Effects of Nutrition and the Injured Athlete

Until recently, people with sprains or strains had few options for relief other than massages, physical therapy, muscle relaxants, pain pills and traditional ice/heat therapy. So I can clear up any misunderstandings on the differences between a sprain and a strain they are defined below.

• Sprain- is a stretch and /or tear of a ligament, the firbrous band of connective tissue that joins of one bone with another. Ligaments stabilize and support the body's joints.
• Strains-is a twist, pull and/or tear of muscle and/or tendon. Tendons are fibrous cords of tissue that attach muscle to bone.

Many Nutritionist and athletes have found through past and present research that supplementation of certain nutrients can help speed up recovery. Injuries that respond quickly to nutritional support include muscle soreness, muscle and connective tissue damage, which consist of tendons, ligaments and cartilage, mild inflammation and moderate pain. Supplements can also ease injuries to the joints of the arms and legs.

One of the many key nutrients that have an impact on injury is Vitamin C. Vitamin C has many important functions. It is a building block of collagen, it helps to heal wounds and it stimulates the immune system. Research on vitamin C suggest that its effect on post exercise muscle soreness may be dose dependent. (Burke, 1997) In a most recent study a group receiving vitamin C for 21 days prior to the exercises had a better retention of force production than another group receiving vitamin E. Vitamin E has been reported to prevent muscle soreness in people unaccustomed to vigorous exercise. (Jakeman et al, 1997)

As an athlete I know that injuries interfere with training time and keep one from participating in sports and other recreational activities. Any reduction time in recovery would be a positive result for an athlete. Its strange that nutrients that are known to promote healing have barely been studied let alone used when training athletes. Knowing which nutrients have an impact on joint health and connective tissue recovery is important in preventing and possibly reversing long term chronic injury.

Coach, How Can I Run Faster?

I get tons of questions from parents and other people that come into my facility. The most common is: How can I, or my child, run faster? My reply: If you run more efficiently you will run faster.

Running Efficiently
Believe it or not, most people, including athletes, do not know how to run efficiently. That's why performance training facilities, such as Velocity Sports Performance, are popping up all over America. Their strategy is to train athletes on proper muscle recruitment, foot placement, and other speed enhancing techniques.

There are countless things that come into play when running efficiently and they include: proper foot placement, proper knee punch and recovery of your leg (buttkick), arm action, head position, and learning to relax the body - just to name a few. If I wrote them all this log it would turn into a dissertation and I really don't want to bore you with all that scientific information.

For all of you parents who have kids that want to run faster or even if you want to learn how to be a more efficient runner, here are some things that can be done:

Make sure you are driving your knees up when running but not driving up so high that you're driving up above your hip (that's wasted movement). You also want to drive your foot slightly behind your hip so you can fully extend that leg into the ground, absorbing the force. This will allow the body to propel forward. But one thing you must remember: make sure you keep your foot Dorsi-Flex (Pull your toe up towards you knee while running. It allows you to use your ankle and calf muscle as a spring board. What does a spring board do? It shoots you out like rocket.).

Good Training

For more information on Velocity Sports Performance, visit www.velocitysp.com. Its a nationwide franchise.

What Everyone Should Know About Water

What is Water?
Water is an important nutrient for you as athlete. Water makes up 60% of your total body weight and 70% of your muscles. Without enough water, you can't work at your top level of performance and you may even harm yourself. The most important thing you should remember about water is that it cools your body. As you exercise your body temperature increase (even when it's cold outside). As your temperature increases, you sweat. When the sweat evaporates from your skin, your body cools down.

DEHYDRATION
If you start a physical activity without having enough water in your body or if you sweat during practice and do not replace the water lost, you may become dehydrated even when you loose a few pounds as sweat. Once you become dehydrated, you can no longer sweat and get rid of the heat that builds up when you exercise.
Dehydration is very dangerous. The first symptoms of dehydration include thirst, clammy skin, chills, throbbing heartbeat and nausea. When you become more dehydrated, you may develop a headache, cramps, shortness of breath, dizziness, and /or dryness in the mouth. At most serious level of dehydration, you can experience hallucinations, deafness, visual problems, swollen tongue, and /or kidney failure.

STEPS TO AVOID DEHYDRATION

• Drink Plenty of cool, plain water before, during, and after practice and competion as a preventive measure. Even if you feel thirsty. Drink 1-1.5 cups of plain; cool water 15 minutes before working out. Drink a half-cup of water every 10-15 minutes during the event.
• Don't rely on thirst alone as a guide to how much water your body needs. Weigh yourself before and after exercising. For every pound lost as sweat, drink 2 cups of fluid.
• Most of all aviod working out in plastic suits that can cause serious dehydration, limit your performance, and lead to possible heat stroke.

Bottom Line Drink plenty of water because it's the best vitamin that you can take and it's FREE!!

Body Weight Workout of the Week

Below is a simple body weight workout that can be done anywhere that has a chair and a floor. This workout can be done 3 times a week (MWF) in conjunction with cardio 2 times per week (T,Th). This program is designed to strengthen your core, tighten your glutes, and firm your chest.


Crunches (feet flat on ground) 3 x 10-15
Body Weight Squats 3 sets of 10-12 reps
Mod/Reg Push Ups 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Forward Lunges 3 sets of 8 each Leg
Toe Touches (Legs straight up in the air) 3 x 10-15
Backward Lunge 3 sets of 5 each leg
Dips with feet flat on ground 3 sets of 5-10 reps
Back Extensions (prone) 3 sets of 8 reps
Rest for 1:00 and Repeat 2 more times


For Beginners: you can opt to start with 1 set of the full amount of reps and then work your way up to three. Remember if you feel pain or have shortness of breath please stop exercising
Try it out for at least 2-4 weeks and let me know what you think. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please do not hesitate to hit the comments button to send me an email.

Stretching Techniques: Dynamic Flexibility

Dynamic flexibility stretching consist of functional base exercises that are sports specific and used to prepare the body for activity (Mann & Jones, 1999) . Dynamic flexibility utilizes natural ability to increase flexibility and rasie body temperature (Gambetta, 1997; Mora, 1990). Hardy and Jones (1986) indicated that dynamic flexibility stretching, rather that static stretching, may reveal more about potential performance in specific sports. According to Hedrick (2000), dynamic flexibility programs require coordination and balance, and athletes will experience muscle soreness for a short period of time when performing a dynamic flexibility program.

Dynamic flexibility has received more attention as an effective stretching technique for improving range of motion (ROM) decreasing athletic injuries (Gambetta, 1997; Mora, 1990) than static stretching. Out of the stretching techniques that we've discuss over the past week this is my favorite. Dynamic flexibility can be used by the most elite athletes and sedentary people for gaining core development, coordination and most of all flexibility.

Stretching Techniques: Ballistic Stretching

Its Monday morning, 8 o'clock gym class. Students are trickling in talking about all the fun they had over the weekend. Coach enters and all the students fall into place.

"Okay guys lets warm up first with our feet shoulder width apart," he shouts, " Lets get those hamstring. I want you to reach down and stretch those muscles good. Now make sure you bounce up and down so you can really stretch those muscles out. STRETCH!!!!"

This old practice is called Ballistic stretching. It is wrong.

Ballistic (bouncing) stretching consists of rapid jerky movements in which a body part is put into motion (smith et al., 1993; Hedrick; 2000) . Momentum carries the body part through a full range of motion (ROM) until the muscles area stretched to maximal physiological limits (Bandy et al. , 1997).

Ballistic stretching is not recommended because ballistic movements put the individual at greater risk for incurring injury and delayed onset muscle soreness. Delayed onset muscle soreness, which we will discuss in detail at a later date, is pain that may occur during the activity, immediately after the activity, or may be delayed for 24 to 48 hr after the termination of activity. Ballistic movements increase flexibility as much as static movements. Ballistic movements are more effective because these movements mimic parts of motor patterns such as start of the vertical jump (Smith et al. 1993) . Contrary to Smith et al. (1993), Hedrick (2000) found that ballistic stretching had negative effects. These negative effects occurred because ballistic movements are performed at high speeds and the rate of the stretch and force applied to induce the stretch and force applied to induce the stretch is very difficult to control (Hedrick, 2000) .

Hedrick compared ballistic and static stretching techniques and found four disadvantages of ballistic stretching:

(1) there is an increased danger of exceeding the extensibility limits of the tissue involved;
(2) energy requirements are higher;
(3) muscle soreness may occur, which static stretching will not cause; and
(4) activation of the stretch reflex (2000) .

In other words, when you stretch - DO NOT BOUNCE!

Stretching Technique: Static Stretching

Static Stretching is a process whereby a stretch torque is slowly applied to the muscle and maintained at a lengthened position (Moore & Hutton, 1979; Ninos, 1995). Static stretching is the most common stretching technique used amongst athletes and individuals involved in fitness programs (Bandy, Irion, & Briggler, 1997) . Researchers investigating static stretching programs have utilized a stretching time between 8 and 30 s (Sady, Wortman, & Blanke et al., 1982; Sullivan et al., 1992). However, Hedrick (2000) stated that " static stretching involves passively stretching into a near maximal position and holding for an extended (15-30 seconds) period of time" (p.5). De Vries (1962), Godges et al., (1989), Moore and Hutton (1980) concluded that static stretching is the safest and most effective way to increase range of motion (ROM). However, other findings have led researchers to support the hypothesis that other stretching methods may in fact be more effective than static stretching (Sady, Wortman, & Blancke, 1982)

Static Stretching Program

An Effective Static stretching program should consist of techniques used to increase flexibility and range of motion. The emphasis of a stretching program should be on a slow progression. Athletes should stretch year round in order to optimize the full benefits of static stretching (Beaulieu, 1981). Those athletes who are unable to stretch on a consistent basis should attempt to begin stretching at least 6 weeks prior to pre-season training. Here's an example of a Static Stretching Program:

1. Standing Staggerd Hamstring Stretch

2. Groin Stretch

3. Standing Quad Stretch

4. Butterfly Stretch

All of these should be held for 15-30 seconds.

The Stretch Reflex

Your muscles are protected by a mechanism called the stretch reflex. Any time you stretch the muscle fibers (muscles) to far (either by bouncing or overstretching), a nerve reflex responds by sending a signal to the muscles to contract; this keeps the muscles from being injured. Therefore, when you stretch too far you're actually tightening the very muscles you are trying to stretch! ( You get a similar involuntary muscle reaction when you accidentally touch something hot; before you can think about it, your body quickly moves away from the heat.)