Four Tales

 This will be four tales in one.  The first one is about me, so let’s get that out of the way.

Lots of people have asked how I’m doing after my little bike wreck. It’s been a couple of weeks now since I had broken ribs, a collapsed lung, chest tube, and hospitalization. Although I’m not quite up to speed yet, I’m a fully functioning adult individual. 

I will be back on the bicycle (soon) but because of the scare that I gave my poor wife, I am being a good patient and not pushing my return as hard as I might. The head says stay off the bike until my lung and ribs are healed up. The heart says climb back on that horse and ride.

My second story is similar in that it is all about the decision to return to sport.  I talked recently with a parent of an athlete about concussions.  Her son has had a series of concussions and, as a family, is considering giving up sports.

To me, abandoning sports altogether is a mistake. However, at this point, with several concussions under his belt, continuing to participate in contact sports is not wise. He’s too young. But sports participation (as I’ve said many, many times) can be a huge part of a young person’s development. The key then becomes to find a sport that is safer.

The third story is about a young athlete that has possibly torn her ACL (MRI results are pending—we may know by now). She has done everything right up to this point. Focusing on strength training and skills acquisition and not just throwing a ball out and start playing. 

But in a game, she got bumped and probably landed awkwardly.  And, just like that, she has an injury that athletes everywhere fear.

What could she have done? Well, that ties me in to my fourth and final story of the day. There is a young friend of mine who is a physical therapist in Austria, working for Red Bull. Before that, she spent three years with the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA, where her primary focus was on preventing ACL injuries.

Part of her training was a Ph.D. in Biomechanics from the University of Delaware, where her studies focused on ACL prevention. It’s fair to say that she is one of the leading authorities on the subject.

But on June 17, 2021, she tore her own ACL playing Australian Rules Football.  Her first reaction was “how can this happen to me?”  She then started self-analyzing and came up with answers that can help us all.

We know that ACL injuries are much more frequent in females than in males. Part of this may be hormonal but a bigger part can be how we prepare for sport, particularly in the weight room.  Athletes need to be stronger but a major component of that strength needs to be functional, basically how we move our bodies through space, how we deal with different playing surfaces, and things like changing direction quickly.

How the foot hits the ground is also a factor. Pronators and those with flat feet may be more prone to ACL injury.  One of the factors that impacted my young friend was that she entered the game already fatigued. Since more injuries occur late in the game, when we are fatigued, that can’t be ignored as a factor.

Dealing with that means working toward a high level of fitness so that late game fatigue is less of a factor.  That’s something you can take care of in your preparation.

All of that just leads me to one conclusion:  That what you do in preparation for your sport can be more important than playing your sport. And it just makes sense that if you’re healthier, you’re going to be better when the game does start.