|
|
|
Sample Articles/Programs from SportSpecific.com
Here's a few sample articles to give you an idea of the kinds of things you'll find in the Subscribers Area of SportSpecific.com These articles are reprinted as they originally appeared.
|
Female Strength
A forum post about women's inability to do chinups prompted me to post these videos. They are not and were not made to be technique videos. They were simply to show how strong our girls were in 1998. . . . keep reading
|
ACL Injury Prevention Is Just Good Training
Michael Boyle
Is ACL injury prevention just good training? I think so. The program we use for ACL injury prevention is actually the same program we use with everyone! The truth is ACL injury prevention programs often consist more of packaging than new concepts. Calling a program an ACL prevention program may be nothing more than a way into the head of the athletic trainer, physical therapist or coach. But, if that's what it takes, I'm all for it. However, as coaches we have to realize that we should be practicing great injury prevention concepts with all our athletes and our weekend warriors. . . . keep reading
|
Understanding Sports Hernia
Part 2
Michael Boyle
Prevention and Rehabilitation of Sports Hernia Sports Hernia Prevention A big key in prevention of any injury is to use appropriate screening techniques. For screening athletes I am a proponent of Gray Cook's Functional Movement Screen ( www.functionalmovement.com) The FMS is a seven part screen designed to predict risk of injury and should be done in it's entirety on every athlete at least once. Of particular interest in the sports hernia area is the FMS- Hurdle Step (a test of the hip flexion pattern). An impaired hip flexion pattern usually demonstrates a lateral shift of the pelvis when attempting to flex the hip. This would indicate an impaired hip flexion pattern. In the impaired hip flexion pattern it is theorized that the deep flexors (psoas and iliacus) are weak or inhibited. This forces the athlete to use quadratus lumborum to hip hike to create the illusion of hip flexion. In essence, lateral flexion of the pelvis on the spine raises the hip. Cook advocates not focusing on individual muscles but rather on fixing the pattern. To fix the pattern we have adopted a "top down" approach to attempt to recruit the deep hip flexors. . . . keep reading
|
Box Hip Flexor Stretch
Stretching the psoas and iliacus can be difficult without a partner and a table. The other day I came up with this idea to get all the things we need in a good hip flexor stretch. . . . keep reading
|
Does It Hurt?
Michael Boyle
I get asked rehab questions all the time. I have rehabilitated athletes in almost every major sport who were told they were "all done" by a doctor or a team trainer. Because people know my background, they often ask for advice. Most of the time they ignore the advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. They say "it only hurts when I run", I say things like "don't run". . . . keep reading
|
Understanding Sports Hernia May Mean Understanding Adduction
Michael Boyle
Last year I wrote a piece called Understanding and Training Hip Flexion (www.strengthcoach.com/members/1283.cfm ). The idea was to take a look at muscles of the hip and how these muscles function from a slightly different perspective. This process led me to continue to study the hip and how we look at this critical area. One of the things I pride myself on is continuing to try to learn. Fortunately or unfortunately I feel like the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. An area that has become of increasing interest to me, and to many others in the fields of performance enhancement and physical therapy, is the area of sports hernia. It seems like every week another athlete is having surgery for a 'sports hernia". In order to begin to understand the concept of sports hernia, the first thing we need to do is attempt to describe a sports hernia. In the technical sense, the sports hernia is a tear in the lower abdominal wall in the inguinal area. Unlike a classic inguinal hernia there is rarely a significant tear that results in a bulge. Rather there is a gradual onset of pain in the lower abdominal area, usually beginning as groin pain. . . . keep reading
|
My Ah-Ha Moments
Michael Boyle
My good friend Alwyn Cosgrove wrote an article called Cosgrove's Five Ah-Ha! Moments: ?The Education of a Misguided Trainer. Alwyn inspires me in many ways. Most times his inspiration is based around his ability to beat cancer twice. This time it was around his writing. . . . keep reading
|
Ah-Ha! Moments:
The Education of a Dumb and Misguided Trainer.
Alwyn Cosgrove
There have been several "ah-ha!" moments in my career -- moments of clarity as it were -- when I learned something new, or something I believed was verified, brought into question or flat out disproved. Basically these were times when my thought processes as regards training took a significant step forward from where it was and I felt I had reached a new level. . . . keep reading
|
No More Sit-Ups and Crunches
Anthony Renna
Although they have never really been much of a staple in my program design, I have stopped doing any sit-ups and crunches with my clients. In the past, I have had my clients doing some stick crunches and medicine ball sit ups during my core routine (along with bridges, planks and quadruped exercises). I had heard about other coaches taking them out of their programs, particularly Coach Boyle, and although I thought he made sense, I didn't feel I really needed to eliminate them since they were a small part of the program. . . . keep reading
|
New Training Techniques
Jeffrey M. McBride, PhD
Some great research brought to our attention by Bob Alejo. New Training Techniques Jeffrey M. McBride, PhD Associate Profe . . . keep reading
|
|
|