“You still play soccer?” a yoga teacher asked me about four years ago. That word “still” has stuck with me ever since. Didn’t I look like someone who should be playing soccer?
I was about 49 then, and yes, I’d gotten hurt a few times on the pitch. But the latest study on sports and arthritis confirms my conviction that I and everyone else should keep doing sports as long as possible. Continue reading Play Sports With Arthritis
By Laird Harrison
I weigh myself too much. The scale sits there in the bathroom, and I stand on it when I get up in the morning. After I work out. Before going to bed. Just because I noticed it when I was passing by.
I know this constant monitoring does me no good. Bathroom scales aren’t all that accurate. Any significant change over the course of a day probably results from a loss or gain in water rather than fat. And new research shows that we should focus on our waistlines more.
Sports compression garments are popping up everywhere. You may have seen them at the gym or running trail: those sleeves, shorts and socks made of stretchy fabric, sometimes in bright primary colors.
And you may have wondered if they’re just the latest in stylish sports wear or whether they actually serve some purpose. Sports medicine researchers are wondering that, too. Continue reading Sports Compression Garments May Help Recovery
Lots of pitching drills can make the thrower faster and more accurate. Now researchers have shown that the right sort of exercises can also reduce arm injuries.
For years, official baseball authorities have had one piece of advice for people concerned about injuring their arms through pitching: Don’t pitch so much. Continue reading Pitching Drills that Reduce Injury (Part II)
Professional English rugby players will get concussion tests on the sidelines if they show signs of a head injury, under a new policy Premiership Rugby reports.
A joint venture between Premiership Rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the Rugby Players Association (RPA) has produced a new set of processes designed to optimise the treatment of concussion…
The Head Injury Assessment (HIA) process, formerly the Pitchside Suspected Concussion Assessment, will be used in all Aviva Premiership Rugby, LV= Cup and European matches this season, with cases of confirmed or suspected concussion resulting in the affected player being removed from the pitch.
It’s no news to anyone watching the Major League Baseball playoffs that pitchers’ arms tire out pretty fast.
But just how much harm pitchers and other throwers may be doing to themselves is just now becoming clear. Not only does throwing too much damage muscles, ligaments and tendons, it can actually prevent a pitcher’s bones from developing normally. Continue reading How to Avoid Arm Injuries in Baseball and Other Throwing Sports (Part I)
Bad news, folks. I have exceeded my maximum heart rate.
Surprisingly, I am still able to write this newsletter, but how much longer I can continue, who can say? My wearable devices do not produce that reading.
After last week’s adventures with RunKeeper, I thought I’d experiment with some other monitoring devices, hoping to gain deeper insight into my fitness. Continue reading What Wearable Heart Rate Monitors Can Tell You (Part III)
So you want to play tennis and not get injured doing it. Sounds simple enough, but research shows that for every thousand hours of the sport, up to 3 injuries occur.
You’ll get to a thousand hours in less than four years if you play a few sets each week.
Researchers are beginning to figure out how you can prevent these problems. But we still have a ways to go.
Kei Nishikori, who lost the U.S. Open final yesterday, is a case in point, according to Sports Illustrated:
His injury woes started with a right-elbow issue that required surgery and sidelined him for all but three months in 2009 and most of the first three months of 2010. He’s also struggled with back, knee, abdominal and toe injuries. In May, Nishikori led Nadal by a set and a break in the Madrid Open final before eventually retiring with back pain.
Of course, Nadal himself has struggled with injury, including a wrist problem so serious it kept him out of the U.S. Open this year.
So what can you do to reduce your risk? Continue reading How to Play Tennis Without Injury (We Think)
Heat. Fatigue. A strained thigh. Eugenie Bouchard had plenty of reasons to explain her defeat in the fourth-round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament yesterday. And anyone who plays tennis regularly can sympathize. Even though you don’t have the opportunity to crash into another player the way you do in a team sports, you can easily get hurt.
Of course every vigorous sport takes its toll. But researchers are beginning to pinpoint the biggest risks for each and figure out how to prevent them. While they’re not as far along as soccer researchers, tennis experts have already scored some important points. Continue reading How Tennis Players Get Hurt
Stretching prevents injury. That idea was drilled into my head at an early age, and I can’t quite get rid of it.
Since I was a child, my P.E. teachers and coaches preached the virtue of stretching so consistently, that the pre-game stretch became almost like a religious ritual. So I was shocked to find out there is no evidence stretching prevents injury. Not only that, certain kinds of stretching may hurt an athlete’s performance for up to an hour. Continue reading Scant Evidence that Stretching Prevents Injury
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