Post 29: Recent Interview With SweatRX

          I was recently contacted by a fellow S&C junkie at my gym who writes for SweatRX Magazine. In the past we had discussed some partway completed success stories, found that we read a lot of the same publications, and generally just hit it off. He had expressed some interest in doing an interview with me basically just to cultivate some fresh ideas on injuries and repetitive movement patterns. Naturally, I was excited to field some questions from a fresh (and informed) mind and recently, it came to fruition.

   

          Without any further information as to release or publication dates, I decided to take a few minutes to publish the questions posed as well as my answers here on the blog. Hopefully this will be of some use to you! Yes, I am aware that SweatRX is a "Crossfit Publication" but the guy who did the interview is a good dude, and the nature of the questions were not about the C-word. (Plus, this magazine has babes.)

SRX:  How common is it for high-level or pro athletes in traditional sports to sustain injuries?

GDS:  As long as there are sports, there will be injuries. Of immediate importance is to establish a distinction between two types of injuries in broad focus; those that can, and those that can’t be avoided. Inherently in collision sports like football and hockey, athletes are subject to high impact from other players. The prevalence of this is only exacerbated on the professional stage in cases like the Saints bounty scandal, nevertheless the risk exists in any circumstance during collision sport. The ones I’m referring to here are called contact injuries. Implicit in the name is the idea that these injuries are acute in nature and involve contribution of an auxiliary component. The second variety of injury we see are non-contact, or perhaps more appropriately, preventable injuries. These are of interest to whoever may be in charge of Strength & Conditioning. An athlete with unsound, compensatory, or inefficient movement patterns, lack of adequate range of motion about joints, short (tight) or long (loose) muscles in the wrong places or structural imbalances are (among others) potential constituents of non-contact injury. Of course, the number one job of the S&C coach is to keep athletes healthy and prepared for competition. My first mentor in this business used to say “prehab is for winners, rehab is for losers.” Suffice to say that your athletes should always be training with proper technique and progression to avoid or at least buffer the occurrence of these.

SRX:  What kind of repetitive movement patterns lead to injury for athletes?

GDS:  In my experience (and within the scope of this article,) repetitive movement patterns that contribute to injury may be credited to inconsideration of on-field volume, and/or simple misunderstanding of human kinetics. Things as simple as arm “prehab” for overhead athletes can increase likelihood of overuse injury. Exercises like resisted internal/external rotations should always be programmed and prescribed with special consideration given to practice/competition volume of the very same movements. Believe it or not, the effects of both training and practice volumes compound over the weeks and months of the training cycles. From another perspective, I wrote on my blog earlier this year about oblique strains in rotational sports, and how ineffective core training may in fact contribute to the occurrence of this problem. Performing resisted rotation (instead of resistance to rotation) trains the core musculature to function in a way that is actually the polar opposite of its natural purpose. Things like Russian twists etc. train the core to rotate between the hips and/or shoulders. In sport however, it is actually the shoulders and hips which provide the ballistic movement, and we need the core to resist this rotation in order to effectively maintain a neutral (read: healthy) spine. In this case, it becomes clear that a core trained to rotate, trying to perform its natural function of protecting the spine, would be less than ideal - especially when these types of exercises have been laughably categorized as “sport-specific.”

SRX:  How important is it for athletes to train beyond sport-specific movement patterns (e.g., incorporating basic strength movements) to shore up their general strength and functionality?

GDS:  Basic strength movements (in my opinion) should be a staple in all programming. Now let me validate this by saying that not every athlete should bench press, deadlift, and squat, but at very least variations of these should be included. Although there are safe(r) ways to do all of these –swiss bar benching, trap bar deadlifting, safety or cambered bar squatting etc. – other means are also reliable for producing desirable training effects. Unilateral (or single leg) work comes to mind when talking about building strength – and this is hardly what many would think of first when considering “basic strength movements.” During MOST athletic movement, general strength is characterized by the ability to perform in compromised positions and single leg work can be the answer (or solution, as per Mike Robertson’s Single Leg Solution.) Developing strong movement patterns in all planes using unilateral exercises (with proper form) is a great way to enhance functionality in terms of creating more efficient movement, better joint mobility, and can be done with less compressive loading. All of these benefits will nicely set the stage for any of the other aforementioned basic strength movements. Multi-planar lunges are great for developing well rounded single leg strength, with the added benefit of working deceleration into the mix. Things like glute-hams or single leg RDL’s with a yielding eccentric component also develop strong deceleration, and this is critical for maintaining knee health particularly for athletes who rely on varying degrees of positional agility in competition.

          So that's it for the interview, yes - I said it would be brief and I followed through on my promise so for that you are welcome. The only thing I may have changed would be to include some chatter about kettlebell work on the third question. I love the idea of having an athlete work to accommodate an implement like that (see more on this in Post 24: My What & Why of Movement Training) because as athletes, we know in competition that we rarely dictate the environment, and ability to adapt, is ability to succeed and survive!

-Alex