Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

Post-exercise recovery

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Mar 2, 2015 @ 07:03 AM

 

 

ICEBATH

 

Effects of whole-body cryostimulation exposure in sport and medicine

 

- Written by Christophe Hausswirth, France (@HausswirthC)

Article orginally published on Aspetar.com

 

Elite athletes often train intensitively or compete over consecutive days. Cumulative fatigue over such periods of training or competition can reduce athletic performance. Adequate recovery between training sessions and/or competitive events is therefore essential to minimise the risk of fatigue and optimise performance. In this context, the use of whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) as a tool to aid recovery shows benefits on some inflammatory parameters, possible improvement of antioxidant status and improvements in mood and mild depression. Heating the body is supposed to be beneficial to athletes' recovery, to treat muscle pain and as part of rehabilitation after injury. It has been already demonstrated that WBC stimulates the physiological reactions of an organism which results in analgesic, anti-swelling, antalgic immune and circulatory system reactions and could improve recovery after muscular trauma injury. Definition is needed as to the precise context in which athletes may use this tool to optimise recovery in relation to improving sleep patterns, optimising the parasympathetic system and increasing their general well-being.

 

INTRODUCTION

Exercise-related stress is often increased due to environmental conditions, particularly those relating to temperature changes. For every sporting activity there is an ideal ambient temperature. Any deviation from this reference temperature will have a negative impact on performance.

 

Indeed, physical activity in a warm or cold atmosphere means that the body and the mechanisms involved in temperature regulation have to work harder. Although very effective, these thermoregulatory mechanisms may not be able to cope with extreme conditions.

 

They do, however, allow the body to adapt during chronic exposure. Artificial cooling of ambient temperature is an evolving technique, both to prepare athletes for competitions in difficult conditions and to improve the body’s recovery capacity.

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR WHOLE-BODY CRYOSTIMULATION

The first very low temperature cold rooms appeared in Japan in 1989, when Yamauchi used a cryogenic chamber to treat rheumatism. The indications for WBC were subsequently extended to various inflammatory conditions. WBC was then offered to treat pain and prevent post-traumatic oedema, with exposure limited to to 2 to 3 minutes.

 

One of the most well-established physiological responses to cold exposure is triggered by the decrease in skin temperature, promptly stimulating cutaneous receptors and their sensory afferents to excite sympathetic adrenergic fibres, in turn causing the constriction of local arterioles and venules. The resulting decrease in blood flow to the periphery or injured/inflammed tissues reduces local metabolic processes, thereby attenuating the inflammatory response and the formation of oedema around the injured tissues1.

 

Reported reasons for using WBC include decreased joint pain and disorders, improved general well-being, decreased fatigue perception2 and reduced symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression3. WBC is also extensively used in self-treatment or body hardening against respiratory tract infections and musculoskeletal pain4, as well as parasympathetic reactivation after intensive exercise5.

 

Continue to read this article by clicking HERE.  

 

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Topics: Marco Cardinale, Steve Tashjian

Marco Cardinale - BSMPG Summer Seminar Highlights

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Aug 12, 2013 @ 07:08 AM

 

 

Click below to see highlights from our 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar featuring Marco Cardinale.

More highlights are set to come in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

A special thanks again to our SPONSORS! 

 


 

 

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Topics: Charlie Weingroff, BSMPG Summer Seminar, Marco Cardinale

Val Nasedkin - 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar Highlights

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Jul 25, 2013 @ 07:07 AM

Click below to see highlights from our 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar featuring Val Nasedkin.

More highlights are set to come in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

A special thanks again to our SPONSORS! 

 

Omegawave

 


  

Register for  Charlie Weingroff Seminar Oct 25-27, 2013 

 

Topics: Charlie Weingroff, Adriaan Louw, Val Nasedkin, Joel Jamieson, Marco Cardinale, Stuart McGill

What Businesses Can Learn From The Use Of Analytics In Sports

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Fri, Apr 26, 2013 @ 07:04 AM

 

"The attitude of sports scientists should always be to support the coach.  It's not our job to find out whether the coach is right or wrong, our job is to help the coach do better for the athlete."

- Marco Cardinale

GB Medal Count

Click HERE to read Get ahead of the game: What businesses can learn from the use of analytics in sports by Marco Cardinale and others.

 

Listen to Marco Cardinale and other Sports Medicine and Performance Leaders from around the world at the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar.  When it comes to winning - BSMPG stands at the top of the podium.

 

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Topics: BSMPG Summer Seminar, Marco Cardinale

Innovators Welcome

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Apr 8, 2013 @ 07:04 AM

 

A quick video to remind us why we all put so much blood and sweat into our work - see you at BSMPG, where innovators meet.

 

 

Join the INNOVATORS in Sports Medicine and Performance Training at the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar - May 17 &18 in Boston MA.

 

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Topics: Charlie Weingroff, BSMPG Summer Seminar, Marco Cardinale, Fergus Connolly, Stuart McGill, Rob Butler, Bobby Alejo, Mark Lindsay

The World Leader in Athlete Monitoring is HERE!

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Jan 28, 2013 @ 07:01 AM

 

BSMPG is proud to announce the addition of Val Nasedkin as a speaker within the popular Sports Fusion (formally Hockey & Basketball Specific Training) Track at the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar - May 17th and 18th, 2013!  Val joins Dr. Stuart McGill and Marco Cardinale for this weekend event along with the leaders in Performance Training and Sports Medicine professionals from around the world!  With the greatest speaker line-up assembled to date, the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar will be the WORLD'S most sought after Sports Medicine & Performance Seminar to date!!

Be sure to save the date now - hotels will fill fast with this event along with normal Boston traffic so start making plans now!

See you in Boston this May!!!

 

Omegawave

 

VAL NASEDKIN

SPONSORED BY:

 

OMEGAWAVE

TOPIC: Sport Specific Endurance Development in Explosive and Power Sports

 

Val Nasedkin, a former decathlete at the national level for the former Soviet Union, is the co-founder and technical director of Omegawave, a pioneering company in the field of functional preparedness and readiness in athletes. He has been a guest lecturer on the principles of training at numerous sport science and physical education universities around the world, and frequently acts as a consultant to Olympic committees, sports federations and national and professional teams for various sports including Dutch Olympic Committee, United States Track and Field Olympic Committee, EPL, Serie A and La Liga teams (Medical Staff), Autonoma University (Barcelona, Spain), Duke University (North Carolina, USA) and University of Calgary (Canadian National Sports Center).

 

BSMPG 2013 Summer Seminar - There is NO other Sports Medicine and Performance Training Seminar in the world - PERIOD.

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Topics: Charlie Weingroff, Adriaan Louw, Val Nasedkin, Joel Jamieson, Marco Cardinale, Stuart McGill

Jumping High: External Focus More Important than Strength?

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Wed, Jan 16, 2013 @ 07:01 AM

 

Vertec

 

from Attention and Motor Skill Learning – Gabriele Wulf

“Zachry had participants perform a jump-and-reach task using a Vertec measurement device (see photo).  Participants were instructed to jump straight up and touch the highest rung on the Vertec they could reach with the tips of their fingers.  Each participant performed five trials under one of three conditions: control, internal focus, and external focus.  For the control condition, no additional focus instruments were given.  Under the internal focus condition, participants were instructed to concentrate on the tips of their fingers.  Under the external focus condition they were instructed to concentrate on the object to be touched, that is, the rungs of the Vertec.

Participants indeed reached higher rungs when they adopted the external focus (on average 4.79 rungs) compared to the internal focus (4.12 rungs) or when they received no attentional focus instructions (4.10 rungs).  Also the time they spent in the air was longer under the external (0.491 s) than under the internal focus (0.477 s) or the control condition (0.478 s)  Thus a change in the focus of attention significantly affected reach height: Focusing on the object to be touched resulted in more effective performance than did focusing on the finger with which the object was to be touched.  Perhaps most interestingly, instructing the participants to adopt an external focus increased jump height above and beyond what participants achieved under “normal” conditions (i.e., control conditions without instructions).  These results were recently replicated by Carolina Granados in my lab (Wulf, Zachry, Granados, & Dufek, 2006, Experiment 2).  In addition to looking at reach height, Granados calculated the displacement of participants’ center of mass during the jumps.  Interestingly, she found not only the greatest reach heights under the external focus condition, but also greater vertical displacements of the center of mass (0.51 cm) compared to those in the internal focus (0.47 cm) and control conditions (0.47 cm).

These findings might seem surprising given that one might expect the jump height to be determined mainly (although not exclusively) by the participant’s strength.  Yet we also know, for example, that the coordination between and within muscles influences maximum force production as well (Hollmann & Hettinger, 2000).  It is possible tha an external focus optimizes those coordination patterns.  While we have to await further research to find out how exactly the attentional focus instructions affected jump height, the findings of this study could have implications for sports in which maximum forces must be generated in a short periods of time (e.g., high jump, long jump, pole vault, basketball layup).  In those cases, focusing on the target (e.g., the bar in the high jump) might also result in more effective performance than focusing on movement coordination or not focusing on anything in particular.” Pg 58-59

 

“The studies we have reviewed in this chapter confirm the anecdotal observation (in windsurfing) that the performance of motor skills seems to be more effective if one focuses on the effects one’s movements have on the environment rather than on the movements themselves.  The results from studies using various laboratory tasks as well as sport skills provide converging evidence for the advantage of instructions that induce an external relative to an internal focus.  The benefits of an external focus appear to be even more pronounced if the movement effect occurs at a distance from the body, thus making it more easily distinguishable from the body movements that produced it.  Furthermore, this effect seems to be rather general and not dependent on individual preferences.  In fact, performers often notice immediate changes in their performance as a function of their focus of attention.  Importantly, the effects of adopting an external focus when practicing a skill is not just temporary, that is, present only when the individual adopts that focus; rather, these benefits are seen in the retention of the skill and in transfer to novel variations of the skill.” Pg 77

 

Focus your attention to the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar - Where the top Sports Medicine and Performance Professionals meet every year!

 

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Topics: Charlie Weingroff, Motor Control, BSMPG Summer Seminar, Ben Prentiss, Marco Cardinale, Marvin Chun, Fergus Connolly, Stuart McGill

Happy New Year from the BSMPG Family

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Mon, Dec 31, 2012 @ 07:12 AM

Wishing you and your family all the best this coming year.

 

BSMPG Summer Seminar

Make 2013 the year you take another step forward in your journey to becoming a leader in Sports Medicine and Performance Training by attending the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar - May 17 & 18th in Boston MA.

Sign up before the end of the day today and enjoy our 2012 seminar price!

 

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Topics: Charlie Weingroff, Stu McGill, Kevin Neeld, Adriaan Louw, BSMPG Summer Seminar, Ben Prentiss, Bill Knowles, Marco Cardinale, Rob Butler, Bobby Alejo

Thoughts from the Head of British Olympic Sport

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Thu, Nov 29, 2012 @ 07:11 AM

Over the next month we will be previewing the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar speakers, their thoughts on the current state of Sports Medicine & Performance Training, how technology is influencing our profession (for better or worse) and preview their lectures.

 

Enjoy.

 

Marco Cardinale

 

Marco Cardinale
Head of Sports Science and Research of the British Olympic Association

 

 

1. How has the field of sports medicine/performance changed in the last five years? Where do you see the field headed in the next five years

 

We have now more tools to measure and understand what constitutes performance and how athletes are progressing so training and nutritional prescriptions are becoming more accurate and many activities can be tailored to individual athletes to maximise their development and increase the chances of performing well. The field is moving quickly and with miniaturisation of technology it will be possible to know more about athletic performance and have better evidence to apply interventions. However training equipment does not seem to be evolving at a faster rate for various reasons. Food technology is also quickly accelerating so soon it will be possible to access functional foods tailored to individuals. More needs to be done to accelerate recovery from injury so I can see new compounds capable of accelerating muscle and tendon repair.

 

2. Athlete monitoring and sports analytics has emerged as leading topics within Sports Medicine and Performance Training, how has this field influenced your practice?

 

I think there has been a good evolution, still too many people collect too many data which do not affect performance. However data are good to provide an evidence-based approach to sports science and medicine and improve coaching decisions.

 

Has the field in your opinion gone too far with some professionals becoming slaves to data sets instead of providing solid clinical practice and coaching? Is there room for more monitoring? What "data sets" are you seeing as most impactful when is comes to providing athlete care and training?

Well, many people talk about data, few understand what makes good data. Clinical practice and coaching requires experience driven by knowledge and the real impact happens when knowledge combined with clinical practice make a (measurable) difference. So in some cases there has been an improvement, however in many cases people want/try to collect complex datasets but forget the collect simple ones so it is impossible to make informed decisions despite the fact that some “sexy”data sets are collected. For example, some people want to measure or measure salivary hormones but then do not have good training diaries (prescribed vs. executed) so they cannot manipulate training even if the hormone data seem to show some aspects of change.

 

 

3. What can attendees expect to hear from you at the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar? How may your lecture impact their practice on Monday morning?

 

I will address the issues presented before showing some examples of case studies as well as discussing current activities and highlighting some points being missed. I will also talk about practicality of interventions and will discuss the following concepts/approaches:

Signal-Noise

Dose-Response

Cost-Effectiveness

 

I am looking forward to attend the conference to share my experiences and view but most of all to meet colleagues and understand more about the state of US sport.

 

Topics: BSMPG Summer Seminar, Marco Cardinale

Your Anatomy Teacher Was Wrong - Again!

Posted by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on Fri, Nov 23, 2012 @ 06:11 AM

 

If you were the average student in the average anatomy class, you were taught that the psoas major was responsible for hip flexion and external rotation of the femur.  If you were lucky, you may have had a minor discussion regarding its role in lumbar stability.  

But did your anatomy teacher discuss the psoas as it relates to the diaphram and breathing? What about the psoas and the pelvic floor?

No?

I didn't think so.

Let's take a quick look at what you may have been missing...

 

 

Psoas

"The fascial relations of the psoas major to the surrounding tissues warrant special attention as these links influence the biomechanics of these interlaced structures. The medial arcuate ligament is a continuation of the superior psoas fascia that continues superiorly to the diaphragm. The right and left crus constitute the spinal attachment of the diaphragm. They attach to the anterolateral component of the upper three lumbar vertebral bodies. The crus and their fascia overlap the psoas major and appear to be continuous with this muscle until they come more anterior and blend with the anterior longitudinal ligament. (8) As the psoas descends, its inferomedial fascia becomes thick at its inferior portion and is continuous with the pelvic floor fascia. (9) This forms a link with the conjoint tendon, transverse abdominus, and the internal oblique. (10) As the psoas major courses over the pelvic brim, the fascia of the posterior fascicles attach firmly to the pelvic brim."

 

Psoas major: a case report and review of its anatomy, biomechanics, and clinical implications by Sajko, Sandy & Stuber, Kent. Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 2009.

 

Discover what you've been missing and what the leaders in Sports Medicine and Performance already know at the 2013 BSMPG Summer Seminar - May 17 & 18, 2013 in Boston.

 

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Topics: Art Horne, Charlie Weingroff, Adriaan Louw, Marco Cardinale, Fergus Connolly, Stuart McGill, Randall Huntington