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Injuries
3 Keys to a Pain Free Low Back
Eighty percent of Americans will eventually suffer from some type of low back pain. Sciatica, spondylosis, strains, sprains, slipped disks, or micro-fractures are some of the more common conditions that contribute to low back pain. With so many ways to aggravate the low back, how can we ever hope to defend against it?
Surgeries are not appropriate for many back conditions and don’t always work to resolve back pain. Medications are expensive and have many possible side effects! But there are effective lifestyle measures that can help you whisk away your pains. Incorporating these 3 simple steps into your daily routine will not only help low back pain go away, but will increase performance in daily tasks that once upon a time caused the pain.
Improve Hydration
Early research indicates that 8 out of 10 sufferers of back pain could be relieved if they drank 96-120 ounces of water a day. (1) You may be asking, “what can improved hydration possibly do for my aching low back”? The answer is simple: water is the main ingredient in synovial fluid, located in every joint in the body. This synovial fluid acts as a lubricant and shock absorber, keeping connective tissues located in and around the joint healthy.
Maintain Low Back Flexibility
Research has proven that there is a direct correlation between good low back tissue elasticity and injury prevention. (2) The piriformis muscle, for example, is an external rotator of the hip that when tight, causes extreme pain in the low… [ read more ]
Sports and the Adolescent Brian
By Helene Pavlov MD, FACR, Radiologist in Chief at Hospital for Special Surgery
A few months ago I wrote about the head injuries in athletes and the concerns for children who play contact sports. The Wall Street Journal (8/31/10) reported on a study published in the journal Pediatrics in which concussions more than doubled between 1997 and 2007 in children playing sports despite participation declining. My concern was not that children are playing contact sports, but rather that the sporting aspect of adolescence and maturity is very important to the youngsters’ development. What I was attempting to identify is that many parents and children do not understand all the potential dangers associated with sports-related head injuries.
Following my post, new research suggests that athletes who have had multiple head injuries may be prone to developing a disabling neurological disease similar to ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The study was published in the September issue of the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. The research, which came out of Boston University School of Medicine and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford has pinpointed evidence of a new disease that mimics ALS in two former National Football League players previously thought to have died of ALS. These findings may mean that athletes previously diagnosed with ALS might actually have had the related syndrome. Clearly, more research is needed.
So what does this mean for our children who are out on the field playing the sport of their favorite athletes? Although sports can cause serious injury to the… [ read more ]
Overtraining
Recently, we have discussed the importance of physical assessments, organizing training sessions, strategies to maximize training goals and the staying consistent with your fitness plan. I want to cover the frequent problem of Overtraining that occurs to athletes that is becoming more prevalent with active non-athlete trainees. Let us take a look at overtraining syndrome, common warning signs and treatment strategies.
What Leads to Overtraining?
Overtraining can be classified as a consequence of an imbalance between stress and the body’s ability to adapt and recover. Without adequate rest and recovery your immune system response gets stuck on “overdrive,” and can no longer fight infection properly. Your training regimen backfires; you begin to experience a decrease in performance. There are two types of overtraining: general and local. “General overtraining affects the whole body and results in stagnations of a decrease in performance, whereas local overtraining affects a specific body part.”1 I’m sure at one time or another we’ve all over trained. It’s common to want to push harder and harder to achieve the goals you have set out for yourself, but you have to make sure that you’re doing things correctly.
Common Warning Signs
Many people train and work to the point where they get weaker. Those who live a high stress lifestyle and are overachievers tend to suffer the predominant symptoms more often. When you don’t let your body rest sufficiently to allow for proper adaption the body can’t build or repair muscle, so you may notice more aches and… [ read more ]
Knee Injuries in Baseball
OVERUSE SYNDROMES
Overuse syndromes are caused by repetitive trauma to the knee over a period of time, which leads to peripatelar pain and includes tendonitis of the patellar tendon and chondromalacia of the patella.
PATELLOFEMORAL DYSFUNCTION
Patellofemoral pain is a common complaint of baseball players and often occurs after repetitive activity, such as stair climbing, prolonged squatting, sprinting, weight training, and other activities that increase patellofemoral forces. Of all the joints in the human body, the patellofemoral joint is subjected to the highest forces. In order to resist these high contact stresses the articular cartilage of the patella is also the thickest in the human body. Patellofemoral pressures are the highest between 60˚ and 90˚ of flexion. At flexion angles >90˚, tendofemoral contact plays an important role in reducing patellofemoral contact pressures. Because of the delicate balance between enormous joint reaction forces and contact area, any imbalance will lead to aberrant loading of the patella with resulting symptoms.
The exact reason for pain is unknown, but it may be due to repetitive microtrauma, which leads to chondromalacia of the patella and or trochlear groove. Inappropriate patellofemoral articular balance from malalignment, patellofemoral incongruency, or dynamic imbalance, such as a weak vastus medialis oblique, may predispose one to chondromalacia. In addition, mechanical imbalalance of the foot and ankle, such as hyperpronation of the foot during foot strike may predispose the patella to maltrackingand subsequent symptoms.
TREATMENT
Initial treatment is conservative and emphasizes reduction of activity with quadriceps and hamstring flexibility… [ read more ]