in Agility, Email Newsletters, Improve, Power development, Speed development
Spring has sprung in the Northern Hemisphere while the mild days of fall are starting in the Southern. With the change in the weather, young athletes everywhere are getting out and playing footie. Meanwhile, coaches scrambling for best practices to give their team the edge often resort to technical training. Chilean researchers have just released... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Sports psychology
In our series on pain in athletes, we’ve explained how pain perception effects an athlete’s potential to return to their previous level of play. If an athlete has a tendency toward catastrophizing, they will see only the negative aspects of their injury. In addition, they may tend to focus more intently on their pain, increasing... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Sports psychology, Tools and technology
Fear is an emotional response to a threat, either real or perceived. It is a great motivator and rapidly modifies behavior. Fear avoidance is making behavioral choices to avoid that which instills fear, like taking a circuitous route to keep from driving down a street you know is a police speed trap. As discussed in... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Sports psychology
Let’s face it, no one ever walks into the physiotherapist’s clinic because they feel awesome. The thing that usually brings them in is pain of one sort or another. Whether it’s acute pain from a recent incident or a niggling pain that’s been bothersome for a while, people seek out physios because something hurts. Embracing... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Improve, Sports psychology, Tools and technology
In a recent article on the language of pain, physio Karen Litzy reviews how to speak to athletes about their pain. However, how good are physios in understanding a particular athlete’s pain perception and the factors that contribute to it? In today’s newsletter, we begin a series looking at the complex factors that surround pain,... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Improve, Knee injuries, Tools and technology
As Karen Litzy explains in her recent article, pain is a complex phenomenon. For a time, it was considered the fourth vital sign. However, it’s an unreliable symptom. Unlike blood pressure or pulse, pain is subjective. It’s expression and perception differs among genders, cultures, socioeconomic status, race, current emotions, and just about every other aspect... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Power development, Strength
Running injuries to the knees and ankles often occur as a result of gluteal weakness. Without stability at the pelvis, the lower body bears the brunt of the forces of running in ways they weren’t designed to do. Therefore, strengthening the gluts is usually a priority for injured runners. Which exercises are the best to... MORE
in Diagnose & Treat, Email Newsletters, Neck and back injuries
Concussion injuries in sport are getting a lot of buzz these days, but what do we really know about how to measure these traumatic brain injuries? If we were able to understand and quantify the extensiveness of the injury in a standardized way, medical professionals might speed concussion recovery and make better decisions about return... MORE
in Acute injuries, Email Newsletters, Musculoskeletal injuries, Shoulder injuries
Participation in combat sports continues to rise in the United States, especially in younger populations. According to an ESPN survey, 5.5 million teens and 3.2 million kids under 13 years-of-age, perform some type of mixed martial arts (MMA)(1). The incidence of injury from participation in MMA is between 22.9 and 28.6 per 100-fight encounters(1). Because more... MORE
in Email Newsletters, Improve, Musculoskeletal injuries
In the second part of our series on the aging runner, we look at running-related injuries and how to treat them. Masters runners report more injuries, more often, than younger runners(1). These aches and pains are likely to occur in the muscles and tendons of the posterior chain – hamstrings, plantar flexors, and Achilles... MORE