Athletes Need to Be Careful to Monitor Diet, Weight to Maintain Muscle Mass
Source: ScienceDaily
Athletes seeking a healthy performance weight should eat high fiber, low-fat food balanced with their training regimen in order to maintain muscle while still burning fat, according to a report by an Oregon State University researcher.
“Depending on the sport, athletes sometime want to either lose weight without losing lean tissue, or gain weight, mostly lean tissue,” she said. “This is very difficult to do if you restrict caloric intake too dramatically or try to lose the weight too fast. Doing that also means they don’t have the energy to exercise or they feel tired and put themselves at risk of injury.”
Stress Fracture Risk May Be Modifiable
Source: ScienceDaily
The incidence rate for stress fracture injuries among females was nearly three times greater when compared to males. Knee rotation and abduction angles when landing were both associated with the rates of lower-extremity stress fractures, as were reduced knee and hip flexion angles, and increased vertical and medial ground reaction forces.
“Lower extremity movement patterns and strength have previously been associated with stress fractures and overuse injuries; however, our study is one of the first to identify dynamic knee rotation and frontal plane angles as important prospective risk factors for lower extremity stress fractures.
Passing the Ball May Also Pass Disease
Source: ScienceDaily
UC Irvine researchers have demonstrated that basketballs and volleyballs can spread potentially dangerous germs among players. Their findings may bring a new awareness to athletes, coaches, trainers and parents regarding safe sanitation practices for athletes.
Staphylococcus aureus, a germ known for causing staph infections in athletes, was selected for the study. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly referred to as MRSA, is a kind of staph that is particularly worrisome because of its resistance to many antibiotics. Athletes with MRSA infections often must endure emergency room visits, costly outpatient follow-ups, and time away from games and practice.
A Popular Myth About Running Injuries
Source: The NY Times
Almost everyone who runs (or has shopped for running shoes) has heard that how your foot pronates, or rolls inward, as you land affects your injury risk. Pronate too much or too little, conventional wisdom tells us, and you’ll wind up hurt. But a provocative new study shows that this deeply entrenched belief is probably wrong and that there is still a great deal we don’t understand about pronation and why the foot rolls as it does.
Monitoring Nutrient Intake Can Help Vegetarian Athletes Stay Competitive
Source: ScienceDaily
“Vegetarian athletes can meet their dietary needs from predominantly or exclusively plant-based sources when a variety of these foods are consumed daily and energy intake is adequate,” Ghosh wrote in his presentation.
Vegetarians should find non-meat sources of iron, creatine, zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin D and calcium because the main sources of these typically are animal products and could be lacking in their diets. Vegetarian women, in particular, are at increased risk for non-anemic iron deficiency, which may limit endurance performance. In addition, vegetarians as a group have lower mean muscle creatine concentrations, which may affect high-level exercise performance.
Running Is in the Knees and Ankles
Source: DailyRx.com
A lot of hardcore runners have proper running form on the mind. Another concern they may have is foot posture. Does foot posture make a difference in staying injury-free?
A recent study found that runners with pronated feet, or feet that fall slightly inward towards the middle of the body, were less likely to get injured while running than people with other kinds of feet.
Elbow injuries in major league baseball pitchers likely predicted by range of motion
p>Source: Medical News Today
Certain elements of a pitcher’s throwing mechanics can increase the risk for elbow injuries, according to information presented by researchers at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.
The researchers examined 296 MLB pitchers throughout eight seasons from 2005-2012. Pitchers with a deficit of more than five degrees in total range of motion (TRM) in their dominant shoulder had a 2.3 times higher risk of injury, while pitchers with a deficit of five or more degrees in shoulder flexion of the dominant shoulder had a 2.8 times higher risk of injury.
After elbow surgery, successful long-term results enjoyed by baseball players
Source: Medical News Today
Baseball players undergoing ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) surgery are able to return to the same or higher level of competition for an extended period of time, according to research presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.
“Previous studies showed successful return to play after UCL surgery, but we were also able to evaluate each athlete’s career longevity and reason for retirement,” commented lead author, Daryl C. Osbahr, MD of MedStar Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. “These players typically returned to play within a year of surgery and averaged an additional 3.6 years of playing time, a significant amount considering the extensive nature of this surgery in a highly competitive group of athletes. They also typically did not retire from baseball secondary to continued elbow problems.”
Arthroscopic approach controls posterior shoulder instability
Source: Medscape News
Arthroscopic capsulolabral posterior reconstruction offers advantages in posterior shoulder instability, according to researchers.
More than 90% of athletes treated for the condition in this manner are able to return to sports, Dr. James P. Bradley told Reuters Health by email.
While glenohumeral instability is relatively common, affecting 2% of the general population, posterior instability is much rarer, affecting 2% to 10% of all unstable shoulders, according to a 2011 paper in Sports Medicine (see http://1.usa.gov/15g2OcX). Posterior glenohumeral instability is mainly seen in athletes.
In a June 26 online paper in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr. Bradley of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and colleagues observe that there are few reports of arthroscopic treatment of unidirectional posterior shoulder instability.
For the current paper, the team expanded on an earlier evaluation to include 200 shoulders in 183 athletes. All had unidirectional recurrent posterior glenohumeral instability treated with arthroscopic posterior capsulolabral reconstruction.
At a mean of 36 months postoperatively, the mean American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) score increased from 45.9 to 85.1. There were also significant improvements in subjective measures of stability, pain, and function.
Overall, 188 shoulders (94%) had excellent or good results on the ASES scale at the latest follow-up, and similar proportions of patients had excellent or good results on subjective measures of stability, and in terms of patient-described subjective satisfactory or full range of motion.
When a subset of 117 shoulders of contact athletes was compared with the whole cohort of 200 shoulders, no significant differences were seen.
Return to play was significantly more common among the 156 patients who had anchored plications than among the 44 with anchorless intraoperative soft tissue fixation (92% versus 84%). The anchored plication group also had higher mean ASES scores
In total, 90% of patients were able to return to sports and 64% were able to return to the same level postoperatively.
Although most articles on open repair do not address sports return, Dr. Bradley pointed out, one reported that 29% of patients were unable to return to recreational sports.
Overall, he concluded, “the data clearly demonstrate that the arthroscopic approach is superior to open techniques when compared to the historic open literature.”
When Athletic Shoes Cause Injury
Source: NY times
Sometimes innovative science requires innovative machinery, like a moveable, four-legged robotic sled that can wear shoes, a contraption recently developed and deployed by researchers at the University of Calgary to test whether grippy athletic shoes affect injury risk.
It’s well known, of course, that shoe traction influences athletic performance, especially in sports that involve sprinting or cutting, meaning abrupt rapid shifts in direction. In broad terms, more traction leads to better results.
