Getting Ready for Physical Activity

Before a child starts physical activities it’s always a good idea to think about ways to keep them safe while they play. Every year, they should have a pre-participation physical exam to check for issues and conditions that might create problems during the season.

Make sure that your child always warms up properly by stretching muscles to release tension and by getting your heart rate up gradually. They should also always cool down after their physical activity. This allows the heart rate to slowly return to resting levels.

Children should have proper coaching and should make sure to listen well to their coaches. Training should also be increased gradually. The general rule for pushing athletes is the 10% rule. Training activity shouldn’t increase by more than 10% a week. This allows your body time to recover and to strengthen.

You should also be wearing proper equipment. Children should always be encouraged to drink water as hydration allows your muscles to work properly and to avoid cramping and spasms. Athletes should take water breaks every 30 minutes or even more based on their activity level and the temperature outside.

Avoiding Basketball Injuries

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  If you're a big basketball player, you may be prone to sports injuries. It's certainly a good idea, before your next game, to keep track of these tips. 
  
  
  1. You should have a pre-season physical exam and follow up with any of your doctor's recommendations to prevent basketball injuries.
  
  
  2. Stay hydrated.
  
  
  3. If you've been injured, move back into your exercise program slowly. You might want to add aerobics, strength training and agility training to your program for awhile until you are back up to your pre-injury level.
  
  
  4. If you have pain or discomfort, stop playing for a bit and make sure that your injury gets better. If it doesn't feel like it's getting better, consult with a doctor before returning to play. And you should only return to play after a doctor has agreed that it's a good idea.
  
  

Identifying a Rotator Cuff Tear

If you’re an athlete and you’re experiencing pain in your shoulder, it may be a rotator cuff tear. Now, it could be something else entirely, but one common cause of shoulder pain is from this problem.

The pain that you experience with a rotator cuff tear is usually located over the outside of the shoulder and upper arm. The athlete will often feel in pain while performing overhead activities and may have pain at night. If the rotator cuff tear is more severe, the pain could wake the person in the middle of the night as well.

A doctor can help to determine the extent of the tear. The inability to hold the arm directly over the body is one sign of the rotator cuff tear. Often patients with this issue complain about the difficulty of performing activities like combing their hair, clasping a bra behind their back or sleeping on the shoulder in question.

The test most commonly used to discover a rotator cuff tear is an MRI. The MRI can detect both a full tear and a partial rotator cuff tear. Other tests like an arthrogram and an ultrasound might be used as well.

The Psychological Side of Sports Injuries

Certainly, sports injuries require physical rehabilitation. Many injured people also feel a psychological aftermath to their injury. They worry that they are going to get injured again and that they won't recover fully from their injury.

Sports psychologist Robert Andrews offers helpful tips to people who are recovering from injuries.

1. Mental imagery: It is important to use mental imagery to get over your psychological fears after an injury. You should imagine yourself as healthy and fully recovered.

2. Spend a few minutes a day visualizing yourself as physically healthy and with the ability to perform a full range of motions.

3. Think about your speech and what you convey with it. Rather than saying things like, "I will never," you should try to say "I will."

Measuring Your Heart Rate Reserve

It's important to make sure that you're exercising at the correct hear rate for your body and age. To determine this number, you can use a formula called the "heart rate reserve" method. This was developoed by Richard Weil, MEd, CDE. Figure out your resting heart rate by seeing how many times your heart beats per minute.

Now, determine your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) by subtracing your age from 220. Then, subtract your resting heart rate from your MHR to find your Heart Rate Reserve (HRR).

Next, multiply your HRR by the percentage of your MHR at which you want to train. Usually people train at 60-85%. Next, add your resting heart rate back to the result to get your target rate.

Here is how it would work. If you are 30 with a resting heart rate of 70 beats per minute and you want to train at 70%, your calculation would be:

220-30= 190
190-70= 120
120 x 70% = 84
84 + 70 = 154

STOP Sports Injuries: A Worthy Campaign

If you haven't heard about them before, the STOP Sports Injuries campaign is worth knowing about. STOP stands for (Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention) and the campaign was initiated by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) in early 2007.

Many doctors decided that the issue of overuse injuries in young athletes had reached a critical level and that something had to be done about it. They partnered with an impressive list that includes: the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Athletic Trainers' Association, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and SAFE Kids USA. All of these organizations share the same concerns that AOSSM has about the increase in youth sports injuries. They have come together under the umbrella of  STOP Sports Injuries

As the STOP initiative wrote on their website, "The STOP Sports Injuries educational initiative includes public service announcements, posters, DVDs, brochures/fact sheets, electronic newsletter and an interactive Web site and other online outreach. The program will achieve a nationwide impact through a variety of media outlets, corporate and individual partnerships. However, local, grassroots outreach is the key to the campaign's success."

Learn more about STOP and see how you can get involved to keep kids safe from sports injuries.

Iliotibial Band Injuries

If you find yourself having sharp pain on the outside of the knee and sometimes the lower thigh, you might have Iliotibial band injury. The ITB is the connective tissue band that runs down the lateral side of the thigh and then attaches to the lateral surface of the tibial condyle.

When you hurt this area, it’s from overuse and it produces pain on the knee during running and sometimes during cycling. Interestingly, it’s most common for runners who are training on an uneven surface. What happens is that this causes the pelvis to tilt and it then puts strain on the Iliotibial band.

To treat the injury, you need to put ice on it, rest and slowly try to increase your flexibility and elevation. To try to prevent the injury from happening, you should be wearing proper footwear when you run and you should avoid overtraining when possible.