Join us for a free seminar "The Knee in Sport: Training, Care and Treatment of the Athletic Knee" on Thursday, May 24, 2012, 6:30 p.m.- 8:30 p.m., at our facility at Franciscan Point, 12800 Mississippi Parkway in Crown Point.
The seminar will focus on a variety of topics including:
- Common types of athletic injury
- Structural and functional evaluation
- Non-surgical and surgical treatment options
- Injury rehabilitation
- Return-to-play training
- Training to reduce injuries and improve performance
Presenters include:
- Ryan Plank, MD, Orthopedic Surgery
- Timothy Mullaly, DO, Sports Medicine
- Frank Eksten, Director, Athletic Development at SMI
- Jennifer Bradsky, Physical Therapy, SMI
- Tracy Hall, Certified Athletic Trainer, SMI
A question and answer session will follow the presentation. Refreshments will be served.
Registration is required. Please call (800) 931-3322 to reserve your place today!
Submitted by Kevin Devine, Athletic Development Coach
There are many products on the market for post exercise nutrition to help the body recover. This article is to help narrow your search and eliminate discrepancies. During and after exercise the body is in a heightened state and burns more calories than resting state. This means after a strenuous workout, the body has to be "re-fueled" in a sense. The combination of glycogen (carbohydrates), protein, water, and electrolytes (sodium and potassium) is what the body needs for a quick recovery. Also, in small amounts glucose (sugar) is helpful because it is quickly broken down to be used as immediate fuel or stored as muscle glycogen.
 What is post workout nutrition?
Post exercise nutrition is the intake of a supplement, food or drink after exercise to help improve rate of recovery after a strenuous workout. Post exercise nutrition can help decrease muscle soreness by supplying essential components for muscle repair and replenish muscle glycogen (fuel for the body) lost from exercise.
What has all the different components needed for optimal recovery?
Chocolate milk! 1% milk mixed with chocolate powder has shown good results while also very inexpensive. However, there are other products on the market with the same ingredients and results.
Why is recovery time important?
Muscle recovery is key for maintaining an effective exercise program. During increased physical activity, the body must be provided with the essential fuels and supporting nutrients to support our muscles during a workout, and assist in speeding and enhancing the muscle recovery process. The faster and more effectively you can recover, the better you can perform during your next workout. Recovery drinks are far from a miracle drink and may not completely recover you after a hard workout. However, if integrated carefully into a well-designed nutrition and exercise program, it will aid in improvement and give you an edge to recovery. You must recognize that small positive changes, stacked upon each other, over time, lead to large improvements.
What should your post exercise nutrition and how to measure it?
Studies have shown that drinking a liquid is better than eating solid food. Liquid is digested faster and typically has a high water content to help replenish fluid lost from sweat. Also, liquid is usually easier to stomach after a hard workout. A post recovery drink should contain approximately twice as many carbohydrates as protein, a 2:1 ratio. Each body is different but this formula can use as a guideline to follow for a recovery drink. Essentially for every kilogram of body weight, there should be 0.4 grams of carbohydrate and 0.2 grams of protein. For example: a 180lb basketball player ~82 kg; 82 kg x 0.4g/kg = 32.7 grams of carbohydrate. 82 kg x 0.2 g/kg = 16.4 grams of protein. This is an only an approximation; however general guidelines estimates 20 grams of protein is sufficient.
How long after exercise should I have this drink?
There is a small window of opportunity for better results of post exercise nutrition. Immediately after an intense workout, when glycogen stores are depleted, production of the enzymes that convert glucose into glycogen is increased offering an ideal opportunity to replenish fuel supply. The enzyme levels only remain elevated for about 30-45 minutes, allowing an opportunity to consume sugar (glucose) for muscles to use as fuel Also this is the same time frame for optimal protein synthesis for muscle repair.
If done properly post exercise nutrition can improve recovery time and allow the body to perform better the next training session!
 Student-athlete receives help, healing at Sports Medicine Institute
Sarah Rivich gets a kick out of playing sports— two of them, in fact.
The Crown Point High School junior is a standout soccer and basketball player who aspires to continue her athletic career in college. "I hope to play college soccer, on a scholarship, one day," she said, adding she already is receiving inquiries from colleges.
Rivich gives much of the credit for her progress to the treatment, training and confidence she has derived during the last two years of working with the staff at Franciscan St. Anthony Health-Crown Point's Sports Medicine Institute, located at Franciscan Point. After suffering sports-related strains during freshman year, Rivich was referred to SMI by family friend Jennifer Bradsky, supervisor of outpatient therapy.
Marilu Rivich lauds the impact SMI has had on her daughter. "She had three or four sprains freshman year and has had none since. SMI has been very helpful by providing the appropriate treatment and by showing Sarah exercises to do at home to prevent injury. The staff here is so sincere—they assess the needed treatment as a team and provide great care. The program here is the best in this area."
Rivich, who also is a member of the nationally known Eclipse Soccer Club-Northwest Indiana Division, also visits SMI regularly for strength, agility and conditioning work. "It helps make me stronger and faster and builds confidence; it's a great place, I like coming here," she said.
Rivich has recommended SMI to many fellow athletes and said most of her school's sports team members receive treatment and training there, as do those from numerous other area schools.
Rivich especially credits her progress and success to Tracy Hall, a certified athletic trainer with whom she has worked closely; as well as to Anna Garduno, an athletic coach; to Bradsky, to Frank Eksten, SMI director of athletic development; and to Dr. Timothy Mullally, its medical program director.
Eksten said he is impressed with Rivich's maturity, development and work ethic. "Sarah is a very gifted, multiple-sport athlete, who practices and competes at a very high level of intensity. As a soccer and basketball athlete, she moves right from one season into the next and rarely gets time to let her body recover. This can catch up with any athlete and they will start to get small aches and pains that can develop into ongoing injuries that don’t go away," Eksten said.
"I think we have helped Sarah learn the value of utilizing recovery methods in her training schedule, become more aware of how she is feeling and to not just ignore little aches and pains and hope they will go away. Sarah has become much more educated and in-tune with her body and how she is feeling and is now taking the right steps early on," he added.
This article is featured in the Fall/Winter 2011 edition of the Franciscan Focus magazine.
Submitted by Kevin Devine, Athletic Development Coach
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a major ligament that helps stabilize the knee joint and prevent excessive motion in the knee. Most ACL injuries are non-contact and usually occur during a sudden twisting motion or landing from a jump. As an example: the foot is planted facing one direction and the knee moves the other direction.
ACL injuries are common in sports that have sudden change in direction such as soccer, basketball and football. Women have a higher risk ACL injury than men. There are many theories to this, but the one that is most often accepted is the Q-angle or the quadriceps angle. The Q-angle is the angle that the femur meets the lower leg and is determined by the width of the pelvis. Women have a 3x’s higher risk of injuring their ACL than men. While women soccer players are up to 8x’s as likely then male soccer players.
How do you train to prevent an ACL injury?
- Strengthening the muscles around the knee
- Improve flexibility
- Improve mobility in the hips to allow the body to move better
- Improve neuromuscular connections
- Improve change of direction technique to avoid vulnerable positions
- Improve landing technique; absorbing the landing, landing soft
Now to the big question: How do you design a program that includes all of this?
Including a program into your training that encompasses all of these desires does not have to be very time consuming. It can take as little as 3 hours a week. Three one hour training sessions a week can greatly decrease the chance of an ACL injury. The program must include these components: a warm up, flexibility, mobility, plyometrics focusing on change of direction and landing technique, strength training focusing on core and glute strength, and a cool down. The combination of these together can significantly reduce chance of injury. While also improving the way the body moves on the field or court, increasing force production and decreasing reaction time.
If you would like to know more about injury prevention training or about joining an injury prevention program contact us at (219) 662-5266.
For more health information on ACL injuries, visit Franciscan St. Anthony Health's online health library: http://www.stanthonymedicalcenter.com/.
References:
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/injuryprevention/a/ACL_prevention.htm
Come out and join SMI as we show our support at the first Bethel 5K Fun Run on Saturday, October 22, 2011, at Bethel Church, 10202 Broadway in Crown Point.
Our whole team will be on site and available to answer your questions. Meet our Sports Physical Therapist, Athletic Trainer, Sports Physician and Sport Coaches and learn how we can help you with your athletic development.
We will be offering free movment screenings, injury consultations, and we will be raffling off some free training.
Franciscan St. Anthony Health - Crown Point is a sponsor of the event and will be providing fruit for all the runners.
So far, over 500 runners are registered for the event. Interested in running? You can register and check out the race route by visiting bethelweb.org/5k.
By Frank Eksten Over the years I have spent a good deal of time training basketball players. In this day and age most higher level players understand the importance of off-season and pre-season training to improve performance and reduce injury potential. As we are now in the in-season period for basketball it is important to maintain the physical improvements that have been made in the off-season. This being said many players will stop training once the season starts due to several factors; not enough time due to increased practice time and school work, fatigue, and fear of being sore from training. The truth is this lack of in-season training will almost completely erase most of the pre-season work by the halfway point of the season. All that hard work wasted when all it would have taken is a couple of 30-40 minute sessions a week to maintain. The key to in-season training is to provide what the player does not get in practice and games. In the game of basketball, players get all the running, jumping and agility work they need to maintain those areas. The two areas that are not addressed in practice are strength and mobility, and those are the keys to in-season training, maintaining strength and quality of movement. First let us consider strength. Once an athlete stops strength training, strength will start to decrease within two weeks and continue to decrease as time goes by. As strength decreases there will be decreases in power, speed and muscular endurance. So, how do we maintain strength in as little time as possible without adding undue fatigue on the players? We need two times per week of strength training to maintain. We should choose exercises that are efficient and work several movements and muscle groups at once. Generally I will choose 3-4 exercises, 2 - 3 sets of each. Breakdown will be one explosive exercise for power, one hip dominate pull type exercise, one knee dominate squat type exercise and one upper body exercise. For power, either a power clean, power snatch or dumbbell snatch if the athlete is proficient in these or a kettlebell swing if not. For lower body hip dominate either sled push or one-leg straight leg deadlift and for knee dominate squat either a front squat or single leg squat. Upper body would be incline press, dumbbell curl and press, or push press. This can be completed in 30 minutes including a short warm-up. As for mobility and flexibility work, it is important to remember that the demands of in-season basketball will lead to decreases in mobility and flexibility if not addressed in consistent fashion. Of special concern is that a loss of hip mobility can lead to many problems including decrease in lateral speed and movement and low back pain. So it is important that flexibility and hip mobility are addressed regularly, preferably before practice during warm-up. So there you have it. In about one hour per week you can work to maintain the gains you developed during the pre-season and off-season. You must put in quality work and challenge yourself with each set and exercise in order for this to be effective. If you can do that you will find that it is much easier to maintain those improvements in the first place, and not let all that hard work go to waste.
The 2010 Winter session at SMI kicked off this week beginning on Nov 8th and continuing until the end of February. New this session is our Speed and Agility class on Saturday mornings at 9 a.m. The one hour class includes instruction and training in linear and lateral speed and agility, acceleration and deceleration techniques as well as explosive jump training and plyometrics. One of the most desirable qualities in sport is speed. When coaches (and parents) look at athletes and identify areas of performance that could be improved, most often the quality that gets brought up first is speed. No athlete has ever been described as being too fast. Quality of Acceleration
In most team sports as people describe the need for speed they are often really talking about the quality of acceleration. This is the ability to move quickly over 0-10 yards, first three steps down the court, or creating space to separate from a defender. To improve acceleration is not complicated. The athlete must improve in two areas. The first area is the ability of putting more force into the ground as they accelerate; the second is the techniques of how the athlete moves as they are accelerating. Quality of Quickness
The other quality along with speed that often needs improving is the quality of quickness or more correctly multi-directional speed and agility; in other words, the ability to change directions quickly and accelerate quickly. Again, here, the improvements should come both from the areas of technique and increased force into the ground. Quality of Deceleration
Also important in changing directions quickly is the ability to decelerate. Proper deceleration is also very important in minimizing injury potential. Incorrect body positions and techniques during deceleration can increase the chance of injuries. Again, improvements in this area should come from both improvements in technique and increase in strength. Our Speed & Agility class will focus on the techniques and skill of improving acceleration and lateral speed and agility as mentioned above. To improve the strength aspect athletes may want to consider enrolling in our Athletic Development classes which along with strength training offer speed and agility training and conditioning. These classes are comprehensive, addressing all areas of improving performance and reducing injury potential. And, as always, check out our offerings on our new website at http://www.stanthonysmi.com.
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