Herm Hundley-Sports Performance

Let’s Talk About….Concussions

Concussions are traumatic brain injuries that occur as a result of rapid acceleration or deceleration of the head, usually caused by a collision, fall, or direct contact. They are common in collision sports like football but are also prevalent in many other sports when athletes may fall or collide with another participant or object.

Concussions don’t always come with a loss of consciousness and sometimes have mild symptoms. It is important for any athlete who has any symptoms of concussion to seek out further evaluation from a qualified medical professional. Failing to diagnose a concussion can lead to more severe brain injury, long-term complications, and even in rare cases death.

Be aware of the signs and symptoms of a concussion, but also understand that while many of these symptoms are present, not all of them will be present with every concussion and not every concussion is the same.

Recovery from concussion used to be strict rest, but in recent years, research states athletes should only rest for 1-3 days and then return to daily activities as tolerated. Athletes should NEVER return to sport until all symptoms have been resolved for at least 24 hours. Athletes should follow a gradual return to play progression that allows for gradual increases in activity as tolerated without increased symptoms. This will ensure that your brain is fully healed and you are safe to return to activity.

Preventing concussions is impossible, but there are a few things we can do to reduce our risk of a concussions

- Learn and use proper technique when tackling, colliding, and falling to the ground

- Wear properly fitted safety equipment, such as helmets

- Perform vision training and improve reaction time to allow for better bracing for and avoidance of collisions

- Improve neck strength and proprioception to brace and absorb forces better, allowing for less rapid head accelerations during sport

Remember your brain is the single most important organ in your entire body, and you only get one, so protect it the best you can and When in doubt, get checked out!

Continuing our recovery series, let's talk about some foods that can benefit our recory process.

We can supplement our recovery process by eating the right foods, which can help us reduce inflammation and get calories & nutrients that can fuel our systems to speed up and promote recovery.

One of the keys to growth in both lean muscle mass and strength is nutrition.

You don't have to be 100% dialed in with a nutrition coach to make progress on your diet, but you can sure make some improvements here and there.

Outside of sleep, your diet is another area that is easy to address in your training plan. Get a nutrition tracking app and put your food into it everyday, you will be surprised how far off you probably are from ideal.

As an athlete, shoot for your bodyweight in grams of protein (about 30% of your calories). Then get another 55% of your calories from complex Carbohydrates such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. The remaining ~15% of your calories can be from fats (ideally healthy fats from nuts, seeds, etc).

Find your missing gains and let us help you perform better today! 614-788-8638

So much research out there to support the effects of sleep on performance, yet so many of us still neglect sleep as a factor in our training and performance.

Set a bedtime.
No caffeine or alcohol before bed
Put away the phone & Turn off the TV
Make it dark and cool.
Get a heavy blanket.
Count those sheep.

It's literally the easiest part of your training program.

With the heat and humidity and summer football ramping up, it's important to stay hydrated every day to prevent injuries and I'll esses associated with heat and dehydration.

Many athletes have limited training available to them over the summer months, and as a result they lose much of their strength and power gains from the previous year heading into the fall.

To combat this the OhioHealth Athletic Performance Clinic is hosting small group Summer Strength & Conditioning classes for general athletes as well as one designed specifically for throwing athletes.

To register, please visit: OhioHealth APC Group Strength Training

Let’s Talk…In-Season Strength Training

We know the benefits of off-season and pre-season strength & conditioning programs in regards to sport performance and injury prevention. But often times in-season strength & conditioning programs get overlooked which could be hurting our overall performance. We begin to see signs of detraining in athletes in as few as 5 days with more significant declines in performance occurring at 30 days. In higher level and elite athletes these decreased performance characteristics can be seen even sooner than in their younger, less trained counterparts.

Detraining is the loss of physiological adaptations to physical training, meaning it’s a loss of the gains you made through hard work in the off-season and pre-season. This can be a result of injury or opting to sit on the couch and eat chips instead of training, but too often it can be the result of poor planning by coaches and athletes during the season.

In-season our focus often shifts to skill development and activities on the velocity side of the force velocity curve. This leaves athletes with suboptimal training of strength and power, leading to detraining as the season progresses. When detraining occurs in these areas it will often affect overall performance on the field and can take months to regain.

The best way to combat in-season detraining is to prevent it altogether by including strength and power training during the season as well. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your in-season strength programming:

Training schedules MUST be flexible

Sessions should last about an hour 1-3x per week.

Perform compound, multi-joint movements with emphasis on power. Push, Pull, Hinge, Squat, Carry, and Crawl.

Vary volume and intensity using velocity to guide loads

Keep exercises consistent and refrain from exercises that create a lot of soreness

Include mobility and injury prevention exercises

To help you maintain your gains and prevent detraining this summer, register for our summer group classes today: OhioHealth Athletic Performance Group Strength Classes

Let’s Talk….Strength vs Speed

Understanding the force-velocity curve is important to understand their inverse relationship and plan your programming. The easiest way to explain the FV curve is to think about throwing a rock. If you have a 100-pound rock it going to require a lot of force to throw it, and chances are it isn’t going to move very fast or go very far. Now swap that rock out for a 5 oz baseball and exert the same effort into throwing it. Because the baseball requires less force to move, it will have a much higher velocity and will travel much farther with that same effort.

Considering the FV curve, there is a speed-strength continuum that we can use when planning a training program.

- Absolute strength
- Speed-Strength
- Peak Power
- Speed-Strength
- Absolute speed

The goal of training is to make athletes more explosive, creating a shift in the force-velocity curve to the right, meaning they produce more force at greater velocity across the board. To do so, we need to train across all areas of the continuum either concurrently or within a block periodization model (each has its benefits and depends on the athlete’s needs).

But, if your athlete has a specific goal or is already unbalanced, meaning they are very fast but not very strong (ore vice versa), we can lean more heavily on the area of the curve where they are weak. By helping a fast athlete get stronger or a strong athlete move faster, we can improve power output and make them more explosive all-around.

Let’s talk about stability…

 

Stability is the conscious and unconscious ability of the brain and central nervous system to relay messages to and from the body’s soft tissues in order to control motion at our joints. Stability is a pillar of human movement, so in order to perform better we must move better by improving functional stability.

We can improve functional stability many different ways, including:

Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization

Balance and Proprioception

Rhythmic and Reactive Stabilization

Isometric & Eccentric Strength

By addressing stability a variety of ways we can seek to improve neural pathways, overall movement patterns, response time, control, and strength in a variety of body and joint positions making us more efficient movers and better athletes.

To start building the foundations for YOUR athletic success, give us a call today!

Let talk about functional stability and mobility...

All too often, athletes focus much of their training on building maximal strength. The truth is that maximal strength training has little crossover effect on sports performance outside of weightlifting.

In order to perform at their best, athletes need to move efficiently. They need to be strong, but more importantly, they need to be mobile enough to get into difficult positions and be stable enough to withstand the stress their sport places on their body.

When we lose stability or mobility in a joint, it affects the joints and tissues around it, creating dysfunctional movement and injury.

All kidding aside, stop worrying about breaking balls until you've gotten an excellent grasp on your fastball and changeup. The fact is if your kid can pick his spots with his fastball and bring offspeed, there aren't a whole lot of kids who will be able to touch them. Adding a curveball on top of bad mechanics is a fast track to injury.

Focus on solidifying biomechanics, control, and command before adding breaking balls and junk.

Stop postponing and get the care you need now!

Waiting to address an injury or throwing related pain is like waiting to change bald tires until winter. Your just compounding a problem that isn't going to go away, only get worse. Meaning more time missed in the late spring and summer seasons

Getting care for pain/injury early-on will not only help reduce the severity of the injury, but it will likely allow you to continue to play without missing significant time on the field.

If you're having pain related to throwing or any other sport related activity, call me today!

Let’s talk Ankle Mobility…

Do you have good ankle mobility? Ankle dorsiflexion mobility is a very common factor in poor biomechanics in our athletes. We often see restriction in the ability of the ankle to flex which will cause compensations further up the chain in the knees, hips, and spine during movement.

In fact, research suggests that athletes with decreased ankle dorsiflexion are more likely to sustain knee injuries (including ACL tears), have decreased vertical jump capacity, and demonstrate mechanical flaws during athletic movements.

Normal ankle mobility is usually classified as 20 degrees of dorsiflexion, but did you know that many athletic movements, including running, cutting, jumping, and deep squatting, require at least 35 degrees?

Do you have enough ankle mobility for what your sport or activities require? The weight bearing lunge test is a good assessment you can do at home to check!

If you don’t, there are plenty of ways we can help! Including myofascial release techniques, static stretching, and functional mobilizations.

Give us a call today! (614) 788 - 8638

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear that kids shouldn't strength train.

There's so many myths surrounding strength training, so I wanted to share the FACTS!

Strength training for kids is an excellent way to supplement a healthy, active lifestyle or a great way to introduce a young person to healthy activity.

Strength training does NOT stunt growth or make you "too bulky".

When performed correctly, under the supervision of a professional, strength training DOES:

- Decrease injury risk
- Increase physical strength and bone density
- Improve cardiovascular health, joint mobility, body composition, cognitive function, confidence, and self-esteem.

Not to mention strength training I'd fun and an excellent entry point to an active lifestyle for kids and adults who are overweight/obese.

Let’s Talk Arm Care...

We often hear about arm care in baseball and softball, but it’s also very beneficial for athletes in volleyball, swimming, tennis, and other overhead sports to have a quality arm care program as well. In any overhead sport it’s important to build and maintain the strength, stability, control, and mobility needed to perform and stay healthy while participating in their sport.

Often athletes and coaches utilize arm care programs during their season, but the truth is, we should begin implementing arm care immediately in the offseason program to build a strong foundation that can be continued/maintained during the season.

When we think about arm care programs, usually we think of J-Band work or shoulder stretching, but these are only some of the components of a quality program. While all arm care programs will have elements of stretching, scapular strength and stability, and rotator cuff strengthening, each athlete has unique needs. This means that each athlete should have an assessment completed by a professional to determine their overall upper extremity health and unique needs that they need to address.

To get an assessment and customized arm care program built for you, give us a call today!

Let's Talk Warmup

We know that a good warm-up is critical for maximizing performance and reducing injury risks.

So why is the warm-up still one of the most commonly overlooked pieces to an athletes' training program?

What should we be doing for warm-ups?

The answer is simple, "It depends"

It depends on:
- The goal/demands of that day's training
- The athlete's movement deficits
- The athlete's strength deficits
- The athlete's long-term goals

Every warm-up depends on a lot of factors, but with that said, every warm-up should follow the same RAMP principles to fully prepare an athlete to accel in their training or sport and help reduce injury risks.

To get an individual assessment and warm-up that fits your needs and maximizes your potential, give us a call today!

Let's talk about ACL injuries.

Athletes who suffer an ACL injury should know the risks. Too often, we see young athletes approaching their rehab timeline like professional athletes, and the reality is this should never be the case.

Young athletes who have and ACL injury are at an extreme risk of reinjury for up to 2 years following surgery, not to mention far too often their therapy protocols are not up to par with the demands that their sport present. Rushing back into your sport before you or your knee is ready is a recipe for disaster.

If you or someone you know has had an ACL injury, or you want to take steps to reduce your risk for injury, seek out a professional who understand the needs of an athlete and utilize evidence-based protocols to build a program designed specifically for you.

Give me a call today! (614) 788-8638

H2 Sports Performance on Instagram: "Let's talk about ACL injuries. Athletes who suffer an ACL injury should know the risks. Too often, we see young athletes approaching their rehab timeline like professional athletes, and the reality is this... 5 likes, 0 comments - H2 Sports Performance () on Instagram: "Let's talk about ACL injuries. Athletes who suffer an ACL injury should know the risks. Too ofte..."

Our mission is to share knowledge and provide evidence-based care and training to athletes of all ages and skill levels.