LA JETS BANTAM GIRLS 2009
It is said that if you do the same thing old thing you will receive the same OLD results.Who wants the same results if they weren’t good results?
Not me, not you and certainly not your youth athlete. For the most part youth track athletes are generally injury free (compared to other sports like soccer,football). What I mean is that they infrequently have an injury that causes them to miss most of a season or an important race. It does happen from time to time and when it does it is a tough pill to swallow.
It is a fact that often ,past injuries are great predictors of future injuries. Most experts agree runners get re-injured because they do not completely rehabilitate and strengthen muscle groups after an injury. The youth athlete can bounce back and “look” well and “perform” well often times until the next injury that adds physiological damage(muscle imbalances,weaknesses and subsequent compensation) and psychological damage (uncertainity,fear of injury) to the athletes over all performance level. Rest alone does not correct underlying problems.
During the Junior Olympics I treated a couple of athletes that had been injured during the season and of course right when it counts most they have a flare -up,their parents seek me out to “fix what ails them and upon assessment found that they really shouldn’t run given how they presented that day to me.
Limping ,obvious pain etc. I told the parents in both cases that unfortunately their child should stop running for the rest of the week.This is tough news to hear( I know first hand) in the middle of the chance to win a medal at the highest level track meet for youth athletes probably in the world Ouch…… More on that later.
This situation has caused me to look at the mechanisms of running injury and the muscles that are involved in the runnung activities closer. I wanted to find out what muscles want to be happy (yes, muscles want to be happy by doing what they should do not what they have to do because of other muscles not doing the job it they are supposed to be performing)
I have some what over simplied an important yet simple observation,but the bottom hard line is this:
IF YOU WANT YOUR YOUTH ATHLETE TO PERFORM AT THEIR OPTIMUM DON’T IGNORE ANY PREVIOUS INJURIES BIG OR SMALL. They can perhaps be over looked right now but it could hurt him/her down the road when it can count even more.What lies ahead always counts more…..Always.
More on how to prevent youth sports injury treat youth sport injury when necessary and inprove performance next time.
TrackMom
Experience is the mother of all learning. See you this year!
Stay Healthy…Speed Thrills!
Coach Mike