Since the phins had a soft camp and they rested the older players we had a huge amount of injuiries, Saban had hard camps and we were relatively healthy, do you think there is a relationship or did the training staff do a bad job in getting the athletes ready?
A bit of both Bonedoc, even if Cam ran a soft camp, the Veterans are supposed to know how to prepare themselves for a upcoming season, but the HC is supposed to make completely certain that they are ready for the season. And JP may have played in September after his knee clean up, but he didn't really start playing until late november... Btw Bonedoc, you "nailed" the time frame for Ginn to recover from his foot sprain over at FH, it took 8 months or so, and even then, he hasn't looked "fast" until the last 5 games of the season...
There are three main categories of injuries that happen in football teams. 1) Impact type injuries which are typically broken bomes and concussions. No amount of conditioning can make much of a difference with these sort of injuries. 2) Load bearing injuries. Snapped tendons and ligaments. This can either be cumulative wear and tear, the classic example being Dan Marino's achilles tendon injury or from overloading the tendon, the typical exmple being someone's lower leg trapped under one player and then having their body bent in an unnatural direction. I haven't seen any research that indicates that conditioning can prevent these injuries, although it does help recovery rates. The best reading I have done indicate that tendons and ligaments are like ropes and that they simply have a breaking strain. Steroid and HGH use has been shown to cause these injuries as the muscles become overdeveloped for the tendons they're attached to, David Boston is a classic example of how this type of injury can occur. 3) Muscular type injuries. Conditioning can definitely help here. Although I doubt that the difference between a hard NFL camp and a soft NFL camp is going to be significant, as all the teams are doing the same thing. In 2 of the 3 main categories of injuries conditioning just isn't going to make a zac of difference, and I really don't see the difference that camp can make to go any way towards explaining the injury rates that have happened this year. I've done research into injury rates in the mining industry and fatigue is a much higher indication of injury rates there than physical conditioning, although conditioning is very important for recovery from an injury.
Tendon and ligament injuries can be prevented through conditioning Pauly, both can be strengthened through excresize and stretching. Problem with NFL athletes is they carry so much musculature on those ligaments and tendons that injuries can become more likely, massive quadracepts and hamstrings are still attached to just a knee and a groin, and muscle can be developed much faster then cartilage and ligaments can be strengthened to handle the extra weight and force on them.* A partially torn groin can take a very long time to heal, even a strain is serious. *There is a inherent risk in giving an opinion on anything medical on a Miami oriented board as the "U" does graduate many physicians who can make the opinion giver look very foolish....
Padre, You cannot strengthen a tendon. You can strengthen the muscles around it, which mainly helps stability of the joint when talking about injury prevention, but especially in terms of comparative conditioning between professional footballers I do not see that there would make a significant difference. You can ensure that you're warmed up before playing. I haven't seen any literature in any journal that indicates that a ligament or a tendon can itself be strengthened.
The Dolphins needs to clean house from the coaching staff to the Doctors, The trainers and the guys doing the scouting.
strength and flexibility can be improved, you cannot prevent broken bones and concussions if the force is applied properly, most of injury prevention comes from an athlete having the ability to always have balance and control of their bodies, most of this comes from proprioceptive type exercises and exercises called plyometerics, these allow athletes to have unconcious control and balance during the game, along with good muscle strength around joints this prevents injuries greatly, you also have to have alittle luck
Trust a bloody orthopod to throw around polysyllabic obsfucation. The hyperextension and hyperflexion under load tendon and ligament injuries are also pretty hard to prevent or in non medicolegal jargon there's not much you can do to stop your knee getting wrecked if a 330 pound lineman falls on your ankle and traps it under him and you then get your body driven the opposite direction by a 270 pund linebacker travelling at fall speed.
Pauly, as I recall power lifter do very specific movements to toughen tendons and ligaments, mostly involving rubber resistance type gadgets for their hands, wrists and forearms and legs... As I recall (it's been years) it had something to do with stretching the joint under stress in a full range of motion and they used surgical tubing to do those movements...
true, but ankle and knee joints are more stable if the muscles around them are stronger and if you have better body control you dont get into those situations
One thing that I don't understand about our Medical Staff's flubs is the consultants, Frank Jobe and Dr. Andrews are top flight guys, Jobe pioneered rotator cuff surgery, and Andrews is a renowned knee surgeon. Yet we constantly "miss" on both diagnoses (C-pep, Joey Porter) and prognosis (Brees). ????
Padre, There are a few things at work. Firstly we seem to roll the dice a lot on medical risks, so if you're betting the rent money on the craps tables every week then some weeks you go hungry. This seems to be a deliberate policy as a way of finding under rated or underpaid players. Secondly on the shoulder/knee risk on the C-pep/Brees issue I firmly believe that the medical staff made the right decision at the time it was made. Shoulder surgery has a much higher rate of complications and incomplete recovery than knee surgery. On that one we made the safe bet. Thirdly a lot of medical opinion is based on the assumption that the patient is telling the doctor the truth. Professional sports is unusual in that there is an incentive for the patient to lie and say that he is better than what he actually is. You have Waddell signs to pick up when a patient is overstating, but I am unaware of any signs/tests to pick when a patient is understating their symptoms (my day job is in OH&S and personal injury insurance so I am more worried about finding the malingerers).
the brees case was the right choice, he hurt his throwing arm which still may break down in a year or so, the team was expecting way too much from CPEP too soon after that knee surgery, he actually may be a good risk now two years later and more stable, all I can say is that the orthopedic provactive tests are very painful, so if a patient is understating his injury and the tests are done right, they would have to have great pain control ability because they hurt really bad when done, you need good co-ordination of care from the trainers to the doctors and maybe that is the problem
The Cpep situation was...complicated from the stand point that Cpep didn't follow through with the prescribed rehabilitation regime, he sort of half assed it and was not prepared to play for us in 2006, to make matters worse, all of that time in between shutting him down in 2006 and early 2007 no one really kept track of C-pep's rehab efforts, we just took it on good faith that he was doing his utmost to come back 100%. This came as a semi surprise to everyone on FH when that was mentioned, how or why the training staff either didn't know or wouldn't say that Cpep was not rehabbing is another head scratching moment.... One deserving of a Lombardi "What the hell is going on out there!?!" Award...
First off to the doc and others, we are Athletic Trainers, not just "trainers". The term you are referring to are the type of people who get their personal fitness license online. Athletic trainers, such as myself, spend many years in school as well as tons of time working on continuing education to keep up with the next latest and greatest medical breakthroughs. Phew, now that i have that off my chest..... I can say that i have worked with Dr. harlan selsnick, Dr. James Andrews, and Dr Danny Kennal(sp), as well as Dr. Arthur Ting over my years of athletic training in both minor league baseball and in professional football. Dr's like Andrews, have SOOOOO many patients that they really have no idea whats going on. They generally, do the initial screening of the athlete, they do the surgery and send the person home, to do rehab on their own, usually with the teams training staff or in a clinic closer to their home. Usually, the patient will then follow up with the team's physician and if every thing is ok, they will report it to andrews or whoever the surgeon was. Andrew's will then release the person to the team doc, which will then release the person to the athletic training staff. At this point, athletic trainers, physical therapists, strength coaches, nutritionists and others on the sports med team get this person ready to play again. Now, should the "training staff" be held responsible or be blaimed if uninjured athletes, who either do not properly prepare or by a freak incident get hurt? Absolutely NOT!. There are people who are hired specifically for that purpose. The strength coach, the personal trainers, the nutritionist, they should be held responsible... not the athletic trainers. Yes, they are all considered part of the sports medicine team, but athletic trainers, help with the prevention only within our means, we dont prescribe pre season or post season weight programs or nutrition standards. We tape ankles....we ice....we get people to and from the dr, we work tirelessly, more than coaches....First one in, last one out all the time..... You can start blaming the Athletic trainers when someone who sprains an ankle and takes 10 weeks to come back to full speed. (Example, this yr, the New York Yankees strength coach was fired, because 5 guys strained their hamstrings within the first 3 weeks of the season. Can't blame the Athletic trainers for that.) I think the dolphins had something like 4 or 5 ACL's this yr....I would say on a HS team that could be blamed on under conditioning or over conditioning. But, in the NFL, I would call that freak. Sorry about the rant.... Michelle
oh!!! Dr. Kanell is who I work for! Dr. Kanell, Caldwell, and Yoldas. isn't he the most gentle giant you've ever met? lol
Nice rants ladies and well said. One other issue that I'd like to raise that no team has proprietry information on prevention of injuries. If a team finds a method that for example reduces ACL injury rates by 50% the team's doctors (and I assume athletic trainers and the like) are ethically obliged to share that information with the rest of the league. It's up to a team what methods they implement but every team in the league is operating from the same base level of medical knowledge. So we can't develop and keep secret methods that prevent injuries, but by the same token we can't be left out of the loop if other teams find new methods themselves.
finsgirlie wrote: In the late 90's the Eagles Veteran's Stadium artificial turf was notorious for causing injuries, as I recall, most of our Acl's occured on our own homefield but they weren't planting and turning type injuries, for example Ronnie's.
Parcells said there is something wrong here that the large number of injuries are based on athletes not being good enough to keep from being hurt or are not in good enough condition to avoid it. He said whatever it is this list will be 10% of that next year. He said it in talking about another team he took over but he used it as an example of the Dolphin injury list.
My goodness, as I recall, the game Ronnie had his Acl torn, Randy Hill also tore his, but he jumped up and landed "wrong" or something and really banged himself up. Parcells claims he will see that number cut down to 10% of what they are this year, how in the world can that happen?
Well we were very unlucky this year and next year we'll be lucky. Bill Parcells saying that would be like someone running for Governor of Florida and proclaiming that if he's elected that there are going to be less hurricanes during his tenure.
