What's The Most Important Part Of The Body For Sports???

Answer: SUPRISE!!! Believe it or not, it's the BRAIN. The following article is provided to us by Dr. Daniel Gonzalez at Family Health Chiropractic in Westlake. I originally approached to Dr. Daniel for some spinal issues related to an automobile accident, I have learned even more about the importance of good spinal alignment...not only in order to live without pain, but also to perform optimally. I encourage anyone who has not had postural analysis done by a highly qualified doctor of chiropractic. I have seen tangible results, having been a big skeptic when I first started. Enjoy the article:

Now that you have decided you want to become an elite athlete (play your sport at the Division 1 level or compete at the Olympics or World Championships), how do you go about doing it?
Fortunately, applied physiologist’s and sports medicine researchers have taken the first step to figuring that out.  After interviewing and studying hundreds of elite athletes who had reached the pinnacle of their particular sport, they found some fascinating common ground.  Here, in a nut shell, is what we’ve discovered: 
Every single athlete undergoes the same training criteria when it comes to adding a competitive edge. Train for conditioning, strength, power, quickness, speed, agility, flexibility and balance. Depending on the sport, more emphasis is obviously placed on a particular component. Interestingly, flexibility and balance were selected as high priority in every single interview.
Why?
To start, we must first understand that the most powerful organ in your body is your brain and nervous system. The brain sends signals out to the body and tells your muscles how fast they should react, contract and relax all in a smooth coordinated effort. In addition, the brain simultaneously regulates oxygen, metabolism, hormone and protein production as well as the elimination of harmful waste products. In short, the brain controls every single aspect of your life (1).
However, the brain doesn’t just send messages out. It requires information from the body in order to determine the best mode of action. So the brain requires information from your body in order to determine what messages it should send out. That’s where mechanoreception and proprioception come into play. Together, Mechanoreception and Proprioception act as the information relay centers of the brain (2).
Mechanoreception refers to the process by which specific nerve endings in your muscles and tendons (tissue mechanoreceptors) are stimulated by mechanical input such as touch, muscle stretching, and joint motion. This information is carried into the spinal cord and brain for processing. When you train for a particular event, you are literally stimulating your mechanoreceptors, sending signals to your brain, which then enhance the patterns for coordinated movement and skill (3).
This is why an elite athlete doesn’t have to think about performing a particular movement; their body just does it automatically or reacts!!!
Proprioception is an appreciation of position, balance, and changes in equilibrium on the part of the musculoskeletal system. Proprioception occurs as a function of head position (vestibular input), visual input and tissue mechanoreceptor input into the brain and cerebellum. This is important because the cerebellum is responsible for all major functions of the body including metabolism, digestion, computation and balance and coordination. Because proprioception directly feeds the brain and cerebellum, it is now known in the medical world as a brain nutrient or energizer. Furthermore, mechanoreception or joint stimulation gives rise to and increases the amount of proprioception.
Some proprioceptive sensory organs are located in muscles and tendons, while others are within the connective tissues of joints. If any of these sensors begin to transmit false or incorrect information, there is a decrease in movement efficiency, which can have a damaging effect on joints and muscles. There is the potential for postural coordination problems that can range from just annoying to painful or even hazardous to health. Simply put bad information into the brain results in bad information out of the brain.
Now, why is all this important for the elite athlete?
Well, loss of mechanoreception results in a loss of proprioception. This means you are literally robbing your brain from vital processing information. That’s why if you ever spend a day on the couch watching TV, you’ll most likely feel drained and less energetic.
Sports performance is directly determined by the status and coordination of the proprioception system. Injury prevention, return-to-activity rehabilitation, and even winning depend to a great deal on how smoothly and quickly the musculoskeletal system can respond to position, speed, and balance changes. Many of the currently popular approaches to improving sports performance (such as plyometrics) are based on training and developing proprioceptive responses (4).
Being able to suddenly stop and switch directions without losing speed is directly related to the coordination of your mechanoreceptor-proprioreceptor pathways. Being able to sense and control your body’s movement takes more than just thinking about it – it requires training.
The benefits of proprioceptive training to the elite athlete are many. With increased balance, they are less prone to injury. Athletes also become quicker – able to react to changing situations, able to think fast on their feet and burst into motion when they need to. Proprioceptive training helps them make more precise movements with less effort.
So, the benefits of proprioceptive training break down to safer, more efficient, quicker, and more precise movements. What athlete wouldn’t want that?


Some Basic Rules to Follow:
The Proprioceptive Training research is so strong that it would be foolish for serious athletes to exclude it from their overall program. In carrying out proprioceptive routines, athletes should consider the following principles:
Start by learning to balance yourself one-footed on firm ground. As your coordination improves, do the same while attempting to catch a medicine ball, swinging your arms, swinging your non-weight-bearing leg, and pulling on your weight-bearing leg with a stretch cord to challenge your stability.
Once you master the above, begin use training devices like exercise mats, mini-trampolines, rocker boards, and finally wobble boards (ankle discs). When using these devices, start with two-leg stances and - when good balance is achieved - progress to one-leg positions.
Next, employ squats, lunges, step-downs, hops, and other exertions
When you think your balance is really good, attempt to carry out your routines with eyes closed. Eye closing will force your internal balance systems to work overtime and will thus produce larger-than-usual adaptations in those systems.
Anything that challenges your balance and core strength is considered proprioceptive training, but if you’re serious about your sport and performance I suggest you find a qualified fitness instructor who can design a sport-specific proprioceptive training.

Citations
Kandel, Schwartz, Jessel, Principles of Neural Science (3rd ed), Elsevier, NY, 1991
Guyton, A., Basic Neuroscience (2nd ed), W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia, 1991
Kofotolis N, Kellis E. Effects of two 4-week proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation programs on muscle endurance, flexibility, and functional performance in women with chronic low back pain. Phys Ther 2006;86(7):1001-1012.
Gleddie N, Marshall D. Plyometric training for basketball. Strength & Conditioning 1996;18:20-25.
Additional Studies for Review
Proprioception of the Ankle and Knee,' Sports Medicine, Vol. 25(3), pp. 149-155, 1998
Kinesthetic Awareness in Subjects with Multiple Ankle Sprains, Physical Therapy, Vol. 68, pp. 1667-1671, 1988
Position Sense Following Joint Injury,' Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, Vol. 21, pp. 23-27, 1982
Effects of Ankle Disc Training on Muscular Strength and Postural Control,' Clinical Biomechanics, Vol. 3, pp. 88-91, 1988
Ankle Disk Training Influences Reaction Times of Selected Muscles in a Simulated Ankle Sprain,' The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 25(4), pp. 538-543, 1997
A Multi-Station Proprioceptive Exercise Program in Patients with Ankle Instability,' Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Vol. 33(12), pp. 1991-1998, 2001

A.S.P.I. Training and ACL Injury Prevention

The facts: Did you know that although soccer is a contact sport, that around %70 of ACL injuries occur during the non-contact portion of the game? Most tears happen during moments of deceleration, cutting during sprinting, and landing after a jump. Did you also know that girls are more than seven times more likely than boys to suffer an ACL tear. The ACL is a ligament than joins bones in the knee together. In soccer the ACL is a major stabilizing element in rotational movements like planting, cutting and pivoting.

The solution: Studies have shown that speed and agility training can help to reduce ACL injuries significantly. Any training that incorporates rotational movement can help prevent ACL injuries, however, ASPI training is uniquely effective in this respect. Studies at at the Santa Monica (Calif.) Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation that utilized training similar to ASPI's showed a reduction in injury rates by %72!!!

What sets ASPI training apart from other programs is the level and amount of instruction and attention to detail that is only possible the achieve in smaller group settings. We pay particular attention to movement mechanics and perform all movements in a progression so that the athlete's muscles, nervous system and brain are all imprinted with correct information before performing a task at higher intensities. Athlete's are not progressed until they have learned basic tasks before moving forward to perform more demanding tasks. Many tasks are meant to be performed at a very high intensity, with precision, but at low volumes. In many cases, however, with some other programs I have seen the opposite: an activity is introduced and explained once and then the athlete is expected to perform the exercise repeatedly at much higher volumes than what is indicated for a given exercise.

No amount of training can prevent ACL injuries from the violent collisions and bad tackles that can somtimes happen in soccer. However, along with producing faster, more efficient athletes, ASPI training can certainly contribute to significantly reducing a majority of ACL injuries.

Walkout Stretch (The Inchworm)

This is a great overall stretch that also challenges core strength tremendously. You feel this stretch all the way from the calf muscles into the lower back.


1, Bend at the waist and reach your hands towards the ground. Keep your legs straight but don't lock the knees.



2. Walk the hands out over the head. Activate your core to keep the body as straight as possible.



3. Keeping the legs straight (again, without locking out the knees) use the ankles to walk the feet back up towards the feet. As you draw closer to the feet you can raise up onto your fingertips in order to keep the legs more straight. Stand up tall and repeat all of the movements 6-8 times....moving like an inchworm.

Drop Lunge, Hip Flexor Stretch

Sprinting and kicking the ball--whether passing or shooting--makes for highly developed but tight hip flexors in soccer players. Tight hip flexor muscles have been traced to some lower back pain issues, because the ovedevelopment this particular set of muscles can pull the hips and lower back out of their natural alignment. This stretch is designed to more deeply stretch these muscles. It's challenging to learn the steps in this stretch, but once you've got it down it's an etremely effective and superior stretch:


1. Stand tall, chest out, pulling you naval towards your spine, engaging your core. Take a BIG, reaching step backward onto your tiptoes, while keeping your front foot planted flat on the ground.



2. Squeeze the glute and quadricep muscles of the backward reaching leg, straightening the leg. As you squeeze, begin to twist the shoulders in the direction of the backward leg, reaching back towards the heel with one hand and out and skyward with the other hand. Hold this position 5-10 seconds. Step forward and repeat with the other leg. Repeat 6-8 reps on both sides.

Forward Lunge Glute/Hamstring Stretch (the single best soccer stretch)

This stretch is designed to warm up and stretch the hips and hamstrings. It requires a certain amount of balance to execute correctly:



1. Lunge forward deeply and place the hand opposite the forward leg on the ground.











2. Push the elbow on the side of the forward leg as close to the ground as possible next to the inside of the foot. (Make sure you keep the foot of the forward leg flat on the ground!) You should feel this part of the stretch in the hip and glute of the forward leg.






3. Place both hands on the ground on either side of the front foot, rock back onto the heel of the front foot and onto the toe of the back leg and straighten the front leg as much as possible. You should feel this phase of the stretch intensely in the hamstring of the front leg. To further deepen the stretch of the hamstring, repeat the rocking motion back onto the heel, bending and straightening the forward leg two or three times.




4. Finally, rock forward onto the leg and stand up. Lunge forward onto the other leg and repeat steps 1 to 3 on the opposite side. Perform 8 to 10 reps of this stretch at a time.

Parent's and Coach's Guide To The Dynamic Stretches

Dynamic stretches are different from ordinary, static ones in that they are designed not only to stretch the muscle, but also to begin to warm up the muscles, and to activate the muscles’ fine motor tuning (the proprioceptors). It is also important to note that dynamic stretches stretch the muscles functionally. That is to say that the more traditional stretches tend to stretch one muscle in isolation; whereas dynamic stretches tend to work the entire kinetic chain, stretching groups of muscles in the same sequence that they fire to produce a given movement.

Some of these stretches also work to stimulate core stabilization as well. What makes dynamic stretches so great is that you get so much bang for your buck with them: not only do they put the athlete into positions that force them to stretch properly, but they also require a high degree of focus on motor control and things like balance that are so important in soccer.

It has been my experience that with all of the other demands found in soccer training and pre game preparation that teams and athletes don’t spend nearly enough detailed attention to their stretching routine. . I would encourage coaches and parents alike to take the time to learn these movements and to practice them with their young athletes. As with anything, the sooner good habits are developed the better! Recently when I spoke to the a group of soccer players at a clinic I taught, I told them that stretching is not only important for injury prevention, but also that a properly stretched muscle is going to make you much faster than one that is not. Now….on to the stretches!!! To cut down on confusion I will post each of the stretches in its own post, so you can go from one post to the next. Feel free to post questions.

Welcome To The ASPI Blog

In the past ten years or so there has been an explosion of sports specific training for youngsters. In Europe this has been developed for a much longer period of time in the football/soccer academies of professional clubs, who are all about the business of identifying potential talent early and optimizing age-specific training. Of course, in most instances there isn't really a systematic approach and it is up to the individual to seek out training on their own. Often what is offered in public schools is dated and, sometimes, even detrimental to the young athlete. Most coaches include this or that element of speed and strength training, but what a coach does to train these competencies in any sport is bound to be incomplete in terms of their knowledge and what they are doing with their players. It's not their primary job, so that should come as no suprise!!! Whereas it is a soccer coach's job to train players in the tactical and technical aspect of the sport, it's the job of the strength trainer to develop the athlete's physical capacity to most effectively execute the physical elements that underlie the technical and tactical aspects of the game. Having a deep background in things like assessment of movement, development of core stability and strength, and proper care of muscle and other tissue through proper stretching and other activities, can give athletes a tremendous advantage. It's the job of the strength trainer--my job--to be as up-to-date as possible on the latest knowledge on optimum human performance. The purpose of this blog is to provide as make as much information accessible to parents and coaches I work with, so that we can work together to make informed decisions where their children/athletes are concerned. I encourage anyone reading this site to post comments or questions and I will attempt to answer them as I receive them.