Pre-Season Conditioning
08/12-09 at 08.33 by: Kevin Templin, LAT, ATC
When is the best time to begin your conditioning program for your upcoming spring sports season? NOW! Our female athletes getting ready for their soccer season should be working core stability, hip and groin strengthening, and plyometric drills that focus on the trouble areas for our female athletes. Prevention on ACL injuries is of particular interest to Dr. Miller. A program like those offered by Dan O'Donnell at Athletic Republic (nffast.com/accelerationprogram.html) is a program that incorporates all these areas. Another website for a good warm-up and ACL prevention program is www.aclprevent.com. This is a simple 15 minute warm-up that has been shown to reduce the risks of ACL injuries in our female athletes.
Many of our male athletes are preparing for baseball season. Dr. Miller sees many young throwers during the season that have labral tears, internal impingement, rotator cuff and biceps tendonitis. Usually there are two reasons for these conditions. First is overtraining/ over throwing. Year round baseball is tough on our young throwers. We are seeing labral and rotator cuff damage at much younger ages. Last year we saw a 15 year old with a torn labrum. He played freshman baseball in high school, select baseball during the summer, fall baseball, and took pitching lessons in the winter. The second reason is often poor preseason preparation. The athlete shows up on practice day one without throwing, without conditioning, and begins the rigors of preseason. He soons develops shoulder and elbow soreness and gets shutdown for rest. Both of these problems could be prevented with a little education. Resting the arm and the athlete is important for any peak performance. A good website for preseason throwing exercises is http://www.asmi.org/SportsMed/throwing/thrower10.html. If you do have problems do not let them linger, make an appointment, find out what's wrong, and correct the problem.
Many of our male athletes are preparing for baseball season. Dr. Miller sees many young throwers during the season that have labral tears, internal impingement, rotator cuff and biceps tendonitis. Usually there are two reasons for these conditions. First is overtraining/ over throwing. Year round baseball is tough on our young throwers. We are seeing labral and rotator cuff damage at much younger ages. Last year we saw a 15 year old with a torn labrum. He played freshman baseball in high school, select baseball during the summer, fall baseball, and took pitching lessons in the winter. The second reason is often poor preseason preparation. The athlete shows up on practice day one without throwing, without conditioning, and begins the rigors of preseason. He soons develops shoulder and elbow soreness and gets shutdown for rest. Both of these problems could be prevented with a little education. Resting the arm and the athlete is important for any peak performance. A good website for preseason throwing exercises is http://www.asmi.org/SportsMed/throwing/thrower10.html. If you do have problems do not let them linger, make an appointment, find out what's wrong, and correct the problem.