Sports injury genes could change your future.
Imagine this scenario. You try to register for your hockey team as you do every year. But the league has a new policy: All players must report to a health center to get their mouths swabbed. A couple of days later, you get a call. “You’re positive for ApoE4. We’re sorry, but because of liability rules, you can’t play in this league. In fact, you shouldn’t play hockey anywhere.” Continue reading Do Sports Injury Genes Determine Your Fitness?
Does women’s soccer need a smaller, lighter ball? That’s the idea behind the Eir, offered by a new Danish company of that name.
Women have a higher rate of concussion and knee injury in soccer, and Eir argues that this is because soccer balls were designed for men. Continue reading Small Ball Promoted for Women’s Soccer
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.
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.
It also requires that any high-school or middle-school athlete (not just a football player) “suspected of sustaining a concussion or head injury” be removed from play until evaluated by a healthcare professional. Continue reading California’s New Sports Concussion Law Doesn’t Go Far Enough
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.
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.
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.
But you can do some other things to save your ankles. Continue reading Balance Training Reduces Ankle Injury
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.
You can prevent that with jumping exercises . Not only that, but these exercises can improve your Continue reading Increasing Power and Speed for Soccer Players
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