Kids are coming home from college this month for the summer, and a few are student athletes. If there is one thing I know well it is student athletes. I started my career at USC working with the football, swimming, soccer, volleyball team and many other sport teams.
A lot of these schools, if they are division 1 or 2 have their own training rooms, strength coaches and entire programs to keep their student athletes healthy and in prime condition.
So what happens when they get home? Some continue to train and others take a much-needed break. The problem I’ve found, as with most professional sports, there is a huge focus on training for the game but not necessarily for the overall health of the athlete.
One thing you need to emphasize with your kids is the importance of cross training. For example a soccer player just wants to play soccer and figures that’s all they need to do to train. But what happens when they pull a hamstring? Do you just rehab the hamstring or look at why the pull happened in the first place? Did your athlete take a quick turn to fast, or was it because his core was so week that it couldn’t stabilize his hips, which threw his back out that then caused an imbalance in his pelvis, resulting in his hamstring being pulled.
What I’m trying to show is that there are usually bigger causes to what can sometimes be seen as an isolated injury.
How do you prevent this from happening? Have your athlete cross train in the offseason. Now this doesn’t mean if they are runners, that they have to hit the weight room and build a bunch of unnecessary muscle. But instead work on stability and core strength to help make them even more effective runners.
Incorporating core movements can help not only make them be better athletes but also function better in their daily lives.
If you have questions or would like to do an evaluation of your athlete to help pinpoint imbalances and design a plan give us a call at 310-397-3422 or www.metatouch.com
