Prepare or Repair: Athletes of All Ages Need Preseason Training

It wasn’t long ago that everyone was wondering when we were going to be able to enjoy our favorite sports again. In my house, they were replaced by baking sourdough bread and gardening while on quarantine. Who would have guessed that after a dismal spring and summer, the stars would finally align and bring about a sports lover’s event of a lifetime?

A sports equinox occurs when all four major sports — the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL — all play on the same day! This has only occurred 19 times in sports history. On Sept. 10, 2020, we experienced a super sports equinox! In addition to the four major professional sports, the WNBA, MLS, U.S. Open Tennis, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and college football all competed on the same day!

Now, while a pandemic requiring a dramatic restructuring of so many sports seasons is hardly desirable, the resumption of sports was something for which to be thankful. Although sports fans everywhere rejoiced, this may not have been ideal for athletes who were rushed through a “preseason” in order to get back to the field on schedule.

The NFL’s Week 2 injuries were record-setting. There were no offseason training activities or minicamps in May or June. Training camps were shorter and different in nature, and there were no preseason games. Jumping right into an NFL season without the usual preparation period may be a large contributing factor to the rash of early-season injuries.

Preseason preparation is critical for prevention of injury and enhancement of performance on the court, turf, ice or whatever the playing field might be. But, in order to prepare, you must first assess. What isn’t measured cannot be managed. We need to know where an athlete is in terms of strength and conditioning in order to set goals and prepare a proper training program. Historically, and not surprisingly, the Stanley Cup champion has been among the top five least-injured teams throughout their regular season. Additionally, with the exception of the Pittsburgh Penguins, none of the top five most-injured teams has had consistent success.

Man-games lost is a term that refers to the cumulative loss of players (primarily due to injury) for a sports team. It is analogous to the terms “games missed due to injury” or “games lost to injury” used in many professional sports. This statistic is keenly important to Stone Harbor resident Jim McCrossin, director of sports medicine and head athletic trainer for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Last season, the Flyers were among the teams with the fewest man-games lost throughout the league. McCrossin attributes this to extensive preseason assessment and personalized training. One of the tools the Flyers use as an adjunct to preseason assessments is a system of intricately designed wearable sensors and artificial intelligence.

I had the opportunity to speak with Jim and he shared the following:

“In the old days, sports performance assessments in general were almost exclusively quantitative. For example, how fast do they run? How high do they jump? How far do they jump? Athletes would then train hard to perform the same activities but to exceed their baseline metrics. Any undesirable movement patterns the athlete used would only be enhanced. The athlete might peak prematurely or, worse yet, endure an unnecessary injury. We could eyeball their form or technique and make some training adjustments, but that was limited.

“Now, with evolving technology, we can easily compile countless quantitative and qualitative metrics associated with sports performance and can have a greater impact on performance and injury prevention. The Equilibrium System, by Vayu Tech, allows us to understand how well or poorly an athlete produces force; how quickly they produce force; how well they absorb force; what the quality of their movement looks like, and countless other valuable metrics.

“Understanding ‘how’ the activity is being performed and flagging undesirable compensatory patterns allows us to address any issues with corrective exercises or other necessary interventions. This gives the athlete the best opportunity to achieve peak performance while minimizing risk for injury.”

Seeing how much injuries can affect a team’s performance just reinforces the importance of being able to identify risk and develop programs to keep athletes healthy and performing at their peak.

This assessment process and preseason preparation should not be reserved exclusively for the pros. In fact, McCrossin believes that applying this technology to younger athletes could be extremely valuable for identifying issues before they become issues for the individual or their team.

Sports injuries are the leading cause of emergency-room visits for children and adolescents. This doesn’t even take into account the injuries seen by primary care physicians or unreported injuries. The leading risk factors predisposing young athletes to injury are early sport specialization, imbalance of strength or joint range of motion, anatomical malalignment, and intense training during periods of growth. Many of these factors can be easily mitigated with proper assessment and appropriate training activities and volume.

As children’s bodies change during puberty, the last thing we want to do is overly stress new movement patterns. Young women, in particular, can go through a drastic change in the structure of their pelvis during puberty. Widening of the pelvis, which comes with maturing, will change the angle at which the femur leaves the hip socket (Q-angle) and in turn the mechanical pull of the quadriceps muscle on the patella (knee cap). This adversely effects normal up-and-down tracking of the kneecap and renders it less stable. Over time, this can cause microtrauma to the cartilage on the back of the kneecap that leads to pain, often known as anterior knee pain, patellofemoral pain, or chondromalacia patella. In extreme cases, the unstable patella may “come out of its socket.” A proper biomechanics assessment of female athletes can identify those who may be at risk of such instability. Appropriate intervention and education can take place and the athlete can be put at ease that this is just part of maturing.

Whether it’s youth baseball, high school soccer or club pickleball, athletes of every age must be prepared for participation in their sport to perform at their best and minimize risk of injury. Preparation should include assessment by a trained professional. So, the next time a super sports equinox comes around, hopefully there is a better reason for it and we will all be more prepared. Just don’t look directly at the super sports equinox, you could go blind. Or is that the super sports eclipse? I always confuse the two.