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Injury / Injury Prevention
Certain types of exercise for seniors can lessen the chance that you develop more severe problems from the physical challenges of aging.
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Eager class participants want to tap into their highest potential, and group fitness instructors have been acknowledging this by offering workouts that are more explosive, more powerful and fuller in range than ever before. However, intense, dynamic workouts demand a warmup that truly prepares the body. Specifically, you must target the hips—hip flexors, piriformis, glutes and hip rotators—to avoid possible tweaks from all those lunges, squats and burpees (not to mention repetitive stress from cycling and running).
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You’re running along your favorite path and then it happens: You get a cramp in your hamstring. While theories abound, there is limited consensus on why exercise-associated muscle cramps (EAMC) develop and how to get rid of them. A research review from the Brooks College of Health at the University of North Florida may clear up the confusion.
The review, published in Muscle & Nerve (2016; 54, 177–85), featured a series of studies analyzing the etiology and treatment of EAMC. Here’s what they learned:
Study reviewed: Mitchell, U.H., et al. 2016. Performance on the Functional Movement Screen in older active adults. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 5 (1), 119–25.
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Proper thoracic-cage functioning sets the groundwork for healthy movement.
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One claim about the benefits of foam rolling is that it initiates an increase in blood flow to the treated area. But do those claims hold water? A study published in The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research (2017; 31 [4], 893–900) aimed to find out.
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No one plans to have a heart attack; however, should one occur, a new study has determined that an active lifestyle ups the likelihood of survival.
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Yoga injuries in the United States are on the rise, particularly among older adults, according to data from hospital emergency rooms nationwide. Researchers from the Center for Injury Sciences at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), Alabama, examined data from 2001 to 2014 to establish the injury risk involved in yoga participation.
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Your body is your business; protect your investment and keep your returns flowing.
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Study reviewed: Bartolomei, S., et al. 2015. Block vs. weekly undulating periodized resistance training programs in women. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29 (10), 2679—87.
If your clientele includes women looking to boost their muscular strength within a specific time frame, creating periodized weight–training programs for them is a great idea. The question is: How should you structure the program? Bartolomei and colleagues' study published in 2015 offers guidance on two possibilities.
Read MoreHasn't the knee been thoroughly mapped? Perhaps. However, the following bold headline reverberated throughout the allied health community in 2013: "Doctors Identify a New Knee Ligament."
Really?
As a golfer, you want to stay injury-free to practice and compete regularly, which ultimately lets you hone your skills and elevate your performance.
To help avoid injury and boost level of play, you need to understand how two key muscle and soft-tissue systems—the posterior oblique system and the anterior oblique system—affect the golf swing.
Recreational athletes have a lot to gain from adding Pilates to their training programs.
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When I was a kid, my dad was a stickler for posture. "Sit up straight," he'd say as I slouched over a plate of pasta. Other times, he'd try a tactile approach. I'd be standing in line at the market or sitting in the bleachers watching my oldest brother play baseball, and out of nowhere I'd feel two thumbs dig gently into my upper trapezius muscles while the remaining fingers of each hand gripped my shoulders and pulled them back. All these years later, I'm the one cuing people to mind their posture.
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If your clients haven't already asked you about it, they will. High-intensity interval training is a mainstay in personal training programs and group fitness classes. There are several reasons why HIIT is a good workout, one of them being its brevity. Research indicates that the four most common barriers to exercise are not having time, feeling too tired, getting enough exercise at one's job, and having no motivation to exercise (Brownson et al. 2001).
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Over the past several years, researchers have reported on the negative impacts of extended periods of sitting on health and mortality. Some have looked at whether exercise can mitigate any of those effects. The debate continues in a recent study.
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Looking to boost brain power? You may want to lace up those sneakers and head out for a long run, suggest researchers from the University of Arizona.
While there’s been plenty of study on exercise and brain function, these UA researchers wanted to know if a movement requiring little motor-control precision—like distance running—could affect neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new neural connections. Most research to date has focused on older adults, but this study targeted younger minds.
Regular running is often associated with knee problems. However, there’s one condition that researchers now believe may improve with running: inflammation.
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When you work with enough clients, eventually you notice all the variations in biomechanics and anatomy. You may or may not remember from your fitness professional certification studies that only about half of people have a psoas minor muscle. When it's there, it lies in front of the psoas major and originates from the sides of the 12th thoracic vertebra (T12), the first lumbar vertebra (L1) and the corresponding intervertebral disk (Farias et al. 2012).
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Clients sometimes experience general pain in the knee during or after an exercise session, and while it's not within your scope of practice to diagnose, a broad understanding of issues that affect this important joint can be helpful. Here's a snapshot of plica syndrome.
Plica is a fold of synovial tissue that's a "remnant" of embryologic development. The knee is initially divided into three compartments by membranes, which are then resorbed by the third or fourth month of fetal life (Scuderi et al. 1997).
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