Back to Sports: Preventing Injuries in Student Athletes

For student athletes, going back to school means more than studies, books and homework. It’s also about protecting themselves from injury during practices and competitive games to come, whether it’s football, baseball, basketball, soccer or other sports.

For parents, it’s time to make sure their athletic kids are ready to return to their sport after a layoff of a few months, according to Richard Morgan, D.O., spine care physician at Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute; and  Michael Yurubi, D.O., sports medicine physician at Baptist Health Orthopedic Care.

Richard Morgan, D.O., a nonsurgical spine care physician at Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute.

 

In a new Baptist HealthTalk podcast, Sports Safety, Drs. Morgan and Yurubi were interviewed by host Willard Shepard, Emmy award-winning journalist.

“Before we know it, it'll be back to school and back to those ‘Friday night lights’ and fall sports we all love,” said Mr. Shepard. “But if injuries are in the back of your mind, how can you manage the fear of it and protect your star player?”

For parents, safety is about making sure your “star player” has been properly conditioned before returning to school athletics.

“What’s really important and may be overlooked is teaching them how to stretch, how to warm up properly, and how to cool down,” explains Dr. Yurubi. “Knowing the technique of the sport is very important. With football, knowing not to hit with your head down, knowing the equipment, making sure the equipment fits right, and making sure the mouth guard and helmet fit right. And proper nutrition is always extremely important.”

The most common injury depends much on the sport – but knee injuries and sprains or tears to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) seem to dominate overall. The ACL helps stabilize the knee, one of four primary ligaments that act like strong ropes to hold the bones together and keep the knee stable.

“It really depends on the sport,” said Dr. Morgan. “So, in football it’s knee injuries such as ACL tears that are more common. Also in football, concussions are more common. Same thing with soccer, especially women's soccer where concussions are very prevalent. In basketball, ankle injuries such as ankle sprains are very prevalent. Overall … knee injuries are the most common.”

Here’s more from the Sports Safety podcast:

Mr. Shepard:  “For the normal person that says, ‘I'm going to go out biking today; I'm going to go out on a run today’  -- what should they do prior to the actual exercise activity and post-exercise?

Michael Yurubi, D.O., sports medicine primary care physician with Baptist Health Orthopedic Care.

Dr. Yurubi: “Warming up is really important. Warming up increases your heart rate, which in turn gives more blood flow throughout the muscles, brings more nutrients to the muscles, and then it optimizes their performance. Warming up can start with something as simple as just 10 to 15 minutes of doing jumping jacks. You want to do more of a dynamic warmup, meaning that you want to do … something that is going to be used during the sport to get your body ready for the sport. It's mentally important as well because you're able to mentally prepare yourself for the activities that you're doing. You want to do more dynamic stretching … for cooling down after your sports. You want to reduce that heart rate. You could do a light walk, light jog, reduce that heart rate, and then do more of a static stretching. Static stretching helps reduce some of that lactic acid and it helps you to be less sore the next day.”

Mr. Shepard: How would a concussion impact an orthopedic injury?

Dr. Morgan: “That's a great question. After a concussion, a lot of patients have vision changes, double vision, imbalance, dizziness, and coordination is lagging, especially compared to the healthy version of themselves. When that happens, the gait changes. With gait changes, you're more likely to injure your ankle, your knee, your hip. There's been a lot of research showing that there's an increase in knee injuries after concussion.”

Mr. Shepard: You're mentioning concussions, and there's been a lot of focus on that. Where are we with that -- in terms of learning more about it and being able to actually do something about it?

Dr. Morgan: “There's been a lot of growing research and mounting evidence (regarding) the consequences of concussions and repetitive impacts. CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head) has garnered a lot of attention in the media and through movies. It's also drawn a lot of attention to professional and collegiate sports, too. There's been rule changes in the game. For example, in football there's been a much greater emphasis on spearing (illegal tackling technique in which a player makes initial contact with the crown of their helmet) and illegal hits with the helmet head-to-head impact.”

Mr. Shepard: Now to resting and people that are competitive athletes. Can we overdo it? What about getting the proper amount of rest?

Dr. Yurubi: “Rest is very, very important … especially right before a tournament. So, you're working out and exercising a lot before the tournament. It's very important to be able to rest a couple of days before some sort of big competition. It's very important to rest after the competition. A lot of teams will have the day off the next day. Also, it’s very important to rest during transitioning between seasons. It’s also very important to rest when you're having any kind of overuse injuries, any kind of stress injuries, any kind of tendonitis. So, rest in general is extremely important.”