Baseball & Nordic exercises: Preventing Injury

By |2020-02-27T10:41:10-05:00February 27th, 2020|Baseball, Fitness, Injury|

A healthy team is a happy team - and financially stable. That is to say, athletes don't want to be missing days on the field or put on the disabled list because of an injury. An injured player not only costs the team money, but also the player. The second leading cause for being placed on the disabled list for field position players is hamstring injuries (6, 9). They are also the fourth leading cause for all players (6, 9). A 2004 study stated during the late-swing phase of the gait cycle, the hamstring muscle group is maximally loaded and [...]

Overuse in Baseball. How to Catch it Ahead of Time.

By |2020-02-18T11:56:41-05:00February 18th, 2020|Baseball, Fitness, Injury, Overuse, Sports|

An athlete performs their best when their body is at its best. Therefore, protecting the athlete from overuse injury is (or should be) a primary concern in sports. For baseball players, monitoring the arm is a big deal. Baseball players, especially pitchers, can put their arms through the ringer with repetitive and forceful throwing motions. The stress of repeated throwing can cause microtrauma in soft-tissue structures. This puts players at risk for chronic injury (1-4) and excessive stretching of the soft-tissue. Chronic stretching of the anterior capsule and tightening of the posterior capsule can lead to trauma creating instability and [...]

Women Athletics: How Your Sport Affects Your Bone Health

By |2020-02-03T09:29:53-05:00February 3rd, 2020|Baseball, Basketball, Health, Sports, Swimming, Track, Volleyball|

Studies suggest women athletics influences change in bone and body composition (3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13). Furthermore, these changes may be sport-specific (2-5, 8, 10, 11, 13). Every sport has different approaches to training because each sport has different physical requirements and performance needs (2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14). Significant differences have been found in total body bone mineral density (BMD) among sports (2). BMD has been associated with sport-specific mechanical loading, bone strain, total body mass and lean mass (1, 3-5, 10, 11, 14). Weight-bearing physical activities, such as sports, are noted to promote bone density (1-3, [...]

Soft-tissue injections: yay or nay? Part 2

By |2020-01-07T09:01:47-05:00January 7th, 2020|Athletic treatments, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Health, Sports|

Make you sure check out Part 1 of this series for background information! In the previous blog, we discussed costs and benefits of soft-tissue injections – specifically reviewing corticosteroid injections. Here we will discuss costs and benefits of 2 other soft-tissue injections: local anesthetic and Toradol. What are local anesthetics? To refresh, soft-tissue injections interfere with the normal healing process in order to get an athlete to return to play sooner. With local anesthetics, there is disruption to axonal nerve conduction (7, 24). What this does is it allows immediate pain relief for an athlete. There are a variety of [...]

Soft-tissue injections: yay or nay? Part 1

By |2020-01-07T09:02:37-05:00January 6th, 2020|Baseball, Basketball, Football, Sports|

Being an athlete means bumps, bruises and strain on your body. In sports medicine, it is common practice to use soft-tissue injections to help relieve pain and/or inflammation caused by athletic activity. Soft-tissue injections are typically done into or near a muscle, tendon, bursa and/or fascia. Though this practice is widely accepted, there are potential serious side effects – especially in the pre-game setting. (16) Typical muscle injuries found in sports include strains and contusions (16). Contusions can result from blunt trauma (16). For example, a player tackling an opponent. Muscle strains can result from continuous/vigorous muscle contractions. For example, [...]

Major League Baseball Statcast 2017

By |2017-07-24T12:40:17-05:00July 26th, 2017|Baseball, Sports|

Since each baseball team has an Analytics Team, we’re seeing Baseball Statcast as a tool. When MLB introduced the Statcast in 2015 as a state of the art technology, teams, scouts and players have paid attention. Baseball Statcast In the first place, a Statcast provides accurate information about a team's player, speed, movement and ability. As the players use this tool, they are using the data to make the mechanics of hitting better. Because the home run has been on the rise, are the changes brought by Statcast impacting how players swing the bat. Visit my MLB Home runs continue [...]

MLB Home Runs Continue to Increase

By |2017-07-18T17:35:40-05:00July 24th, 2017|Baseball|

As home runs continue to increase, there have been more strikeouts in the MLB. Why are players hitting more home runs this year? MLB Home Runs Continue to Increase Of course, we all like to see a home run as long as it is the team we're rooting for. Since everyone remembers the records set by Mark McGwire (70 in 1998), Barry Bonds (73 in 2001), and Sammy Sosa (66 in 1998), we are now seeing home runs are being hit at a high rate. So, back in the late 90's and early 2000's, this was a big time in the [...]

Healthy Pitchers Lead to Winning Teams

By |2017-07-18T14:12:49-05:00July 16th, 2017|Baseball, Sports|

There is nothing more important than the health of a team. In Major League Baseball, it is extremely challenging to build depth. This is especially true with slotted spending in the draft and in Latin America. Thus, it is hard to find anything more than a replacement-level player or worse to fill in for an injured player, the 2016 Los Angeles Dodgers notwithstanding. Tommy John Last year, according to Jeff Zimmerman of The Hardball Times more days were lost to the Disabled List (DL) than at any other time since he began collecting data in 2002. Last year, pitchers lost [...]

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