Swimming is an easy sport? Hardly!

I consider myself an avid swimmer , and I hear this comment on occasion. Of all the sports I've ever participated in, by far, swimming has been the most challenging as far as cardiovascular and coordination demands. Swimming well is HARD! Stroke efficiency, for the average terrestrial being, is not natural, I can attest. Yeah, if I were a more efficient swimmer, sure, it would be a little easier, but do take note that a man my size burns about 511 calories/hr. of lap swimming. That's more than a decent number of calories burned with far less pounding on the joints than say, running. However...

Swimming, contrary to popular opinion, is far from stressful on the joints. In fact, swimming-related injuries are deceivingly high- back, shoulder, groin, and knee issues plague competitive swimmers. When I hear swimming prescribed as an alternative to land-based exercise, I always pay close attention to the patient's diagnosis and their range of motion limitations.

For example, I might steer away from prescribing the freestyle or breastroke to a patient with lumbar spinal stenosis since extension typically worsens symptoms. In fact, these patients would be better off with the sidestroke or backstroke or even just treading water in the deep end. Patients with a torn medial meniscus would not benefit from using the breastroke kick and yet, others with shoulder impingement should certainly get their stroke analyzed and focus on non-overhead drills and land-based rehab while their symptoms subside.

On the aside...if you're a swimmer out there, just remember that you could take on a 250 lb. lineman in the deep end of the pool any day of the week!

For more information on swimming injuries and how to prevent them, contact Dr. Yoo at jerry@mavenpt.com.

Winterizing your shoulder: preparing your shoulder for the spring season

So, you're an athlete who specializes in playing overhead sports (baseball, tennis, lax, softball, etc) and you've finished fall ball, itching for the spring season to come sooner than later. How exactly do you keep your shoulder safe and sound?

Work on Your Posture! Huh? What does posture have anything to with the shoulder? It has EVERYTHING to do with keeping your shoulders working at its best. Practicing good posture while incorporating seated rows, bent over rows, and scap retraction exercises may be helpful in keeping the coast clear of potential shoulder injuries.

Back to Basics- You may THINK you know everything there is to pitching, serving, shooting, and throwing a ball, but now is a GREAT time to get some seasoned eyes on your form and technique to make sure you're recruiting the right muscles for your sport's demands.

The Rotator Cuff: To Strengthen or Not To Strengthen? I see many overhead athletes using preventative shoulder injury exercises emphasizing rotator cuff strengthening. Great. I like seeing more and more people utilizing these exercises in the gym setting as well. However, if you have a shoulder injury, strengthening the rotator cuff muscles may not be the best thing and, in fact, may worsen your shoulder pain. Conversely, incorporating rotator cuff strengthening exercises may be a great way to keep your muscles ready for the upcoming season.

If you have pain during overhead activities, you should first seek medical attention before attempting to do these types of exercises.

Dynamic Trunk Stabilization: What's that? In layman's terms, working "the core" muscles. However, physical therapists and other healthcare and wellness professionals try to refrain from using the term, "core strengthening", because it has been erroneously equated to exercises used to develop the six-pack (or, rectus abdominus), which is far from the truth.

We're talking about getting the deep transverse abdominus muscles (which aren't visible) to work synchronously with the hip/pelvis muscles to provide a dynamically stable base of support, hence, dynamic trunk stabilization.

A dynamically stabilized trunk provides better power and improved stamina to your shoulder muscles during repetitive, overhead activities; in essence, you're creating a powerful "slingshot" effect by having your shoulders launch an object from a stabilized platform (deep abdominal muscles, hips, and pelvis). If you compare the relative size of your shoulder muscles to that of your hips, abdominals, and pelvis, you can appreciate why dynamic trunk stabilization is important in protecting your shoulders for the long haul.

That all said, exercising the right muscles, the right way, will help you keep your shoulder well- prepared for the spring onslaught!!

If you want more specific advice about your shoulder and exercises to help prevent shoulder injury, please contact Dr. Yoo at mavenoffice@gmail.com.

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine

Next Year's Triathlon Goals...**Gulp**

I was tempted to register for the End of Season sprint triathlon down in Seaside Heights, but with a busy past few weeks and having completed the Wyckoff and Lake Pequannock sprint triathlons earlier this year (after a 7 year hiatus from triathlon), I felt I did enough competing and training to continue the “tri itch” for 2010 (in fact, I’m scratching as I write!!).

In planning for 2010, I made two long term tri goals and will gear my training accordingly. One, that it’s time for Dr. Yoo to take it to the next level- I will compete in (and complete) an olympic distance race, a half-ironman among the handful of sprint triathlons, and a marathon (what the?!). Two, Team Maven’s relay teams will kick major butt at the Wyckoff Triathlon next June. I have become acquainted with a few triathlon all-stars who will add add to our esteemed team. Oh, and a third goal (from my overflowing bucket list), I will get my triathlon tattoo before the end of the year!!


Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine

Parent's night at Riverdell H.S

It’s obvious that injury prevention is key to longevity in athletic participation. The great news is that over the past 10 years, many high schools have begun to develop prevention programs or have staffing to get athletes to participate in injury prevention programs. The bad news is that most middle schools and high schools still do not have adequate pre-season programs. Maven Sports Medicine began its partnership with River Dell High School on parents’ night to introduce our programs in injury prevention for athletes.

We’re looking forward to providing focused workshops for students and parents to understand how injuries occur, which ones are preventable, and when/where to go when they happen. Our first workshop will most likely target the ACL tear epidemic, which particularly afflicts female athletes…in fact, female athletes are 8x more likely to sustain an ACL tear than males. My goal for the rest of the 2009-2010 academic school year is to ensure that we earn the trust of the River Dell parents (and other high schools we partner with) by demonstrating Maven’s dedication and commitment to providing an excellent service.


Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine

God, please give me the strength to swing easy..!!!

Team Maven closed shop today and instead of treating patients, we treated ourselves to a day at the Paramus golf club for a Chamber of Commerce fund-raising event. We had a fun-filled time and laughed at each other throughout the day…let's just say none of our foursome will be touring on the PGA any time soon, but we all enjoy the game. I played my most consistent best and some of our newbies completely surprised us- one of our guys even birdied on a par 3 hole…and it was his first time EVER on a golf course!

While we were playing, I couldn’t help but notice and feel the repetitive biomechanical stress we placed on our bodies, hole after hole. By the 9th hole, my wrists were sore, my legs ached, and we were only halfway done!

While golf may appear to be a leisurely game to bystanders and tv watchers, golf requires quite a bit of skill, strategy, patience, and musculoskeletal endurance. Musculo who? Some of you may be wondering. When most people think of endurance, they think of cardiovascular endurance, which is the kind that helps you persevere through long runs. By musculoskeletal endurance, I’m referring to the type that requires select muscles or joints to be activated or engaged over an extended period of time in a repetitive fashion. Let’s consider the golf swing itself. The novice golfer will take more strokes per game than an experienced golfer, right? Assuming the novice golfer has poor swing mechanics, think about all the little tweaks and strains and torques that befall his body over the course of 18 holes. We’re talking well over 100 repetitions! And, of course, with poor swing mechanics comes injury. On the other hand, many golfers, like other athletes, have imbalances in their joints and muscles that may be predisposing them to injuries down the road.

As golf rehab and performance experts, doctors of physical therapy at Maven Sports Medicine are able to quickly determine whether your swing mechanics are causing your pains OR if restrictions in your body (hips, shoulders, back, forearms, etc) is causing your pain. It may be a matter of adding some strengthening exercises for weak muscles, stretching regiments for tight muscles, or increasing joint mobility to help your body and your game improve.

Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine

Seeking Medical Advice...

I had a great time this past Labor Day weekend with my two girls, Josie and Emilee, and my nieces, Bella and Sofie, at Seven Presidents’ State Beach. Great place, I highly recommend it to families! I showed our four girls how to ride the waves on the boogie board. It must have been more than a few dozen times over the course of the day that I performed a sustained hunched over posture, as I held the board for the girls until the right wave came our way. The girls had the time of their lives and caught their fair share of waves….and some major sand-in-the-mouth wipe-outs!

Later that night as we drove home in some traffic, my back started to hurt…a little (oh, yes, PTs are human and subject to injury, contrary to misguided belief). Like all omniscient and hippocritically- preachy master clinicians, I ignored my pain, claimed it would get better (to myself, of course), and went to bed in confidence. The next day, the pain was moderately improved (as I expected), so I went tot a nearby field and practiced swinging my golf club for an upcoming Chamber of Commerce event…a few dozen times, which somehow made my back even worse- right down the lower lumbar region (L4-L5, L5-S1 to be technical). In fact, my back pain progressively worsened to the point where standing or sitting stationary for more than 20-30 minutes produced quite a bit of discomfort.

Sound familiar?

There’s a time to accept acute pain and let it takes it course using relative relative rest and over-the-counter meds…and a time to address pain before it becomes something far uglier and unanticipated. So, when should one contact a medical professional?

Generally speaking, it’s best to contact a professional immediately when you can identify your symptoms with any of the following:

· Unremitting pain (especially at night)

· Night sweats

· Loss of strength

· Numbness/tingling

· Discoloration (redness or blueness) of any kind

· Warmth around a joint region

As I mentioned, bringing up these symptoms to your physician or physical therapist may prevent more serious problems from occurring. Isn’t that better than dealing with the alternative?

And, thankfully, I had none of the above, so with some ice and relative rest, my symptoms have been improving! Back to work it is!

Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine

Inside the mind of a runner...from a PT perspective

My aching feet! My aching knees! My aching back! Is this you? Welcome to the real runners’ world where aches and pains galore are mere side-effects of the addiction, the pleasure, the thrill, the caloric burn of a good run. Alas, ye hearty, stubborn, and persevering runners!

I have treated runners (an avid runner myself) and running coaches for years and let me tell you something- the absolute, most ineffective recommendation a clinician could ever make to a runner is “you have take a few days/weeks off”.

You might as well take out the trusty ‘ol wooden bat and break their legs Sopranos’ style because there isn’t a single runner I know of who will actually take to that kind of advice. The typical running addicts may go through the motion of nodding their heads in solemn agreement with you, but once they leave your office, ZOOM! Off to streets, hills, track, they will run…and, as any rehabbing junkie would do, they may lie straight to your face the next time they come in for a visit- “Oh sure, doc, yeah, of course I took it easy after we last spoke…”

So, what do you do, runner-in-pain? At least consider an alternative!

Seek professional guidance: Orthopedists, podiatrists, physical therapists are well-equipped to help your joints perform optimally. Sometimes, it means an orthosis (foot insert), some key strengthening exercises, or an injection here and there.

Change of foot-mosphere: If you’re always running on hard pavement, supplement with some track or soft terrain running.

Check the pedometer!: Runners log a lot of miles on their shoes, especially when training for long distance races. I go through new running shoes every few months.

Cross-train: hit the weights in the off season (more on this topic in a future article), use the bike or elliptical at least a few times a week. Remember, our goal as medical professionals, is to help you stay running for YEARS to come.

Get edumucated!!: Bother the staff at your local running store (that doesn’t mean Sports Authority or Modell’s, if you’re a novice). Road Runners , Ridgewood Running Company , and OnTrack Active wear are just a few in the Bergen County, NJ area.

If you find yourself gimping and groaning even after your run, chances are your body is trying to tell you that you’re reaching that critical point where serious injury WILL OCCUR. If you’re not going to stop running, at least be smart about how you can continue fulfilling the pleasure of your addiction with less pain!

Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine