We’ve both been around elite athletics and the science of training and rehabilitation for years. Rarely does an idea come to our attention that is completely new. Earthing is such an idea. Earthing also called grounding, is sleeping with a blanket that is electrically grounded. The idea being that an exchange of electrons occurs between [...]
Cameron Marshall recently completed a review of sports concussion. The author begins with a review of the current state of affairs; that 90% of concussions do not result in a loss of consciousness, that they account of 8.2% of all high school sports injuries, that 50% of concussions are from football players, that 12.6% of [...]
Hyperbaric chambers have been used to increase oxygen rates above normal. The benefits of oxygen have long been disputed. By this point, it is well established that a rugby or American football player breathing from an oxygen tank at the side-lines will have no effect on the player’s physiology. Hyperbaric exposure, especially chronically, on the [...]
We’ve discussed concussion and head trauma more than once on this site (here, here and here for example). Gavet et al 2011 discuss the little understood nature of CTE, or the accumulation of concussive and sub-concussive forces upon a brain. After a discussion of the gross and micro anatomical changes observed in ex-athletes who had [...]
Cold water immersion (CWI) has been used a recovery method since man began to exercise. Ancient Chinese, Greek, Russian, Indian and Persian athletes, soldiers and monks all made use of it and cited it repeatedly in their texts as a method of recovery. Today, we look for measurable evidence rather than simply repeating what our [...]
As shown previously on this site, (here, here and here) concussion is a serious threat to athletic development and can plague athletes years after they have retired from sport. Post-concussion syndrome, as in the case of linebacker Ted Johnson, can lead to a very dark place and can create a legacy of pain and havoc. [...]
Torres et al. (2012) published a systematic review of various interventions and modalities used to decrease delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS). Most DOMS occurs during the eccentric portion of the lift; lengthening under load appears to cause sufficient microtrauma to the muscle as to cause significant pain after the workout. Concentric work seems to have [...]
When we wrote a number of months back about over-reaching and over-training, we indicated that over-reaching happens quite often in elite level sport (between training, physical preparation and competition) but that it should be differentiated from over-training. Subjective accounts from over-trained athletes indicate that they have invested thousands of hours into their training without significant performance [...]