Blog Archives
Five Ways To Prevent Sports Injuries
by Paul Ingraham
Weekend warriors and a lot of amateur athletes tend to believe that injury prevention is pretty much all about having a stretching regimen, and they are usually feeling guilty about not doing it enough. If I had a buck for every time I’ve heard someone say, just before a game of ultimate, “I should really do some stretching” … well, heck, I could afford to play ultimate for a living.
Lucky for them, they aren’t really missing anything important. As established elsewhere, stretching doesn’t really work (see Quite a Stretch) for the things people think it does, and it is particularly useless at preventing injury. Here are five ways to prevent injury that are a much better use of your time …
Read Full Article HERE
A Stretching Experiment
by Paul Ingraham
I am a skeptic, known for my criticisms of stretching. However, I do enjoy stretching, and even I believe that diligent stretching can increase flexibility, because that’s the one effect of stretching that research has backed up. So for thirty days this summer I optimistically stretched my hamstrings — an experiment in the “lab of me.” I was truly disciplined: four full minutes of intense stretching per leg, per day. I did every stretch in a piping hot steam room, which is usually considered an ideal circumstance for stretching, whether that is true or not. What happened? Read the rest of this entry
Does Hip Strengthening Work for IT Band Syndrome?
by Paul Ingraham
This is a surprisingly in-depth article about a single simple idea: hip weakness, a rising-star of running injury risk factors. In recent years, hip weakness or “dead butt syndrome” has become the most popular new scapegoat for running injuries like iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) and patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). I don’t think that runners can get excited yet. In fact, I think we shouldn’t: I just don’t think the evidence is compelling enough to “believe” in hip strengthening as a prevention or therapy for any condition. Read the rest of this entry
BDx Biomechanics 