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Monday, September 22, 2014

So, What if Johnny Can't Skip?...Warning Sign or No Big Deal?


Over the course of 4+ decades of coaching the one constant that I can expect to see in with any new group of athletes is the inability of the majority of athletes to skip forwards in rhythm with arms and legs in sync, solid upper body posture and a proper push-off utilizing the glutes and a nice, sharp knee angle with heel of the drive leg kept under the butt.

I used to stare in amazement (while fighting to restrain a laugh) at how "awkward" the majority of boys were in "trying" to skip. As the years passed, girls began to display the same "lack" of ability to skip.

Try it yourself. How is it that even "very skilled" athletes reach high school without every learning to skip properly? Now, lets add in jump, land, hop and _______(fill in any other Fundamental Movement Skill).

At the present, I am trying to emphasize to coaches I work with that THEY NEED to emphasize "horizontal" skipping mechanics in order to; 1) develop proper pelvic and upper body posture for sprinting/running, 2) to develop the ability to properly UTILIZE the gluteal muscles in projecting the center of mass FORWARD, 3) to develop rhythm and sync of upper and lower body for more efficiency in running/ sprinting, etc. 4) to program correct amplitude of leg swing and hip extension AND 5) to strengthen glutes, core/postural muscles and correct stretch-reflex of musculo-tendonous tissue in the ankles.

NOW, how come coaches have to TEACH FMS skills at the high school (and college as well) level? Many don't teach it although most sport warmups have included skips for height and/ or horizontal skips in their pre-game and practice warmup routine.
MY QUESTION IS:"If the skips are important, why is there seemingly no evidence of teaching/learning the skill?" If you get to a high school football game early, just watch the warm-up and judge for yourself if these "athletes" have been taught to skip.

This rant on skipping inadequacy is not based on being a "mechanical purist" but rather on the HIGHER POINT of issue I have been trying to get across on this blog; THAT OF teaching the FOUNDATIONAL MOVEMENTS and AMSC skills
REGARDLESS OF SPORT and level of "sport" ability of the athletes.

If there is ONE, PARTICULAR reason, of the many reasons for emphasizing the mastery of FMS and AMSC skills, THAT COACHES SHOULD WANT TO ADDRESS, it would be INJURY PREVENTION.

So, knowing the infrastructure of most High School Teams/Sports do NOT include an Athletic Trainer on a daily basis OR have daily or weekly access to Physical Therapists or Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialists (NSCA being the most likely to have the necessary evaluation skills), IT WOULD BENEFIT ALL TEAMS TO INCLUDE regular FMS/AMSC development exercises in warm-ups, post practice cooldowns or both...AND be taught as important skills to be MASTERED!

In addition I am including the website below for access by coaches, athletes and parents so they have AT LEAST one source of SPORTS-MED information at their disposal other than FAMILY DOCTORS. My experience with family doctors is that there are only TWO types: 1) take 2 weeks off, ice and rest and/or other treatment OR 2) referral to Sports Specialist, PT, etc. Many times the Family Doctor's protocol works BUT when it doesn't and there is NO referral, the following website is a good place to start searching for answers. Click on the URL to go directly to site or click on any of the other, more specific pages listed under INJURY PREVENTION TIPS and OTHER ISSUES.

http://www.stopsportsinjuries.org/sports-injury-prevention/coaches-resources.aspx

Tip Sheets 
  • Teaching Kids Safe Ways to Participate in Sports
  • Working with Difficult Parents
  •  
Injury Prevention Tips
Other Issues

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BELOW ARE A FEW QUALITY ARTICLES DEALING WITH SPORTS INJURIES and high incidence of serious injuries, over-use injuries and burnout as a consequence of early specialization...

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The Death of the Multisport Athlete

by Dennis Van Milligen
September 2014
Friday night lights are back for high schools across the country, and as you read this, many of the nation's top athletes are hard at work on the gridiron preparing for this week's upcoming game. I remember my first experience around a star athlete. I was 11 years old and my oldest brother was attending Wheaton North High School, which at that time was home to Kent Graham, the best high school athlete in the state of Illinois. Kent was a 6-foot-5-inch physical freak and the number-one-ranked quarterback in the nation. He also played safety. He earned three all-conference distinctions in basketball and regularly hit .400 for the baseball team. My dad fondly recalls Kent hitting a home run off my brother in Little League that cleared the lights and still hasn't landed.


But this was back when your best athletes played multiple sports — an era that appears to be ending, as sport specialization dominates the modern high school scene. In an attempt to better position themselves for college recruiters and professional scouts, high school athletes are focusing exclusively on one sport year-round. There's certainly no shortage of opportunities, as I addressed in my January 2014 article "School's Out," which took an in-depth look at how club sports have gone from preparing athletes for high school athletics to essentially stealing athletes away from high school sports programs.

Arguments can be made for both sides of the equation, but there is one argument that prominent doctors strongly disagree with: athletes who play the same sport year-round are less susceptible to injury. In an interview with Athletic Business in August 2013, orthopedic surgeon and injury consultant Dr. James Andrews shared some insight from his book "Any Given Monday: Sports Injuries and How to Prevent Them for Athletes, Parents and Coaches — Based on My Life in Sports Medicine." In the interview, Dr. Andrews notes the dramatic increase in overuse injuries he was seeing in youth sports, due in large part to kids participating in one sport all year with little to no recovery time. Interestingly, another key factor in the rise in injuries, according to Dr. Andrews, is professionalism, the practice of training young kids whose bodies are still developing as if they are professional athletes. Dr. Andrews goes on to recommend specialization only once an athlete reaches his or her senior year in high school.

Unfortunately, his recommendations may not resonate with most coaches and parents. The pressure to develop faster and at a younger age is greater than ever before, and parents are convinced the most effective way to earn any type of athletic scholarship is through showcase events, such as Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) tournaments. While these types of tournaments have successfully spotlighted top basketball talent to recruiters, some argue they are hurting an athlete's development. In AAU, kids can play as many as four games in one day with little to no coaching, potentially impeding the necessary developmental strides they should be making.

For many high school parents and athletes today, it is no longer as much about love of the game as it is a business. Parents are "investing" outrageous amounts of money into their children's athletic development, because the fear is that they will not reach the level they need to without specialization, a notion constantly disproved. Look no further than the professional athletes we see today. Many were multisport athletes. Remember that high school wide receiver who was first-team All-State as a sophomore and led his team to the state semifinals his junior year? His name was LeBron James, and ironically, his high school football career came to an end in the summer before his senior year, when he broke his wrist playing in an AAU basketball tournament.

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Developing Athletes Instead of Specialists - The Benefits of Multi-Sport Play

Wednesday, May 21, 2014 

My 8-year-old loves sharks and has decided to pursue a PhD in Marine Biology in the hope of saving the species. I love her enthusiasm and will do my best to support her in reaching this goal.  However, I am not ready to let her drop her English, History, and Art classes to focus on marine biology. That would be crazy!  And yet, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of young people who follow a similar course in athletics.

While many believe that early sport specialization is the best way to prepare children for a successful career in sports at the elite levels, there is growing evidence that, in the long term, this may set them up for failure (2). Children who specialize early may be at higher risk for injuries (3) and burn-out (1) than those who have more diverse experiences.  
The National Athletic Trainers’ Association recommends that pediatric athletes should participate in multiple sports throughout the year to enhance fitness and aid in motor development (5).  

Developing an athlete instead of a specialist means encouraging your child to play a variety of sports in order to develop different skill sets.  Young children need to learn basic movement skills to skip, hop, tumble, negotiate obstacles, jump, and land.  With growth and maturity they will incorporate these basic skills into more advanced movement competences allowing them to respond to offense, evade defenders, and become creative movers.  Specialists without a diverse foundation of movement skills are more prone to injury as they progress to higher levels of competition.  Athletes with varied sports backgrounds will learn new skills more quickly and avoid injury when they do eventually specialize in their chosen sport.

Another advantage of diversification is that an athlete at the end of their career can more easily transition to lifetime sports and remain active throughout their lifespan, avoiding the negative health consequences associated with inactivity.
There is also evidence to suggest that an athlete who is unable to successfully transition to other lifetime sports may be at risk for mental health issues such as depression (4).

A very wise professor taught me to measure athletes by calculating their average competitive ability in at least twenty sports.  While the math is a bit abstract, his point was very clear.  In our quest to cultivate young athletes, we should expose them to a wide variety of movement challenges early in their careers and delay specialization until mid to late adolescence.  In the long run, this may be the best way to position them for success at the elite level and more importantly, to ensure they minimize their risk of injury and engage in physical activity over the entire course of their lifetime.

Karen Y. Peck, MEd, ATC, is the Director of Orthopaedic Research at John A. Feagin Jr. Sports Medicine Fellowship Keller Army Hospital.
References
  1. Brenner JS. Overuse injuries, overtraining, and burnout in child and adolescent athletes. Pediatrics. Jun 2007;119(6):1242-1245.
  2. Fransen J, Pion J, Vandendriessche J, et al. Differences in physical fitness and gross motor coordination in boys aged 6-12 years specializing in one versus sampling more than one sport. J Sports Sci. 2012;30(4):379-386.
  3. Jayanthi N, Dugas L, Fischer D, Pasulka J, Labella C. Risks of intense, specialized training and growth for injury in young athletes: a clinical evaluation. Br J Sports Med. Apr 2014;48(7):611.
  4. Simon JE, Docherty CL. Current health-related quality of life is lower in former division I collegiate athletes than in non-collegiate athletes. Am J Sports Med. Feb 2014;42(2):423-429.
  5. Valovich McLeod TC, Decoster LC, Loud KJ, et al. National Athletic Trainers' Association position statement: prevention of pediatric overuse injuries. J Athl Train. Mar-Apr 2011;46(2):206-220.
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Health
Kids Who Only Play One Sport Risk Injuries
// by Eric Niiler 

Summer vacation is almost here, and so is the start of sports camps designed to transform fun-loving kids into super-powered athletes. Many of us know parents who are determined to groom sports prodigies just like the Williams sisters, Tiger Woods or perhaps one of the Manning brothers if only they log enough hours in the gym or practice court.
But a new study by a pediatric orthopedist in Chicago found that early specialization doesn’t really work. In fact, picking a single sport to focus on usually results in overtraining injuries, and worse, won’t turn your kid into an elite or professional athlete.

 “There’s a great misconception of what it takes to succeed in sports,” said Neeru Jayanthi, an associate professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation at Loyola University in Chicago. “You see Tiger Woods or Andre Agassi or any young phenom, and you think that’s what it takes. We are much worse than other countries. They try to diversify an athlete, we start right away with specialization.”

Jayanthi's study of 1,200 athletes from 8 to 18 years old and found that those who specialize and train intensively have a significantly higher risk of injuries like stress fractures. Kids who spent more hours per week than their age playing one sport -- a 10-year-old gymnast training 11 hours a week for example -- was 70 percent more likely to get overuse injuries.
Jayanthi and colleagues at Loyola and Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago studied 1,206 young athletes. There were 859 total injuries, including 564 overuse injuries, in cases in which the clinical diagnosis was recorded.

The overuse injuries included 139 serious injuries such as stress fractures in the back or limbs, elbow ligament injuries and osteochondral injuries (injuries to cartilage and underlying bone). Such serious injuries can force young athletes to the sidelines for one to six months or longer.

Jayanthi agreed that common sense dictates that playing too much isn’t good. However, he said he wanted to develop some specific recommendations rather than just general advice to back off:
  • Don't practice and play one sport more hours per week than the child's age.
  • Don't spend more than twice as much time playing organized sports as in the gym and unorganized play.
  • Don't specialize in one sport before late adolescence.
  • Take a break from competition for 1 to 3 months each year.
  • Take at least 1 day off per week.
Jayanthi says he's seen overtraining injuries from individual sports such as gymnastics, tennis, swimming, competitive dance, as well as team sports like soccer, basketball and baseball.
 “Early introduction is completely fine,” Jayanthi said. “You can get kids out there and develop athletic skills. The problem is early specialization.”

Jayanthi and his colleagues presented their findings at the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine meeting recently. A similar survey at UCLA looked at the sports histories of 300 collegiate athletes in 220 varsity spots. It found that the best athletes shared two things: a diverse sports history until late teens and parents who were also competitive athletes.

“You do need to practice, you do need to participate in a consistent way,” said John DiFiori, chief of sports medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, and team physician to the school’s department of athletics. "But rest is important, and so are a variety of physical skills. That’s the whole concept of sport diversification.”
DiFiori also said that developing athletes need more time away from structured practices and games.
“Look at Brazil,” he said about the soccer powerhouse. “They’re encouraged to play without supervision.”
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