a culture where professional athletes make big money, more kids are pushing themselves. There's a price.

"If you put too much stress on the joints and the ligaments and the muscles you can get fractures, you can get fractures through the growth plate and you can get tears in muscles," he said.

Jack works on rehabilitation every day now. The right combination of rest, strengthening and stretching should keep his injuries from becoming chronic disabilities that could end his baseball dreams, and interfere with his mom's dream for her sons.

Only a tiny fraction of kids go on to professional sports. The rest can reap the rewards of a lifelong habit of fitness.

The key to knowing whether your child is playing through pain is communication. Also question your child to see whether teammates are pressuring him or her to stay in the game instead of resting