Sports_Medicine

Dismuke Reid Professor Lassman English 111-9 19 April 2011 Sports Medicine Research Paper Sports medicine is not just for jocks anymore. Moreover, sports medicine is especially necessary for all types of people including Olympic, professional, collegiate, and high school athletes as well as the weekend warrior, elderly adults, and the physically handicapped. If someone were to go to the web to obtain a definition of sports medicine they would see that there are many definitions that are varied in their scope. When I filtered out the common elements of these definitions, sports medicine could best be summed up as the prevention and treatment of sports related injuries (“Sports Medicine”). It is apparent that there is not a consensus definition of what sports medicine is. However, I would say that all of the definitions listed fall short because sports medicine is constantly evolving. If I were to offer up what I think the key components of sports medicine are, they would include the following: 1) improving fitness and sports performance 2) preventing or recovering from sports injuries 3) targeting those who suffer from chronic diseases or physical limitations. Regrettably, mass media and sports media in particular have only seemed to focus on component two the most to the detriment of the others. In the past year local and national sports injury highlights have included stories regarding former Washington Redskin Clinton Portis’ head injury, Washington Wizard John Wall’s ankle injury, professional tennis player Sirena Williams’ abdominal injury, Washington Capital’s Alex Ovechkin’s undisclosed injury. Nevertheless you get the point. Heitzmann notes that the explosion of injuries at all levels and a desire by players, parents, coaches, and professional team owners to reduce the injuries has generated an enormous need for sports medicine personnel (91). All the people surrounding these athletes have a vested interest whether it is noble or not so noble. For example, in the case of the professional sports team owner, they may want to get their star athlete back on the field or court as soon as possible, even if it is to the detriment of the athlete. It is in these types of situations that a reputable sports medicine doctor or trainer has to protect the athlete. Similarly, the same type of sports medicine professional may be called upon to protect a young athlete from an overzealous parent who is attempting to relive their past athletic exploits through their child or have them obtain an athletic scholarship so that they can brag. Whatever the case, it is imperative that the sports medicine professional adheres to the Athlete’s Bill of Rights and more specifically that sports medicine doctors follows the Sports Physician’s Ten Commandments as presented by Heitzmann (91-101). Improving one’s fitness and sports performance can go a long way in preventing injuries. Developing an all-inclusive sports-fitness base is imperative for the wellbeing of the athlete as well as for their performance as offered by Foran (5). Organizations such as the National Strength Coaches and Conditioning Association (NSCA) came into being in 1978 to promote collaboration between strength and conditioning coaches and to take what was learned in the sports laboratory and teach coaches how to apply it to their athletes. Also about this same time the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs came into existence with the purpose of applying sound scientific training principles to an athlete’s conditioning program. One significant technique or training methodology that came out of these experiments was periodization. Foran, elaborates that periodization involves creating a type of annual master training plan broken down into smaller phases with specific athletic goals to be met at the end of each phase. The prime factor behind all of this is to be able to perform at your peak at the end of your season (i.e. playoffs, tournament or championship time). Correspondingly, what was learned for helping athletes prepare to do their best is applicable to the average American. The American College of Sports Medicine emphasizes that you should exercise at an appropriate level of intensity to gain the most benefit (121). The same principle that is true for an elite athlete applies to regular people. They recommend using their ASCM Fitness Test in order to establish your own personal baseline in order to improve aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility, and body composition (i.e. muscle to fat ratio). Besides physical activity, nutrition is important too when it comes to leading an active healthy lifestyle. The two are interdependent. Too often people will go to the gym and workout and then go and drink a lot of beer or eat junk food and wonder why they are not seeing any good results. They do not realize that the fuel you put into your body affects the outcome you obtain in regards to improving your body’s looks as well as its performance. Thus it is essential that when you choose to exercise that you also incorporate a proper diet and possibly even include supplements specific to the type and level of training you are doing to achieve the best results. In the past year Gatorade has been promoting their new line of sports drinks and related products called G-series or where they extol the virtues of G-Prime (before workout or competition drink) G-Perform (during training or competition drink) and finally G-Recover (after workout or competition drink). Regrettably, Dr. Burke the director of Exercise Science Program at the University of Colorado and a certified strength and conditioning specialist for the U.S. Olympic team did not reap the financial benefits of his research. Dr. Burke along with fellow researchers came up with the targeted nutrition system known as R4. In this system you learn how to refuel and rehydrate muscles during exercise, replenish glycogen after exercise, reduce muscle stress, and rebuild muscle protein (63). If you are a serious athlete and want to train and perform to the best of your ability you will take the time to really delve into what Dr. Burke has discovered. He really will expand your knowledge base regarding the benefits of sports drinks, protein drinks, vitamin, mineral, herb and amino-acid supplements. In addition, he will educate you regarding how to use them properly. As I stated earlier, sports injuries have been covered a great deal in the media lately. In many cases people will read the headlines on a sports page about someone getting injured, after that the common fan will only be interested in how soon they can be back performing. They will not read further into an article to see if a sports medicine talker or certified athletic trainer educates the reader about how to prevent, recognize, manage, and rehabilitate a sports injury. Most people that have been in involved in doing any type of athletics, sport or physical activity already have a good handle on preventing injuries. For example, they know to warmup, do stretching or flexibility exercises, lift weights to strengthen muscles. The place where people have a lack of knowledge is in the recognition, management, and rehabilitation of a sports injury. In my grandparents’ day, it used to be that if a person twisted their ankle a doctor or nurse would tell a person to soak their foot in hot bathwater with Epsom salts. That information turned out to be incorrect, it made your ankle swell up even worse and it took a very long time to recover because that should not have been done until later in the management of the injury. Next, when my dad was competing in sports and in the twenty six years that he coached, the standard treatment recommended by physicians was “RICE”. RICE stands for rest, ice, compressions, and elevation. In the past ten to fifteen years Dr. Hans Kraus has used the MECE treatment for many injuries. MECE stands for movement, ethyl chloride, and elevation. Dr. Kraus strongly emphasizes that rest does not promote healing, while moving the injured body part does (73). Dr. Kraus is an expert in the field of sports medicine. He is known as the father or sports medicine here in the U.S. Besides employing the MECE treatment method, there are other types of treatment methods that may be used such as icing the injury, heat, electrotherapy, massage, and even self-hypnosis. Nevertheless, it is imperative to recognize what type of treatment should be used, when, and how according to Dr. Kraus (80). If anyone has surgery in the past ten years they can attest to sports medicine treatment methods be used with regular patients who have had surgery. For example, my father has had two major operations in the last three years, an emergency appendectomy and prostate cancer surgery. In both cases, his doctors at Fairfax INOVA Hospital had him up and moving about within a few hours of his surgery. His recovery and recuperation were much faster than the previous treatment of staying in bed and resting or sleeping for a few days to a week or more. There is no doubt that well-organized youth athletic programs provide numerous benefits such as health fitness, encourages good health and fitness habits, sports skills, healthy competition, builds self-esteem, strengthens friendships, and is fun according to Dr. Lyle Micheli, Sports Medicine Director for Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (1 – 3). Likewise, sports programs for the physically and mentally handicapped child has been as beneficial, if not more beneficial than for able bodied children as anyone who has worked with Special Olympics or Paralympics can attest. Regrettably sports medicine has often failed our elementary, middle, and high school youth in our country. Most sports physicals that children receive prior to competing in a sport are barely sufficient. To further compound the problem, many coaches do not have the proper education regarding conditioning their athletes, nor do many programs have certified athletic trainers, teams doctors or an ample sports medicine staff. To combat this problem, parents should work diligently to eliminate these serious issues. In particular when injuries occur they should not be summarily dismissed as “it goes with the territory” or “it’s just part of the game”. Sending a child back into competition before as injury has healed can have serious repercussions, especially in the case of head trauma. If you have been following sports on both the professional level down to the high school level you know how big of an issue concussions have become. Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post most recently reported that football still dominates the high school head-injury landscape. Football contributed to more than half the 2,651 concussions in Fairfax County between 1997 and 2008. Surprisingly, though girls’ soccer players had the second-highest rate concussion rate of the 12 high school boys’ and girls’ sports in Fairfax County schools (15). If this kind of alarming statistic does not make parents vociferously advocate for greatly improved sports medicine programs at all levels, I do not know what will. Now you must educate yourself and erase the notion that sports medicine knowledge is just for athletes, or just for athletic trainers, or just for coaches, etc. You have to become a student of sports medicine for your personal well-being. In our Lifetime, Fitness and Wellness course here at NOVA, we have been made aware of the importance of changing our behavior through Hopson’s four step process (11 -18). The first step involves learning about basic wellness behaviors (keeping physically, good nutrition, managing weight & stress, not using drugs, tobacco, or alcohol and preventing injury & disease). The second step entails you getting yourself ready to change through assessing your motivation and overcoming negative attitudes so positive change can take place. The third step involves techniques where you work to acquire skills that sustain a positive change through realistic goal setting and visualization. Finally, you apply what you learned to a specific behavior. In America and around the world there are professional athletes for whom sport is their bread and butter. Sports medicine teams manage their injuries and they are not told to quit their sport unless it is life threatening or debilitating. As a result, at the highest level these sports medicine teams have optimized the care of their sports injuries so that they can continue competing. Weekend warriors should not ignore their injuries just because they are competing at a recreational level. Knowing what you know now, you can continue your semi-active to active lifestyle knowing that you can obtain great sports medical care too. In closing, sports injuries aside, sports medicine has now carried over into regular medical practice and is targeting those who suffer from chronic health diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and overweight. After assessing your risks and establishing a baseline level of fitness, a sports medicine doctor can give you an exercise plan and nutrition plan to help improve your health. So in the end, sports medicine is truly beneficial to all of us, not just the elite athlete. Sports Medicine: Bibliography American College of Sports Medicine. ACSM Fitness Book. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2002. Print. Bernstein, Lenny. “It’s no little bump on the head”. Washington Post – Fairfax Local Living Magazine Page 15. 7 Apr. 2011. Print. Burke, Edmund, Ph.D. Optimal Muscle Performance and Recovery. New York, NY: Avery, 2003. Print. Foran, Bill. High-Performance Sports Conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2001. Print. Heitzmann, William Ray. Opportunities in Sports and Fitness Careers. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print. Hopson Janet L, Donatelle Rebecca J. Ph.D, Littrell Tanya R. Ph.D., Get Fit Stay Well! San Francisco, CA: Pearson, 2007. Print. Kraus, Hans, MD. The Sports Injury Handbook. New York, NY: The Lyons Press, 2001. Print. Micheli, Lyle, MD. The Sports Medicine Bible for Young Athletes. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc, 2001. Print. “Sports Medicine.” Answers.com, 13 Apr. 2011. Web.