Archive for the ‘Injury Prevention’ Category

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Information About Youth Baseball Pitchers

Friday, August 28th, 2009

As an trainer who works with a large number of youth baseball players I know the story.  Your son takes pitching lessons and now has amazing delivery on the mound.  He is also apart of sports performance program to increase his relative strength and flexibility.  Here’s the thing…it doesn’t matter your son still has to be on a strict pitch count.  Because if he is not, he is increasing the risk of injury to his elbow or shoulder (scientifically proven!).  Here are a few amazing stats from this article I’m recommending all parents and coaches should read.  Here’s the article.  Here’s the facts according to this article:
In a study by Andrews and Fleisig (1999) 476 youth pitchers between the ages of 9 and 14 were closely examined.  “Over the course of the season, more than half of the pitchers experienced shoulder or elbow pain.  For each increment of 25 pitches thrown after 50 pitches, the percentage of pitchers experiencing pain increased as fatigue set in.  Those who threw curveballs were 52% more likely to feel shoulder pain.  Those who threw sliders were 86% more likely to endure elbow pain.”

bfe23ball5

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Active Loading of The Eccentric Phase

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Control the eccentric phase of your exercise (the lengthening phase).  This will force you to keep constant tension on your muscles throughout the full range of motion.  If you stick to these tips you will be doing twice work with each of these exercises, instead of allowing gravity to do all the work.  Here are a few examples:

  • Squats – pull yourself down into the squat.  Do not allow yourself to merely collapse due to gravity.  Instead, actively pull your hips/butt down to your squatting depth.
  • Push ups – pull yourself down into the push up.  Actively grip the ground with your hands and row pull yourself into the bottom of the push up.  You should feel like you are doing a row – activate your upper back muscles.
  • Shoulder press – pull the weight down into your body.  Grip the weight tightly and use your lats to pull the weight down from the over head position.

To control the eccentric phase of a lift you need to maintain core stability.  During the squat your core and torso should be stable and solid.  During the push up or shoulder press your core and leg muscle should be active.

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NSCA new position statement on youth resistance training

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

The NSCA is the leading authority in the US on sports performance.  They recently came out with a new position statement regarding youth resistance training.  This paper includes more than 250 cited references on this topic.  The paper made many interesting points, and also validated the benefits associated with youth resistance and sports performance training.

Here are few key points I took from this paper that apply directly to the training programs I implement.

Injuries

  • “Current findings from prospective resistance training studies indicate a low risk of injury in children and adolescents who follow age-appropriate training guidelines.”
  • “Research studies indicate that plyometric training can be safe and worthwhile method of conditioning.”
    - Children perform these activities in the play ground every day – hop scotch
  • “There is no evidence to suggest that resistance training will negatively impact growth and maturation during childhood or adolescence”
    - Most injuries are due to “improper lifting techniques, maximal lifts, or lack or qualified adult supervision.”

Effectiveness of Training

  • “A compelling body of scientific evidence indicates that children and adolescents can significantly increase their strength-above and beyond growth and maturation- providing that the resistance training program is of sufficient intensity, volume, and duration.”
  • “Children as young as 5 and 6 years have benefited from regular participation in a resistance training program.”

Reasons for Strength Gains

  • “In children it appears that training-induced strength gains are more related to neural mechanisms than hypertrophic factors.”
    - Youth training (strength, speed, and agility) will enhance coordination and movement patterns.
    - I do not train youth athletes to make them bigger or significantly stronger – instead my goal is make them more coordinated at their sports movements.

Benefits of Strength Training

  • Strength training has been shown to improve “motor performance skills (ie. long jump, vertical jump, sprint speed, and medicine ball toss)” after training with “machines, free weights, body weight strength exercises, and medicine ball.”
    - More statements that justify and solidify the need for sports performance training
  • “Gains in motor performance skills” have improved when youth participate in plyometric training programs.  In fact, “The effects of resistance training and plyometric training may actually be synergistic.”
    - To maximize athletic development, the optimal training techniques should be applied.  It’s important to improve relative strength (strength training) but also improve rate of force development (plyometrics).

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Baseball Pitchers

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

As I mentioned in my last post, I attended an amazing training conference this past weekend.  One of the presentations (by Eric Cressey) was specifically about baseball players and screening for dysfunction in their shoulder.  He started off by citing some interesting studies that show most elite pitchers (professional and college) have “abnormal labrum features”.  His point was that many athletes have structural damage or joint dysfunction but do not have any signs or symptoms so they continue to pitch.

The part of the presentation I wanted to get into though is the idea of screening your baseball athletes (especially pitchers) to find imbalances.  The most obvious imbalance would be the difference in range of motion between the throwing arm (specifically shoulder) and the non-throwing arm.  If you were to measure the internal range of motion of the throwing shoulder and compared it to the non-throwing shoulder, you would come up with a number that represents the Glenohumeral Internal Rotation Deficit (GIRD).  The significance behind this number is that as pitcher you do not want to have a large GIRD in your throwing shoulder.  High school athletes should have a GIRD below 12 degrees and college athletes want to stay below about 15 degrees.

Every time a pitcher throws the baseball, the muscles in the back of the shoulder (specifically rotator cuff) have to decelerate (slow down) the arm after the ball is released.  After an entire pitching performance you could image that the muscles in the back of the shoulder become over-used and stiffen up.  If you’re not actively stretching the rotator cuff muscle and other posterior shoulder muscles it leads to less range of motion in the shoulder (higher GIRD).  Pitchers with a high GIRD are more likely to have shoulder and elbow problems as their pitching career continues.

pitchingObserve how the arm is rotating downward and inward – the muscles of the posterior shoulder are working to deccelerate the arm at the end of this motion.

You are less likely to see huge abnormalities in youth pitchers because many of them are not throwing enough to develop these imbalances in their throwing arm.  Also, many youth athletes are extremely lax in the joints because they are still growing and developing.  I would be more concerned with pitching mechanics for youth baseball players as opposed to a sophisticated training program( like older athletes starting a  7-8 grade and older – include college and pros).

Bottom line – if you screen your pitchers, you can find valuable information to help design a training program (including flexibility and strength training) that may prevent elbow and shoulder injuries down the road.

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Side Bridge Core Progressions

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

This post is a continuation from the Front Bridge Core Exercises post from last week.  It is important to train for lateral core stability, and this short video will guide you through the movements.

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Strength Training is OK for Kids

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Check out this article from the Mayo Clinic regarding youth strength training.

The main concept behind youth strength training is that they are doing movements and exercises to improve their motor abilities.  You know when humans begin strength training….when they’re born.

Look at the core strength this kid has!
baby-crawling

Think about, when you learn to crawl you’re simply doing a modified front bridge.  Many middle-age obese individuals can’t even hold a modified front bridge with as much success as an infant can!  Children need to learn how to control their bodies in all planes of motion (that’s strength training).  Once the movements are mastered, resistance can be added to increase the level of difficulty and provide an added stimulus to the muscular-skeletal system.  This is no different than training an elderly individual.

Check out a previous post on youth training – http://blog.matthank.com/2008/10/22/youth-training/

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Protect That Low Back

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Lower back pain occurs with most individuals at some point in their life. I see clients and gym-goers with this issue on a regular basis. There are number of variables that I try to integrate into my training programs including correcting muscle imbalances/deficiencies, improve core strength and develop proper flexibility in all 3 planes of motion to combat this problem. Many times individuals experiencing lower back pain have a weak core (specifically anterior core) and dysfunction of their glutes. However, I want to focus on another variable that affects lower back pain – lack of range of motion at specific areas of the body. The lower back (lumbar spine) is not designed to have excessive range of motion during activities. If an individual lacks range of motion in their hips and thoracic spine, then excessive stress could be placed on the lumbar spine. We need range of motion (in all 3 planes) to come from the hips and thoracic spine to help prevent lower back pain and dysfunction.

Strategies to protect the lower back

Make sure you are incorporating movements that require the hip to function in the sagital plane (hip extension – squats/deadlifts), frontal plane (adduction/abduction – lateral lunges/kettlebell windmill), and transverse plane (internal/external rotation – chops/transverse rotational lunges).

Develop thoracic spine extension (sagital plane) – try using a foam roller on the upper back to work on proper range of motion. Check out this clip for an example. To target the frontal and transverse plane I use dumbbell shoulder presses at different angles (lateral and rotational).

Integration is always better than isolation, so practice these exercises to develop all 3 planes of motion in the hip and thoracic spine at the same time. Click here.

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Tri-Plane Motion at the Hamstring

Friday, March 13th, 2009

hamstringWhen you take a look at the hamstring muscles it easy see that muscles work on all 3 planes motion.  The three planes of motion are sagital (forward/backward), frontal (side to side), and transverse (rotational).  You can clearly see how the hamstring raps around the leg inserting into the tibia and fibula.  The hamstrings are not just muscles that work to flex the knee in the sagital plane, as most individuals believe (including trainers, PTs, and strength coaches).  Instead, they work to control the lower half of the body during movements in all three planes of motion.  They play a huge role in decelerating the body when moving and changing direction – which takes place in all planes of motion.  Also, the hamstrings work to help assist the glutes during hip extension.

Training strategies for the hamstring:
Let’s start with this, the hamstring curl machine does very little to improve functional movements – such as in sports.  It’s great if you’re trying to make the muscle larger or isolate the hamstring to make it stronger.  The hamstring curl is designed so that an individual lays on a machine while flexing their leg.  In function (sport), the hamstring does not concentrically flex the knee.  Also, I have never seen a sport where you lay on your stomach and flex your knee.  Basically the leg curl machine is a bad choice for improving functional hamstring strength.

Now let’s talk about what the hamstring does do in function.  The knee will bend if you let it because gravity is pulling you down to the ground.  The hamstring muscles are not responsible for concentrically bending your knee to lower yourself into a squat.  Therefore, it makes sense that the hamstring helps decelerate the body during squatting and lunging movements.  So I just named two great exercises to target the hamstrings – squats and lunges both of which are extremely functional.  Also, the hamstrings help assist with hip extension – hip extension takes place during squatting and lunging movements.  To make the exercises more functional it would also make sense to do squatting and lunging motions in the frontal and transverse plane.

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Canyon Country Little League Coaches Clinic

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

I uploaded all the pictures from today’s clinic.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me.  Hope this is helpful.

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Back Squats and Overhead Athletes

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Overhead athletes (baseball, volleyball, tennis, football QB, etc.) should be careful when performing back squats. I am making this statement based on the upper body (shoulder) and not paying much consideration to the lower body right now. As for the back squat – This exercise requires the athlete to place the bar behind their head on their upper back/neck.  Gripping the bar can place a large amount of strain on the shoulder.  To grip the bar you need to abduct and externally rotate your humeral head (upper arm bone). This position can irritate an athlete’s shoulder and create further instability for athletes who already have an over-worked shoulder from throwing, hitting, and serving. Many overhead athletes already have imbalances, compensations, and deficiencies in their throwing shoulder. As a precautionary measure, it makes more sense for the coach to have their overhead athletes perform front squats. Another great alternative would be deadlift variations, as I discussed in a previous post.

Back squats are great for building size, strength, and power in the lower body but let’s be careful with our overhead athletes. There are always variations and alternatives – There is no perfect exercise.

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