Winston Salem Fitness

Winston Salem Fitness -Aspirin. Braces. Surgery. Why do we treat symptoms instead of causes? The 3 most common causes of golf injuries are excessive play or practice, poor swing mechanics, and poor physical conditioning. If you think “pre-hab, not re-hab” and address the causes, you can prevent injuries before they happen.

Overuse Injuries
The drive is a high-effort power movement that puts a great deal of stress on the body. Performed too frequently, injuries can result. The body can withstand many forces placed on it, but there’s a limit to how much it can take before it reacts with injury. High repetitions of the golf swing during play and practice can cause trauma to muscles and connective tissue, leading to inflammation and pain.

Hitting bucket after bucket of balls isn’t the only way to improve your performance. You can practice your golf swing without hitting any balls by using imagery, which has become a standard tool for athletes. You can practice “the perfect swing” in your mind without the threat of overuse injuries.

Swing Mechanics
Poor golfing mechanics can lead to injury. Repeated collisions with the ground, besides creating divots, places a great deal of stress on certain muscles, and can lead to shoulder strain, elbow pain, and even rib fractures. Back injuries can occur if you bend too far forward during the golf swing. Since flexing, extending, or twisting excessively or improperly increases your chance of injury, you should have your swing analyzed by a golf instructor to ensure proper technique. To prevent back injuries, you also should perform good body mechanics such as properly lifting your golf bag and teeing the ball.

Conditioning
Unconditioned muscles are weak and inflexible, causing them to be more susceptible to injury. The back is especially vulnerable to the increased pressure placed on it during the golf swing (rotating while leaning forward). If low back and abdominal muscles aren’t strong or flexible enough, the high repetitions of the golf swing eentually will cause pain.

By following a golf-specific strength and flexibility program, you will lower the risk of injury and most likely, improve performance. A program doesn’t have to be complicated or take a lot of time. Another thing you can do for “pre-hab” is to perform a pre-game warm-up.

Think “Pre-hab, not Re-hab.” Stop potential injuries from happening by avoiding excessive practice sessions, swinging correctly, and performing golf-specific strength and flexibility exercises.

Winston Salem Fitness Information Source: Sally Smith and Spine Universe

Winston Salem Fitness – While these positive training principles yield suggestions to limit injury risk, they are implemented in a program over time. Day-to-day exercise issues include the role of warm-up, stretching, and a cool-down. They prepare the body psychologically and physically for your workout. Additionally, it is widely believed that properly performed, these measures help limit the risk of injury.

Warm-up: The warm-up session is preliminary exercise, which may last a half-hour or more in competitive sports. For recreation, the warm-up is normally much shorter and may practically consist of simply jogging the first mile slower than normal training pace. The purpose of the warm-up is to elevate the heart rate and increase the body temperature by several degrees. It helps a person to psychologically prepare for the exercise session. Since movement is occurring with the warm-up activity, the range of motion of the joints and the efficiency of muscle contractions are also enhanced.

The increase in muscle temperature associated with an adequate warm-up can result in increased performance. Donald Kron of the Sports Medicine Clinic in Lake Charles, Louisiana, reports that warming-up the legs results in an increased vertical jump and an increase in maximum cycling power. “We have an easier time selling athletes on stretching to enhance performance than to prevent injuries,” says Kron. “We like to design stretching programs that allow the athlete to rehearse the movements required in each sport.” The warm-up often consists of both general exercises, such as calisthenics, stationary bike cycling, or jogging, and exercises that are specifically related to the chosen activity. Examples of a specific warm-up are swinging a golf club or tennis practice, which are skill rehearsal for the activity.

Stretching: Stretching is routinely included in the warm-up outlined above, because it seems reasonable and makes sense. However, the jury is out regarding its efficacy, particularly if engaged in prior to an activity like jogging. Dr. Van Mechelen found that injured runners have stretched significantly more before running than non-injured runners, and FitNews, the publication of the American Running and Fitness Association, has referred to stretching for injury prevention as the “Myth of the Month.” FitNews summarizes the debate by noting that, “No matter how hard you look, you won’t find a single controlled research study that proves stretching reduces the frequency of injuries.”

Additionally, there does not appear to be any hard evidence that supports the contention that stretching will decrease post-exercise soreness, although continuing research is underway. However, the stretching procedure intuitively seems to be an appropriate part of the warm-up routine and may be a form of an insurance policy for some. As the Penn State Sports Medicine Newsletter suggests, “No one wants to be blamed for an injury because he or she did not use all of the warm-up tools available.”

This controversy does not mean that stretching is useless. Stretching will increase your flexibility if performed properly over time. The research cited above, however, questions why stretching needs to be done routinely, and if so, how should it be done? The answer to the first question appears to be a qualified ‘yes,’ stretching should be done routinely. The effectiveness of stretching to achieve flexibility makes it an important tool for the maintenance of joint range of motion that naturally tends to decrease over time.

Stretching for flexibility will help minimize the loss of elasticity and counteract some of the connective tissue stiffness that occurs with time. This type of stretching is part of a program that should be sustained over a period of months for sustained increases in joint motion. As investigators at The University of Illinois point out, there is no reason to expect significant flexibility decrements over time in healthy adults.

Their research has found that differences in flexibility with age are so minimal as to be of limited clinical importance. At least to 74 years, any substantial loss of joint mobility should be viewed as abnormal and not attributable to aging, and therefore, should be treated much as it would be in a younger individual.

The second question dealing with how stretching should be done is a little easier to answer. That is, it is now clear that stretching cold muscles is a bad idea. Stretching should occur only after the temperature of the muscles has increased. It should be preceded by a warm-up or performed during and/or after workouts. Research by Dr. Dean Taylor and colleagues at Duke University suggests that the optimal time to hold a stretch is approximately 12 to 18 seconds.

They note that the largest increase in flexibility occurs in the first four repetitions. In terms of how hard to push during the stretch, the guidance by Bob Anderson, author of Stretching (the best selling book on the subject) brings straightforward advice: “Good stretching is knowing your body. It has nothing to do with how far you can move any particular part. The feeling you get when you stretch is a good gauge. The right feeling is when you can perform a stretch, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Effective stretching starts slow, using a static or gentle isolated muscle stretch. Vigorous bouncing, sometimes called ballistic stretching, should be avoided at first because it loads the muscle-tendon unit too rapidly and increases the likelihood of a strain. Further, when a stretch occurs very rapidly, there is too little time for the normal connective tissue relaxation to occur, which may render the stretch ineffective.

Following an appropriate warm-up and gentle progressive stretching program, some ballistic activity may be appropriate as a prelude to a dynamic sports event. The key again is start slow and be warm and loose prior to engaging in explosive activities. Bob Anderson points out that, “There are many methods of stretching, some more complex than others, but if practiced regularly and with sensitivity, all seem to yield results.” If soreness occurs, it suggests that overstretching is occurring and the vigor of the stretches should be decreased.

Joggers can start out slowly, and functionally loosen up as they progress through the first mile or so. Pre-exercise stretching may not be as important for them, but should be emphasized following the workout to promote flexibility. With golf, however, it’s unlikely that you would want to drive with 50% effort on the first tee, especially with an audience surveying the shot. In this case, an adequate warm-up with some focused stretching exercises and activity specific repetitions should be performed before your game.

Cool-Down: The cool-down is designed to bring the body back to a pre-exercise level and minimize the effects of the workout on future flexibility. By protracting the exercise at a reduced intensity, the body can metabolize some of the soreness-producing lactic acid that has accumulated in the muscles during a vigorous workout.

Additionally, if a person simply stops an workout, there is a chance that with the relaxation of veins in the legs, blood will pool there, and the person could faint. By maintaining activity at a reduced rate, cardiovascular function slowly returns to near the normal rest state. This is also an ideal time to stretch, since the muscles are warm and tissue compliance is greatest.

Winston Salem Fitness – The number one training error is overuse, or doing too much too fast. When the body is faced with a new task, it does its best to adapt to the challenge, but the adaptation takes time. Dr. Angela Smith, a Cleveland-based Orthopedic Surgeon, advises that “Training error leading to chronic injury is a major cause of downtime in sports. It takes time for the bones, tendons, and muscles of athletes to adapt to the stress of workouts. How much you train really comes down to being able to listen to your body and make adaptations in your workouts as needed.”

Overuse injury occurs because most people are totally unaware of the biomechanical stresses involved in simple exercise and ignore the toll on their body. It’s not surprising that 30 to 75 percent of all sports injuries are attributed to overuse. The team physician for the University of Washington, Dr. Stanley Herring, illustrates the problem by pointing out that “A 70-kg (154 lb.) runner at 1175 steps per mile absorbs at least 220 tons of force per mile.” That’s an incredible amount of pounding! With these types of cumulative forces, injury results from microtrauma, rather than from a single overwhelming event.

The common feature in these overuse injuries is not that the workout was inappropriate, but rather that the repetitive trauma overwhelmed the body’s ability to repair itself. Mistakes of performing too much, too fast, are extremely common with changes in season, activity, or changes in terrain. Common sense needs to be employed during training to provide an adequate mix of overload and recovery. When sound, positive, training techniques are employed, the vast majority of overuse problems can be avoided.

Training, properly structured, may be an example of “less is more.” Dr. Smith notes that while exercising, “Pains in your muscles or joints indicate that you’re doing too much, too soon. Cut back on your distance and intensity until you’re pain free.” The key to training properly is to have a reasonable progression, and recognize the need for overload, recovery, and consistency.

Other predisposing factors for injury can be grouped into personal characteristics and training characteristics. Personal characteristics are factors such as age, gender, experience with sport, previous injury, body composition, and psychological make-up. Training characteristics include items like warm-up, stretching, equipment, time of day, and the training program.

Since the personal factors are either not modifiable, such as age and gender, or are difficult to modify, they will not be considered further. Positive training principles are provided to address training characteristics and optimize the chance of remaining “in the fast lane.”

Winston Salem Fitness – It’s not always easy to listen to your body because the messages are sometimes unpleasant. There are mornings when simply getting out of bed seems a struggle, a bad idea, with small aches and pains in joints, tendons, and muscles. Anatomically, that’s the cost of aging. Maturity brings reductions in joint flexibility, elastic tissue, tendon blood flow, muscle mass, and bone mass.

Growing older challenges a “just do it” philosophy, yet the available evidence suggests that is exactly what should be done. Certainly, aches and stiffness shouldn’t be ignored, but it’s important to sort out pain symptoms that signify injury from those which are the normal consequences of an active lifestyle. That is, it’s necessary to listen for the different voices of aches and pain in your body.

As depressing as they first feel, normal aches tend to vanish with activity. They shouldn’t be an excuse to skip a workout. Minor stiffness that resolves with motion is also common and not necessarily indicative of a musculoskeletal problem. Likewise, a mild grinding or “crepitus” in a joint like the knee is often present in healthy adults, and does not usually signify a major problem unless the roughness is accompanied by pain, swelling, decreased range or motion, or pain was present for a half hour or more following the activity. In these cases (or anytime a problem is persistent), appropriate medical evaluation and treatment should be sought.

The reason a mild roughness under the kneecap might be present without pain is due to the way that the joint is constructed. The cartilage that is under the kneecap is thicker than anywhere else in the human body. This thickness is a good design because significant forces are generated under the kneecap; the thick cartilage assists with the dissipation of these forces. Over time, some wear and tear often occurs; however, the wear is “a normal part of aging…we all have it if we survive past the age of twenty-five,” according to Rheumatologist, Dr. John Bland.

You can feel this mild grinding sensation by placing a hand on your kneecap as you straighten your leg. The reason this usually doesn’t hurt is that cartilage lacks nerves to send pain signals to the brain. If, on the other hand, the wear and tear becomes excessive or other problems, such as tightness or muscle imbalances, result in abnormal alignment of the kneecap, excessive forces may be transferred to the underlying bone. Bone has a robust nerve supply, and when irritated, will inform the brain of a problem in the form of pain. As such, pain is really a beneficial thing, since it tells us when something isn’t working in an optimal fashion.

How about wear and tear on joints? Will exercise accelerate this process and destroy the joint? Do activities like running cause the most common type of arthritis? According to Dr. Bland, “In a word, no.” In over ten years of studies, medicine has not been able to establish a clear link between running and arthritis. In fact, the opposite is true. As Dr. Bland points out, “Exercise is the key to keeping tendons, ligaments, and bones strong”.

These are all structures that are affected by aging, and the exercise stimulus helps maintain these tissues at a functionally younger state. By contrast, “Complete immobilization of a joint for as short a time as three to four months will totally destroy a joint,” he explains. That is, the evidence to date suggests that the common “use it or lose it” adage fits for our joint structures.

This isn’t to say that running is for everyone or that everyone should run. The medical research in support of exercise assumes that a joint has not been injured in some way and is functioning normally. In cases where ligaments have been torn or the cartilage in the joint has been damaged or removed, the results may be quite different. Certainly, pain that is present during or after a workout is a message that another less stressful activity should be substituted.

But here’s another perspective: We don’t just build muscle when we exercise; we also build ligament, tendon, and bone. We nourish cartilage as well, and exercise helps us rebuild or “remodel” damaged tissue. Dr. Bland states, “We know today beyond any doubt that all connective tissues remodel according to the lines of stress. This is important, not just in dealing with injuries and optimizing athletic performance; It also points the way to surviving to a healthy advanced age with intact and functional connective tissue.”

Stiffness is another common problem of middle age. It can occur at rest or in motion from a variety of causes. It seems natural to let stiff joints take care of themselves, such as backing-off and resting. Actually, that response is counterproductive because it contributes to three common problems: tightness, delayed rate of healing due to diminished blood supply, and poor posture. The lesson is this: our musculoskeletal system responds to exercise in ways that heal, not harm, provided that we are sensible and listen to our bodies.

Some medical conditions can be predicted from the changes that gradually occur from aging and are aggravated by certain activities. For example, Dr. Douglas Tumen, a podiatrist writing about the aches and pains of running, states that, “Running has many benefits, but increased flexibility is not one of them. In fact, as running strengthens your leg muscles, it also shortens and tightens them.” This is one reason that foot and leg problems, such as plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis are so common in athletes who run regularly.

Plantar fasciitis, the commonly experienced heel pain which is most pronounced upon arising in the morning, results from this type of shortening of a band of fibers on the sole of your foot, coupled with thinning of the shock- absorbing fat deposits near the heel. During the day, the tightened band is stretched and ultimately loosens up, but not without some damage to the band. Then at night, the band shortens again and attempts to heal.

Upon arising from bed, the shortened connective tissue is again stretched, tearing at the healing attempt that has occurred during the night and resulting in more pain. This condition can range from minor to disabling, especially when coupled with improper or aggressive training techniques.

Achilles’ tendon ruptures, like the one sustained by former Vice President, Al Gore, are also due to similar tightening coupled with a diminished blood flow. Over time, the shortened tendon also has less elastic tissue in it, further inhibiting its flexibility. This problem starts as an inflammation of the tendon on the back of the foot, which does not heal readily due to the relatively poor blood supply in one portion of the tendon. If unprotected stress continues, the stage is set for an activity limiting injury, such as a ruptured tendon.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that regular flexibility training be part of a well-balanced exercise program, in order to minimize the changes that occur with aging. To minimize the impact of these cumulative postural changes and adaptive shortening, a regular flexibility program is recommended as part of the exercise programs prescribed.

The reader may be familiar with a flexibility assessment examining the back, thigh, and legs, since flexibility is evaluated during the health and fitness assessments for the students passing through the U.S. Army War College. This assessment is a prelude for guidance on the need for stretching. What is known about stretching will be covered later in this section, as a component of a complete exercise program.

Prolonged postures contribute to other problems that often effect areas like the back, neck, and shoulders. Protracted sitting to write or type at a work station can result in a stance where the upper back is rounded, and the head and neck are positioned forward. This causes both connective tissue changes and makes muscles work overtime to support the head and neck against gravity.

Gradually, the connective tissue in regions like the front of the chest and upper neck undergo permanent shortening, while in other areas the connective tissue is stretched out, resulting in permanent “habits”. Also, the stretched muscles tend to weaken, much like a stretched rubber band is not as resilient as one of normal length. This contributes to the background noise of aches and pains. Fortunately, these connective tissue and muscular problems can be minimized by being aware of your posture and taking a few minutes throughout the day to stretch the kinks out.

In sum, while most anyone who enjoys an active lifestyle feels minor stiffness and muscle aches now and then, the evidence suggests that this shouldn’t limit a personal exercise program. Even individuals with documented arthritis can (and should) exercise, advises Dr. Gordon Matheson and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, who found that activity-related pain is usually not the underlying source of discomfort.

The real barrier for most individuals interested in participation in a regular exercise program is not minor aches and pains, but rather injury. Dr. Matheson’s work with adults in their mid-fifties has shown that illness and injury are the number one and two causes of inability to participate in an exercise program. Those barriers must be avoided to maintain a regular exercise program and reap its benefits. In addition, the fact is that injuries are largely caused by training errors

Winston Salem Fitness – According to Dr. Steven Fleck, Sports Physiologist for the US Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, the key to physical performance as we age is to be consistent in our exercise programs. “If we de-train, it becomes very difficult to fight our way back into shape. Continuing an exercise program, even if it is a moderate one, is a lot easier than having to start all over.”

You know that an increased effort will be needed to maintain your training program if … “your knees make noises even your opponents can hear, your right elbow hurts and you are left-handed, and you try to plant your foot to change directions but continue running three more steps.” This spoof on competitive athletics appeared in Penn State’s Sports Medicine Newsletter.

While satirical, it still reflects the fact that aches and pains are the single greatest hazard to consistency in exercise programs, even for the most elite athletes. Without the benefit of coaches and trainers, however, non-athletes face a bigger problem keeping the pain from their gain. Furthermore, many assume that aches or muscle soreness are signals to stop altogether.

The health and performance benefits of a regular exercise program have long been acknowledged, but they don’t come for free; it takes regular workouts. Still, the more one trains, the greater the chance of injury. Therefore, the executive who recognizes that exercise is a key component to a healthy lifestyle must walk a fine line to stay in the fast lane. Doing so a big challenge because injuries are extremely common, while typical activity levels and regularity of exercise diminish with age.

Are aches and pains inevitable? Does exercise actually increase both the incidence and severity of these problems? Can anything be done to lessen the painful effects of a regular exercise program? How common are training injuries? Is there a time when the smartest thing is to mothball your running shoes?

Virtually everyone who exercises will experience aches and pains. The symptoms range from joint stiffness in the morning, to sore muscles following a previous day’s workout, to an injury which cannot be ignored. A recent article in Sports Medicine noted that among average recreational runners, “the overall yearly incidence rate for running injuries varies between 37 and 56%.” As sobering as these statistics are, there is a silver lining when the rest of the story is heard: The vast majority of injuries sustained by individuals participating in aerobic activities can be prevented!

Moreover, our musculoskeletal system is robust and can adapt to most all stresses encountered in training programs. In other words, with adequate, balanced overload of the muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, all of these structures grow stronger and can withstand increased stress in the future. Therefore, the key to minimizing the chance of injury is to listen to your body and avoid common training mistakes.