Improving Recovery and Minimizing Injury in Athletes: A Self-Help Guide PART I

When exercising, the general intention (if done correctly) is to force the body beyond what it is capable of at the time.  This in turn causes the body to become stronger, or faster, or more flexible, or agile, etc.  This is a natural response that occurs and follows a well known rule referred to as the SAID principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand.  It is what the athlete desires to accomplish.  The basic premise is to cause some sort of micro-trauma to an organ system in the body, allow the body time to repair and recover, then repeat the process and incrementally increase the activity until the desired level of fitness is reached.

Unfortunately, many errors are likely to occur during this process which plague athletes-- from novice to elite and professional, which ultimately result in injuries.  Although not each and every possibility can be predetermined or prevented, there are some basic approaches that help to minimize the possibility of RSIs.   In this article, I will address one of the aspects of this injury-reduction-approach and will continue to visit other related elements in future articles.

Here is a simple routine (which does require some additional time) that has proven to be effective.  When starting your exercise session, begin with a 10-12 minute warm up.  This should be an activity that imitates the exercise you are about to perform, except done at a slower, more controlled manner.  The intention here is to drive more blood to those parts of your body that you are about to exercise.  This causes the core temperature of the muscle to increase and loosens up the joints in the area so that they both are more prepared to handle the task at hand.  In addition, it begins to drive more oxygen and nutrients to those body parts so they can be prepared to perform a higher level of function for an extended period of time.

This should be followed by some form of self-myofascial-release (SMR).  The typical tools we recommend are the “foam roller” or the “stick” for the larger muscles, and a tennis ball or a golf ball for the smaller areas.  Once the warm up has been done, you would use these tools to “rub” the respective muscles; usually for 30 seconds to one minute per muscle area.  Be firm, but do not crush the tissue!

This process aids in opening up the myofascial fibers that surround the entire body.  As a muscle is forced to perform, its demand for blood increases, causing it to increase in its size/circumference.  Loosening the fascial layers allows the muscle to accomplish this more easily and with less effort.

Finally, you would follow this with some old fashioned stretching.  There are many schools of thought when it comes to stretching and none has been proven more or less effective than the other except for ballistic stretching, which should be avoided.  This is the type of stretching that involves “bouncing” or rapid and short stretch-release patterns.  To keep it simple and easy, you can follow a static stretch routine of 20-30 second holds for each muscle group.  You are now ready to begin exercising. 

Once your exercise bout is complete, it is suggested that you first repeat the SMR and then finish by stretching your muscles again.  The SMR pushes the biochemical byproducts that have accumulated in your muscles from exercising out of the muscle and back into the circulatory system so they can be “cleaned up” and the stretching helps to restore muscle length closer to the original anatomical length and reverses the shortening that results from repetitive use.  This allows for faster recovery and lessens the occurrence of RSIs.

Of course, the inevitable question always comes up:  “Who has time for all that?”

Indeed, and as mentioned earlier, this is a process that demands additional time from the athlete.  However, once you consider how this may make the difference of being side-lined versus remaining in the game, as well as the time and cost of treatment and rehab, the decision is a simple one.  There are shorter versions which can be implemented and although they are not as effective, they do still aid in accomplishing the desired outcome to some extent.  The abbreviated outline of the above process and some variations of it are as follows:

Best: warm up -> SMR -> stretch -> exercise -> SMR -> stretch

Better: warm up -> stretch -> exercise -> SMR -> stretch

Good: warm up -> stretch -> exercise -> stretch

O.K.: warm up -> exercise -> stretch

Bare Minimum: warm up -> exercise

Bad Idea: stretch cold and exercise without a proper warm up

Dr. Sadri and his team at First Choice Healthcare have been fanatically caring for our athletes at both their Decatur location for several years, and most recently, at The Sport Factory's new Roswell location.  He can be reached through his practice at First Choice Healthcare.