California took a step forward yesterday when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law limiting contact in American tackle football practices. One provision of the law could affect soccer, hockey and other contact sports as well as football. But it doesn’t go far enough.
Photo by the COD Newsroom.
California’s new law restricts full contact in high school and middle school tackle football practices to two sessions of 90 minutes each per week during the season. It prohibits these practices off season.
When U.S. national soccer team striker Jozy Altidore clutched his thigh and fell to the ground in the World Cup last month, physical therapist Holly Silvers thought once again of Russian hamstring exercises.
New York Red Bulls striker Thierry Henry injured his hamstring in an April 2012 game. Photo by Matthew D. Britt (edited).
No less than three other members of the team (Fabian Johnson, Matt Besler and Deandre Yedlin) reportedly suffered injuries to this muscle group in the back of the thigh during the World Cup. Silvers, who helped develop the FIFA11+ injury prevention program for soccer’s governing body, tells me most of these injures could be prevented. Besides the pain these players experienced, the injuries literally hamstrung the team in a series of tough matches.
And it’s not only soccer players who suffer these injuries. Four Major League Baseball players (Munenori Kawasaki, Alberto Callaspo, Chris Dickerson and Shane Victorino) are currently on the disabled list because of hamstring injuries, according to ESPN. In fact hamstring strains afflict participants in just about every sport that involves running.
New Studies
Two studies presented Sunday in Seattle at the American Orthpaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) show just how effective a few simple exercises can be against this type of injury.
One was Silvers’ controlled study on the FIFA11+. Previously her group showed the program could cut overall injuries by about half in female soccer players, but data on specific individual injuries were mostly not significant. In this new study she and her colleagues showed, among other things, that the program cut hamstring injuries by more than two thirds among over 1700 male NCAA soccer players. Continue reading New Studies Show How to Prevent Hamstring Injuries→
Knee injuries may grab the headlines more than any other type of athletic injury, perhaps because they can end an athlete’s career. But ankles get hurt more often, and these injuries can be pretty devastating, too.
Many of the same exercises that we’ve discussed for knee injury prevention can help protect ankles as well.
As a soccer coach, I’ve often yelled at my players to head the ball before it reaches the ground.
And anyone who has watched the World Cup this year knows what a beautiful role heading plays in the game, with Robin van Persie’s goal in the Netherlands vs. Spain game a prime example.
But given the latest medical reports, I’m beginning to wonder how much I should push my team of 16-year-olds to hit the ball with their heads. Today, former U.S. women’s team star Brandi Chastain joined a couple of nonprofit advocacy groups in calling on new rules to restrict the use of heading among young players.
“I believe that the benefits of developing heading skills as children are not worth the thousands of additional concussions that youth soccer players will suffer,” said Chastain in a press release. Continue reading Does Soccer Heading Cause Brain Damage?→
If you’ve been watching the World Cup, you may have noticed that the best soccer players often go airborne. That’s been true for a number of years, as you can see in this video of the top World Cup headers.
But what goes up must come down, and how you land can determine how long you can continue playing. Too often soccer players hit the ground in a stiff, awkward position that damages their knees and other body parts.
A soccer injury. Photo by Jon Seidman. Some rights reserved.
“Can’t I get in shape for soccer just by playing more soccer?” my son asked me recently. It’s a natural assumption. After all, your body does adapt to whatever activity you do.
Irene Davis took off her sandal for me last week. She wriggled her toes. We were in the press room of the American College of Sports Medicine, and she wanted to show me a “doming” exercise you can use to prevent injuries if you run barefoot.
A Doming Video by Richard Blake
Researchers like Davis, the director of the Spaulding National Running Center at Harvard are exploring the pros and cons of running this way.
Most recently, as I reported Monday, a big new U.S. Army study cast doubt on the theory that running barefoot or in minimal shoes might prevent injury by getting people to land on the fronts or middles of their feet instead of the heels.
It’s a sad time for minimalist runners. First Vibram agreed that it would pay out $3.75 million to runners who bought its FiveFingers shoes.
I’m not ready to hang up my Vibram FiveFingers. (Photo by Laird Harrison)
This is the glove-like footwear that allows you to wriggle your toes, and feel almost as natural as going barefoot.
Then last week the whole minimal/barefoot running movement suffered a setback when the U.S. Army presented a big study casting more doubt on the benefits of running this way.
If you’ve got a pair of FiveFingers, you can now return them for $20-$94, and go back the thick-heeled running shoes that have dominated sports store shelves since the 1970s.
