WTF is “Load Management"?

Since the turn of the century, the San Antonio Spurs are the winningest team in the NBA. No doubt, a lot of their success can be attributed to having had a bevy of current and future Hall of Famers on their rosters. But perhaps no single person has been more influential in their success than head coach (and famous curmudgeon) Gregg Popovich.

Under Popovich, the Spurs have run off a stretch of 18 straight 50-win seasons and 22 consecutive playoff appearances. Obviously, Popovich is a brilliant basketball strategist; you don’t win that many games by accident. But his brilliance appears to extend off the court, too -- specifically, to the human body and its need for rest and recovery. (Note: he likely also has the help of a world-class sports medicine team.)

Case in point: in 2012 Popovich famously rested his four best players on the night of a nationally televised game. It was an unfortunate decision for fans around the country who were stuck watching the Spurs’ B-squad. Although the Spurs ended up losing the game, the move proved to be the right one for them in the long-run. They won the championship that season.

The Two Most Common Misconceptions about the FMS

Over the past three years as part of my PhD, I’ve been researching the relationship between movement and injury. A recent Twitter discussion reminded me that people on either side of the great FMS social media debate are still confused. I figured I’d put my research efforts to good use to clear up a couple of common misconceptions.

Misconception #1: The FMS composite score can predict injury.

When the FMS first became popular in the late 2000s, its creators touted it as an injury prediction tool [1,2]. The trouble was, at the time they had zero scientific evidence to back that claim up.

It turns out scoring low on the FMS does increase a person’s risk of injury slightly [3,4], but it doesn’t guarantee it. In other words, while low scores are associated with injury, the FMS does not predict injury on an individual basis. Big difference [5].

Specifically, when the FMS is conducted on a large group of people, as in a scientific study, we tend to see a lot of false negatives (people who score high but still get injured).

The fact that the FMS can’t predict injury actually isn’t that surprising. There’s no one thing that predicts injury [6]. This is because injuries aren’t caused by just one factor. Instead, they’re the result of a complicated web of interrelating factors -- a web that’s different for every person based on the types of activities they do [7].

Bittencourt NFN, et al. Br J Sports Med 2016;50:1309–1314.

What is Pain, and How Should We Manage It?

Today's post is written by a very special friend of mine, Dr. Fred Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein is a Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Goldstein and I go WAY back to when his daughter and I played in the same basketball league as kids.

The topic of today's post is pain, which Dr. Goldstein is a true authority on. He's been teaching about and researching pain for even longer than I've been alive! I learned a ton from reading his article, and I think you will, too. -Travis

WHAT IS PAIN, AND HOW SHOULD WE MANAGE IT?

Frederick J. Goldstein, PhD, FCP

Professor of Clinical Pharmacology

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

What is pain? Toothache? Sprained wrist? Broken femur? Myocardial infarct (MI)? Obviously, all such conditions are “nociceptive,” meaning they send signals from pathological sites to brain areas for interpretation. Simultaneously activated are emotions which can certainly increase the intensity of such cellular indicators of tissue damage.

However, it is also known that circumstances exist where pain is attenuated or, in some cases, not even felt. A person who has experienced three MIs over the years will probably feel less alarm with a fourth one than the first. Soldiers in a fierce battle may not even be aware of severe wounds until that firefight has ended.

Of course, there is also psychological pain which occurs upon losing a loved one or receiving news that the cancer which has been discovered is, unfortunately, terminal.

Thus, there is always an interplay between physical and psychological aspects of pain.

The Keys to Unlocking Explosive Power

It wasn’t too long ago that athletes, parents, and coaches believed strength training made you slow and inflexible. To avoid these supposed undesirable effects, athletes steered clear of weights like the plague.

Over the years, we’ve come to debunk these myths. We now recognize the myriad benefits of strength training for sports performance, from injury prevention to increased positional endurance and improved speed and power -- the subject of this post.

Most of us have a general idea of what power is. We know it when we see it. But it’s not entirely intuitive how strength affects power.

To appreciate the relationship between strength and power, we must first understand that strength is equivalent to the ability to produce force, and speed is the expression of strength quickly (i.e. at high movement velocity).

Why Every Kid Should Play Multiple Sports

If you’ve been paying attention to youth sports over the last few decades, you’ve probably noticed a similar trend. Winter rolls around, and Little Johnny, age 11, signs up for peewee hockey. He recently hit a growth spurt and is a solid six inches taller than most of his friends.

Thanks to his size, Johnny dominates in his first season. The coach tells Johnny’s parents he has a bright future ahead of him on the ice. He urges them to forego the spring season of baseball (and basketball in the fall) to concentrate on skating.

Over the next few years, Johnny continues to shine. His parents thrust him onto the ice more and more until he’s playing competitively year-round. At age 15, Johnny starts complaining of hip pain. His doctor recommends physical therapy and time off from hockey.

When Johnny returns to the ice a few months later, his peers all seem to have caught up to him in stature. He can no longer use his size to dominate opponents. Johnny has his worst season to date and loses some of his love for the game.

To regain his previous form, Johnny signs up for extra power skating clinics on top of his regular competitive seasons. Lo and behold, due to these added rigors Johnny’s hip flares again.

For the next three years, the pattern repeats over and over again until Johnny is finally forced to undergo career-ending surgery at the age of 18.

What went wrong? Johnny had so much promise as a youngster. Or did he?