Want to prevent injuries? Then start with your posture. My favorite book is Esther Gokhale's 8 Steps to a Pain Free Back.
Watch this video on Stretchsitting
Start paying attention to your posture and watch your sports performance improve!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Concussion App for IPhone
Here is a link to get the The Concussion Recognition & Response™ App for IPhone/IPad. It is an easy to use MUST HAVE if you have a child playing sports.
Click Here to go to ITunes.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sports Team First Aid Kit
You wouldn’t send your child to a pool without a trained lifeguard, would you?
Do you send your child off to soccer, football, baseball, softball, basketball, lacrosse, field hockey knowing that the coaches have a first aid kit?
Are they certified in CPR/AED and first aid?
After over two decades of being on the sidelines at sports games and practices and working with dozens of athletic trainers, I have put together a fantastic sports team first aid kit at a great price.
Compare this kit to Cramer’s, Lifeline, and Mueller Sports First Aid Kits and you will see this sports first aid kit has more practical and necessary supplies.
As a special bonus valued at $25.00, I am including my Emergency Plan form AND my Injury Record Form. The emergency plan form is a must for any team and/or league. In this day and age, you must be prepared and have a plan of action in case of injury or other emergency.
As a super bonus valued at $35.00, I am including my book: Rub Some Dirt On It: What Every Parent and Coach Should Know About on the Field Injury Care. This book is a summary of my 25 years of experience as a sideline and team doc for many different sports. It is used in the course Care and Prevention of Athletic Injuries in the Montgomery County, Maryland public school system.
Sports Team First Aid Kit Regularly $55.97... Special Sale $39.97! Click Here to Order
As a special bonus valued at $25.00, I am including my Emergency Plan form AND my Injury Record Form. The emergency plan form is a must for any team and/or league. In this day and age, you must be prepared and have a plan of action in case of injury or other emergency.
- 1 Extra-durable SpunTuff fabric 12” bag
- 50 Gauze pads
- 3 Gauze rolls
- 50 Band-aids
- 1 7 ¼” scissors with tempered blade (most kits come with cheap, plastic scissors)
- 1 Roll 1” x 10 yd Medical tape
- 1 Hydrogen peroxide
- 10 Antibiotic ointment packets
- 10 Iodine Prep pads
- 25 Tongue Depressors
- 10 Medical examination Gloves
- 1 Rescue Blanket
- 1 8 oz hand sanitizer
Friday, May 20, 2011
Barefoot Running
"When I got into barefoot running, I was a broken runner. Overuse injuries, imbalances, and more had brought me almost literally to my knees, which weren't all that healthy either. Turns out, that wasn't a bad thing at all. It forced me to build back slowly while allowing my body to recover. It liberated me to ecperiment too; with nowhere to go but up, I could try to find the best ways to heal and grow back stronger.
At a recent clinic, I advised a struggling runner with plantar fasciitis to recover, then built back slowly. His response, "That sounds great, but I need to train for my next marathon." How many of us have said something like this? Unfortunately, your body doesn't know it needs to race again, it knows it needs to rest. If you don't give it the rest it needs, you'll never recover.
Many runners struggle year after year limping along. Until you're ready to let go of the goal, to built back stronger, a cycle of pain continues. Sooner or later, you need to step back, take a break, and start from scratch.
Becoming the best runner you can be isn't about brute force, disciple, or training harder. It's about training smarter, be being aware, feeling the ground, and feeling your body. Instead of training on intellect, you're training with intuition.This may sound ambiguous, but the biggest challenge for runners has never been a lack of work ethic of the ability to push oneself; instead, it's been an ability to go slow, go with the flow and listen to one's body. It requires a degree of mental flexibility that's hard when you have goals. However, when you force anything, something has to give, and something always breaks. I don't want that to be you.
My best advise: Don't do everything at once. Rather, pick and choose what seems like the most fun and go for it. Try new things out and feel free to mix up the routine. Our bodies are incredible at adapting to new challenges. So dont get stuck in a rut. Instead, change things up as much as you can. This helps work muscle groups you never knew you had and loosen you up in ways you once thought impossible, so you can become a balanced athlete."
At a recent clinic, I advised a struggling runner with plantar fasciitis to recover, then built back slowly. His response, "That sounds great, but I need to train for my next marathon." How many of us have said something like this? Unfortunately, your body doesn't know it needs to race again, it knows it needs to rest. If you don't give it the rest it needs, you'll never recover.
Many runners struggle year after year limping along. Until you're ready to let go of the goal, to built back stronger, a cycle of pain continues. Sooner or later, you need to step back, take a break, and start from scratch.
Becoming the best runner you can be isn't about brute force, disciple, or training harder. It's about training smarter, be being aware, feeling the ground, and feeling your body. Instead of training on intellect, you're training with intuition.This may sound ambiguous, but the biggest challenge for runners has never been a lack of work ethic of the ability to push oneself; instead, it's been an ability to go slow, go with the flow and listen to one's body. It requires a degree of mental flexibility that's hard when you have goals. However, when you force anything, something has to give, and something always breaks. I don't want that to be you.
My best advise: Don't do everything at once. Rather, pick and choose what seems like the most fun and go for it. Try new things out and feel free to mix up the routine. Our bodies are incredible at adapting to new challenges. So dont get stuck in a rut. Instead, change things up as much as you can. This helps work muscle groups you never knew you had and loosen you up in ways you once thought impossible, so you can become a balanced athlete."
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Is Weight Training Dangerous for Youth Athletes?
I have been asked this question hundreds of times during my 25 years in the sports medicine and sports performance fields.
Think about this:
1. When you run, the force of each foot strike is equal to about 2 - 3 times your bodyweight.
2. When you jump, the force of each landing is about 5 - 6 times your bodyweight.
3. Here is an interesting passage from Dr. Timothy Gay's book, The Physics of Football:
"With just how much force did Dick Butkus hit running backs?" "1,150 pounds of force, or the three-fifths of a ton"
4. Pitching creates rotational velocities of up to 7200 degrees per second about the shoulder - that's almost twenty windmill motions in one second! This creates tremendous forces about the shoulder joint.
5. Bone maturation is not uniform throughout the body. Different areas fully fuse at different ages: proximal humeral growth plate (top of the arm at the shoulder) - about age 19, distal humeral growth plate (arm bone at elbow) - about age 15, clavicle (collar bone) - about age 23.
Therefore, your child will NEVER replicate these kind of forces while strength training as long as your child is properly supervised. Even if they are not supervised, your child could simply not lift enough weight to replicate these forces. Plain and simple, your child MUST BE PROPERLY SUPERVISED and shown proper lifting technique.
Strength training is an essential component of getting a young athlete's body ready for the forces of sports. We do things backwards in this country....we start kids playing sports at 6, 7, or 8 years old with no basic body movement instruction. How about learning to run, jump, land, change direction, roll, skip, hop BEFORE you dive in hard and fast into sports.
Get your children into the hands of a qualified strength and conditioning coach and watch the amazing improvement in their performance! The added bonus (and most important thing as far as I am concerned) is the decreased chance of injury he/she receives due to this training.
Think about this:
1. When you run, the force of each foot strike is equal to about 2 - 3 times your bodyweight.
2. When you jump, the force of each landing is about 5 - 6 times your bodyweight.
3. Here is an interesting passage from Dr. Timothy Gay's book, The Physics of Football:
"With just how much force did Dick Butkus hit running backs?" "1,150 pounds of force, or the three-fifths of a ton"
4. Pitching creates rotational velocities of up to 7200 degrees per second about the shoulder - that's almost twenty windmill motions in one second! This creates tremendous forces about the shoulder joint.
5. Bone maturation is not uniform throughout the body. Different areas fully fuse at different ages: proximal humeral growth plate (top of the arm at the shoulder) - about age 19, distal humeral growth plate (arm bone at elbow) - about age 15, clavicle (collar bone) - about age 23.
Therefore, your child will NEVER replicate these kind of forces while strength training as long as your child is properly supervised. Even if they are not supervised, your child could simply not lift enough weight to replicate these forces. Plain and simple, your child MUST BE PROPERLY SUPERVISED and shown proper lifting technique.
Strength training is an essential component of getting a young athlete's body ready for the forces of sports. We do things backwards in this country....we start kids playing sports at 6, 7, or 8 years old with no basic body movement instruction. How about learning to run, jump, land, change direction, roll, skip, hop BEFORE you dive in hard and fast into sports.
Get your children into the hands of a qualified strength and conditioning coach and watch the amazing improvement in their performance! The added bonus (and most important thing as far as I am concerned) is the decreased chance of injury he/she receives due to this training.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
New Virginia Concussion Law
The new Virginia Concussion law will go into effect in July 2011.
The main provisions of the law are:
1) Student-athletes and parents shall review information on concussions annually and sign a statement
acknowledging receipt of such information
(2) A student-athlete suspected of sustaining a concussion shall be removed from play. A student-athlete who has been removed from play shall not return to play that same day nor until evaluated by an appropriate licensed health care provider
(3) Local school divisions may provide concussion guidelines to other organizations sponsoring athletic activity on school grounds, however, school divisions are not required to enforce compliance with such policies
Watch this video:
The main provisions of the law are:
1) Student-athletes and parents shall review information on concussions annually and sign a statement
acknowledging receipt of such information
(2) A student-athlete suspected of sustaining a concussion shall be removed from play. A student-athlete who has been removed from play shall not return to play that same day nor until evaluated by an appropriate licensed health care provider
(3) Local school divisions may provide concussion guidelines to other organizations sponsoring athletic activity on school grounds, however, school divisions are not required to enforce compliance with such policies
Watch this video:
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