|
|
PHYSICIANS PHYSICAL THERAPY SERVICE
WWW.FREEDOMOFMOTION.COM
|
|
Healthy Times Newsletter
| May 2010
|
|
|
|
(From left to right) Allison Merrit, PT, DPT, ATC; Heidi Erpelding, PT; Laura Carroll, PT.  |
|
|
Triathletes, on Your Mark..Whoa
RICK MOTTER remembers the first twinge.
He was about to finish first in his age group at the Reeds Lake Triathlon in
East Grand Rapids, Mich., when, after swimming a half-mile and biking 17.2
miles, a younger competitor began to surge by him at the end of the 4.9-mile
running portion of the race.
"I thought, 'Well, that's not going to happen,' and I sprinted really hard -
that's when I felt it," said Mr. Motter, 61, a manufacturing plant manager from
Plainwell, Mich., who began competing in triathlons three years ago when his
doctor told him he needed to reduce his cholesterol.
Soon the twinge in his right ankle evolved into severe pain, severe enough
that he wound up in physical therapy with Achilles tendinitis. "A lot of my
triathletes end up here because they do way too much too soon," said Scott
Miller, Mr. Motter's physical therapist.
As more casual athletes like Mr. Motter sign up for triathlons, the sport
has seen a corresponding rise in injuries. The newcomers are particularly
injury-prone, doctors say, because of the rigors of training simultaneously for
swimming, bicycling and running.
Paradoxically, many people move from a single sport to triathlons because of
the oft-heard promise that adding variety to their exercise regimen will reduce
injuries. The theory is that the three sports work different muscles, ideally
minimizing the strain on any single muscle set. For runners in particular,
adding biking and swimming to their repertory means less pounding against
pavement.
But in practice, people who take up triathlons tend to train harder, adding
rigors to their workouts without necessarily subtracting anything. Thus, the
idea that people can reduce their chance of injury by competing in triathlons
may be a fallacy.
"That's been a throwaway line for quite a long time," said Dr. Joshua Burns,
a researcher and podiatrist at the University
of Sydney in Australia, who
has studied the nature of triathletes' injuries. "As humans, we try to do as
much as we can to be the best we can," he said. "So if we're just running and
doing 10 hours of workouts a week and we switch to triathlons, now we'll try to
work out 20 hours a week. It's like a bottomless cup. You can't do enough, and
people end up breaking down."
His study of 131 triathletes in Sydney
found the same basic result that other studies have over the years: that
triathletes suffer as many injuries, if not more, than people who just run -
and certainly more injuries than people who just swim or bike.
"What we have to compare it to other sports is the injury rate, and
triathletes have one of the highest incidence rates of any sport," Dr. Burns
said. "So there is a compound effect" of doing all three activities in
triathlons.
Despite, or perhaps because of, their punishing nature, triathlons are
becoming more popular. The two main organizing bodies in the United States,
USA Triathlon and the World Triathlon Corporation, which puts on the famed
Ironman contests, both report that the number of events they sponsor has nearly
doubled over the last five years, as has the number of people who sign up. (The
World Triathlon Corporation has 40 events next year, up from 17 in 2006.)
Those numbers have continued to increase despite news coverage of at least
26 people dying during triathlons from 2004 to 2008, with 21 of those deaths
occurring during the swimming segment of the races. The death of a contestant
in the 2008 Nautica New York City Triathlon did not seem to weaken interest:
registration for the 2009 event lasted 22 minutes before all the slots were
sold. For the 2010 race, the nearly 5,000 spots were spoken for in just six
minutes.
The health news for triathletes isn't all bad. Most of the dozen doctors, physical
therapists, coaches and athletes interviewed for this article said they had
seen fewer triathlon-related injuries than injuries related to other sports.
But they also said that newer triathletes suffered more injuries than more
experienced ones.
Mike Walther, 32, a computer engineer in Pittsburgh who has competed in triathlons for
two years, had an accident during bicycle training and is recovering from a
broken collarbone. (It's an injury that one physical therapist called "a
triathlete's rite of passage" because of how common it is among newcomers.)
Mr. Walther had been a competitive swimmer and a recreational cyclist before
a friend persuaded him to begin running, which led him to triathlons. "I don't
look at my shoulder injury as related to my triathlon training," he said. "It
could have happened on a Saturday recreational bike ride. My friends with more
experience in triathlons tell me I'm lucky to have suffered the injury so early
in my career, because I'm just starting out and haven't been set back much."
Even the most experienced triathletes are not immune to injury. Paula
Newby-Fraser, 47, who has won the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii eight times, was
at her peak in 1993 when, she said, she decided to increase her training. It
was then she sustained a stress fracture in a foot.
"I thought, 'If this much gets me through, then that much more will get
this,' " she said, "If riding 100 miles a week was good, then 200 miles a
week will make me that much faster."
Ms. Newby-Fraser has a name for this mind-set. "I call it athletic
greediness, and that's what a lot of new athletes coming in to it do and get
injured," she said.
Doctors, therapists and coaches say the most common injuries among
triathletes come from overtraining, usually in the legs from running and
cycling. Typical problems are stress fractures, injuries to the Achilles
tendons and knees, and iliotibial band syndrome, which causes pain in the thigh
or knee region. But doctors also see plenty of swimming-related injuries: many
a new triathlete has overtrained in the pool and hurt a shoulder's rotator
cuff.
Triathletes are prone to "everything that a swimmer, runner or cyclist
gets," said Dr. Andrew Hunt, medical director for USA Triathlon.
Doctors and coaches point out that the sport is still new, and there is
still time for it to live up to its cross-training purpose. The first modern
triathlon was held in 1974, and the Ironman competition began in 1978. The
recent surge in popularity has put the sports medicine community on a fast
learning curve as it tries to address the injury problem.
One lesson - that less is more - has come through loud and clear. At the
coaching certification clinics run by USA Triathlon, instructors drive home the
point that while there are benefits to doing 10 to 12 workouts a week, maybe
triathletes don't need to run as far some days, that a day off is more than
good for the soul, and that putting more time on the bike and in the pool can
make up for one day fewer spent running.
"You don't build your fitness while in a workout, you build while in rest
mode," said Mary Delaney, a physical therapist, triathlete and certified coach.
"As your whole self and cardiac systems need to recover, you've also got to let
your muscles and tendons recover, too."
Mr. Motter, the triathlete in Michigan,
said his Achilles tendinitis was a result of overtraining and not stretching
properly, according to his doctors. He said that working with a physical
therapist, modifying his workouts and stretching more over the last year have
helped.
Yet, in typical triathlete fashion, he has never really stopped exercising
to recover. "I have a hard time taking off," he said. "I just enjoy the effort
and activity so much, and right now the pain has been bearable."
Written by Sean D. Hamill, New York Times. Published November 24, 2009
|
Can Physical Therapy Help New Moms Avoid Baby Blues?
Physical therapy may offer
some new mothers protection against postpartum depression, a small study from
researchers at the University
of Melbourne's
Physiotherapy Department suggests. The study included 161 women who had
recently given birth and had no previous history of depression. Roughly half  of
participants were assigned to an experimental group that participated in an
eight week mother and baby physical therapy course that also incorporated
parenting education; the other half of participants were assigned to a control
group given only the written educational materials featured in the course.
Before the study began, after the eight-course, and a month after the course
was completed, participants' psychological well being, depressive symptoms and
physical activity were assessed.
Based on the results of the psychological well
being and depressive symptoms assessments (measured using the Positive Affect
Balance Scale and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, respectively),
researchers found that women who had participated in the program incorporating
physical therapy showed a 50% reduction in risk for preliminary symptoms of
postpartum depression. What's more, the researchers found that the physical
therapy benefits persisted a month after the course had ended.
While the
results are promising, researchers emphasize that the findings, published in
the journal Physical Therapy, are preliminary and that additional
research is necessary to confirm the benefits of physical therapy for new
mothers-and determine whether those benefits would persist beyond three months.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
