So You Made a Resolution

How many of us have made to lose weight by exercising more.  A great way to better yourself and improve your health.  We are half way through January and are starting to reach the point where people are faltering with that resolution.

One of the keys to maintaining a lifestyle change such as working out is to ease into it.  Not only will it easier to have this change be a lasting one, it will be more beneficial to the body.  When you push yourself too fast to soon you put yourself at risk of injury and not maintaining your exercise program which can lead to fluctuating weight.  We are going to focus on the injuries that can occur by doing to much to soon.

There is an increased risk of musculoskeletal injury when taking on a new exercise program to quickly.  Moderation is a key when starting out or changing your exercise program.  The exertion that you are putting on your body is more than it is used to which can lead to injury.  Typical injuries that you may experience when starting out with an exercise program are muscle soreness, muscle strains and depending on your choice of exercise you may see ligament sprains.

Muscle soreness is typical with physical exercise and typically is called DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness.  DOMS is normal with workouts, and occurs one to two days after exercise.  If the pain is severe or lasts for longer than two days, you have progressed from normal muscle soreness to muscle damage.  If the pain is so severe that you our unable to complete daily tasks such as walking or lasts longer than the normal two days, you need to make a change to your program.  This also applies to any time you make a change to your work out.  For treatment of DOMS the best way to reduce pain is to continue with moderate exercise.  Stretching, cryotherapy and massage therapy have not shown to be beneficial in the reduction of pain from DOMS.  One of the best ways to deal with DOMS is to alternate your work out, by giving the muscle groups a day or two of rest before training them again, you allow the body to heal/repair from the prior work out.

Muscle strains occur when the muscle is taken beyond its normal capacity be it load capacity or range of motion.  These typically occur when using too much weight or performing a move that requires flexibility that you have not gained.  If you have taken up strength training, yoga or classes such as Zumba, you may be more prone to a muscle strain if you do not pay attention to your body.  Slow and easy is the best rule of thumb when starting a strength program. When doing exercises that involve flexibility or doing a movement that goes beyond your norm, pain is your guide.  If the movement hurts, stop.  Find a way to modify the movement, but continue to work on building towards completing the movement properly.

A ligament sprain can occur during weight lifting, running, or during activities such as Zumba, dance, soccer or even yoga.  You typically will not see them if you are cycling, running on a treadmill, rowing or using an elliptical machine.

As part of a complete exercise program, you need to have a flexibility and propioception portion.  A full body stretching program will help alleviate any muscle imbalances caused by improper posture.  Propioception is knowing where you body is in space.  By working on balance and proper positioning you reduce the chance of injury. Think of a volleyball player coming down from a block, if as they land their ankle starts to roll, an athlete with propioception training body will notice this and activate the muscles to avoid the injury.

Setting the goal and resolution of losing weight is an admiral one that will only be of full benefit if you are able to continue with it and avoid injury.

Injury Prevention - Athletic Therapist at the Ready

To continue on with our What is an Athletic Therapist series, we will be focusing on their role in injury prevention.

Injury prevention is a major role for all athletic therapists, be it for initial injury or re-injury.  There are many aspects to injury prevention.  Two of the most important are physical preparedness and education.

Physical preparedness.  Athletic Therapists play a major role in helping ensure that their athletes can withstand the physical demands of their sport, both daily and from season to season.

Proper strength and conditioning involves everything from ensuring proper muscle balance, flexibility as well as proper aerobic and anaerobic conditioning for sport and position.  Their knowledge of biomechanics, anatomy and physiology enables each Athletic Therapist to work with each athlete on an individual basis to improve their performance.

On a daily basis the preparation for practice, game or event can range from stretching or muscle work, injury rehab, or taping and strapping all help prevent injuries.

Part of physical preparedness is also ensuring that the body is being provided with the proper nutrients and energy.  Ensuring that athletes have readily available nutritious food that will supply them with the proper energy reserves for their sport as well as educating all athletes in the area of nutrition.

Each day Athletic Therapists are educating athletes, coaches, parents and administrators.  Any time that as an Athletic Therapist you get to educate someone you are working towards injury prevention.  Even during the rehabilitation stage the knowledge you are passing on can help prevent further injuries.  From nutrition, injury care, concussion recognition, injury recognition, and beyond your Athletic Therapist is there to ensure that you have the knowledge and skills to stay healthy and in the game.

All Athletic Therapists are prepared to deal with any injury that may come their way, however their goal is to help you prevent those injuries from even occurring or reducing the time you are away due to injury.  Your success is always what every Athletic Therapist wants.

Dynamic Stretching in Warm Up

This week Jasmine Eisenhaur, PT, MScPT is our guest blogger. This weeks focus is the importance of dynamic stretching during warm up.

As a physiotherapist who has been involved with sports for many years, whether as an athlete or a team therapist, it amazes me how many athletes still continue to statically stretch as part of a warm-up prior to competition. While this was previously the main way to stretch as part of a warm-up, it has long been known now that dynamic stretching is the more beneficial method. As Faigenbaum et al reported in their study, a brief period of static stretching negatively affected jumping and sprinting performance in children (2005). While static stretching can help to improve range of motion at a joint, in a muscle, and in the surrounding fascia, there is most definitely a more ideal time to do this than before a competition. McMillan et al found that the group who performed a dynamic warm-up had  improved performance on their measures of agility, functional leg power and total body power compared to groups that performed a warm-up with static stretches or no warm-up at all (2006). 

There are some basic guidelines you can use to ensure any athlete is getting a proper warm-up:

- Start with some light aerobic exercise ie. a jog, riding a stationary bike. Ideally this should be long enough that the athlete breaks a sweat. This is usually a few minutes in length and ensures that blood flow to the muscles has increased.

- Do dynamic stretching exercises for any muscles that will be used during the competition. Dymanic stretches should be controlled movement, meaning never too fast to lose control of the affected body part, and should be painfree.  The stretches should also move through as much of the muscle's or joint's range of motion as possible, ie. don't do a walking lunge and only go halfway down - get the most out of the stretch. 

- An effective stretching program will leave the athlete feeling limber and ready to participate without fear of injury during the competition.

While this may sound like a lot, there only needs to be one stretch for each muscle group. In many sports, ie. hockey, another more sport-specific warm-up is done before the competition, which emphasizes the importance of keeping the dynamic warm-up simple but effective while still preparing the athlete for the sport-specific warm-up. 

The one instance I will educate athletes on using static stretches as part of a warm-up is when they have been injured recently and they feel that they simply will not perform as well without statically stretching the affected muscle or joint. However, I will generally recommend to that athlete to follow the static stretch with a dynamic one when it is possible, to ensure the muscle is dynamically prepared for the competition ahead.