Category Archives: Uncategorized

What Is Proprioception Injury Prevention?

Proprioception injury prevention is simply using your body’s sense of orientation to prevent an injury. Thinking about how you’re moving, what’s around you, and your position can help you stay clear of acute injuries.

Acute sports injuries are some of the most painful injuries for an athlete. An injury is physically painful. But, it can be emotionally painful as well as you’re sidelined for days and even months until you recover. Often the result of accidents, acute injuries are not 100% preventable. However, knowing where you are in space and what’s around you, as well as how you’re moving and your positioning can help reduce the risk of an acute injury. This is what’s called proprioception injury prevention.

The medical community defines proprioception as:

The ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium. Even if a person is blindfolded, he or she knows through proprioception if an arm is above the head or hanging by the side of the body.

What exactly does this mean? Essentially, proprioception is the reason you can touch your nose without having to look in the mirror. More than that, however, it’s the reason you can move quickly when dodging another player or quickly correct yourself when you’re losing balance. Or, your ability to sense a change when running on pavement to hitting the trail. Of course, the more agility and mobility you have allows you to move even quicker. But, it’s proprioception that starts the entire process without you even thinking about it.

Proprioception Injury Prevention

Instability is one of the greatest causes of injuries in sports. It can be caused accidentally, as in the case of avoiding a collision with another player and losing your balance. Or, it can be caused by lack of strength, muscle imbalance, or joint instability. Instability and the risk of injury is increased tenfold when you’re having to balance on one leg, as is often the case in sports.

To avoid injury, improving balance and strength is only one part of the puzzle. According to a recent study of basketball players, “developing proprioception plays an important role in injury prevention.” This study followed a professional basketball team for 6 years, studying how proprioception, along with balance and strength training, affected their injury risk. It turns out that incorporating proprioception-specific exercises into the training program decreased the risk of ankle sprains by a whopping 81%. Athletes also reduced their lower back pain by almost 78% and knee sprains by 65%.

This one study shows the significance of proprioception in injury prevention.

Besides balance and awareness, proprioception is what helps you control your body movement. Without it, even walking becomes difficult. Imagine having to look at your legs as you walk and actively concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Running may seem impossible. However, with proprioception, you’re able to do this almost without thinking. And, with improving your proprioception, you’ll be able to do this more efficiently and with better positioning. This reduces your risk of injury.

Handpicked Content
Gait Training: Preventing Injury Through Your Feet
Prehab: What It Is and How To Do It
What Is Functional Strength Training?

How Proprioception Aids In Sports

It gives you better control over your body. In order to move quickly, accelerate and decelerate, change direction, balance, etc., you need to know how and when your body moves. Most importantly, you need control. The better your proprioception is, the better control you have over your body’s movements.
Your movement becomes more efficient, powerful, and strong. It takes a lot of energy to constantly correct movements or to move incorrectly and inefficiently. Moreover, with improved proprioception, you’ll eventually be moving correctly without too much concentration.
It improves your balance. This is particularly important when you need to balance on one leg or hop from leg to leg.
You’ll be able to adjust quickly to different surfaces. If you’re running on pavement and hit gravel, trained proprioception means that you’ll be able to adjust your balance and gait to avoid injury.
Lastly, you can perform multiple different actions at the same time without having to think about each one separately. As a basketball player, this means running and dribbling or shooting efficiently and precisely.

Improving Your Proprioception

There are many exercises you can do to improve proprioception. The point of doing exercises that work on proprioception is to improve spatial awareness, balance, and sense of movement and joint position. Most of these exercises are very similar to stability and balance training for instability.

One leg balance
3-way kick
Single leg squat
Crossover walk
BOSU balance exercises (squats, lunges, leg rotations).

You can include most of these exercises in your training without devoting an entire training to doing them. Include one or two exercises per workout and you’ll be on your way to improving your proprioception!

Pulled Groin Or Sports Hernia? How To Tell The Difference

Suddenly changing direction or doing intense twisting movements can result in many muscle strains, especially in the lower abdomen and groin area. But, is the strain just a pulled groin or sports hernia? Here’s how to tell the difference.

It’s one of the most painful moments of any athlete’s life. Doing a fast cut over during practice or twisting too much to avoid another player, suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your inner thighs and up into your groin. At first, you try to brush it off and continue on, but it doesn’t take long before squatting, running, twisting, and changing direction become difficult. Even walking becomes painful. Clearly, you’ve strained your groin – but, is this strain just a pulled groin or sports hernia?

Pulled Groin Or Sports Hernia? Which Is It?

Both a pulled groin and a sports hernia have similar symptoms. They both result in pain in the inner thighs up towards the groin. Both injuries result in pain that prevents you from moving normally while playing your sport. The pain can be so bad that it makes it difficult to walk up steps or walk at all.

Yet, pulled groins are a different injury than a sports hernia and require different treatment as well as prevention techniques.

Both injuries are common in sports that require a lot of single leg pushing or cutting such as basketball, soccer, football, figure skating, hockey, and skiing. Furthermore, they also are the result of putting too much stress on the muscles of your groin and thighs – muscles that are already in a lot of stress from the demands of your sport. Usually, they occur when the muscles are already tense, and you forcefully over-stretch the muscles or engage them too suddenly. This results in a strain or a complete tear.

Groin Pulls (Or Strains)

Groin pulls are quite common in soccer and hockey players, accounting for up to 10% of all injuries in those sports and up to 5% in all other sports. Even though a groin pull can happen accidentally, it’s also related to hip muscle strength, conditioning, warm-up routine and flexibility, and previous injury.

A pulled groin (or groin strain) is like any other muscle strain. It’s when you tear or rupture one of your groin muscles during movement. The most common groin muscle strained is one of the hip adductors, which is usually the adductor longus. However, a pulled groin can also happen in any of the adductor muscles – adductor brevis, longus, magnus, pectineus and gracilis.

The Symptoms of a Strained Groin:

It’s difficult to life your leg and walk upstairs.
You have pain and tenderness in the groin, which usually first occurred suddenly while moving.
When you stretch your groin muscles, you have pain.
It’s painful or difficult to squeeze your thighs.
You have pain when walking to the side.

Your treatment depends on the severity of your strained groin, which is broken into three grade levels.

Grade 1 – a mild injury, which takes up to two weeks to heal.
Grade 2 – a moderate injury, which affects your ability to move and play your sport and can take up to 10 weeks of recovery.
Grade 3 – a severe injury that most likely will require surgery and take several months to heal completely.

Sports Hernias

Sports hernias mimic the symptoms of a pulled groin, yet they are a separate condition of the groin muscles. Essentially, if you have a chronic pulled groin, chances are that you have a sports hernia.

A sports hernia is a core muscle injury where your abdominal wall is weakened and torn from repetitive strain and stress. The tears are particularly concentrated in the muscles surrounding the hips, such as the groin. According to the American Physical Therapy Association,

Repetitive hip and pelvic motions typical in sports can cause injury to the lower abdominal area. Imbalances between the hip and abdominal muscles can, over time, cause overuse and injury. Weakness and lack of conditioning in the abdominals also might contribute to the injury.

The Symptoms of a Sports Hernia

You have chronic groin pain, or seem to constantly “pull your groin”.
You have pain while doing abdominal crunches.
It’s painful to run, spring, cut, pivot, kick or twist; it’s a sharp pain concentrated in the groin region.
Like a pulled groin, it’s usually isolated to one side of the groin.
Pain radiates down into the inner thigh and may even occur with coughing and sneezing.

Sports hernias are very similar to pulled groins, but the biggest differences are that it chronic groin pain and pain is felt in the abs as well.

Treating And Avoiding Strained Groins And Sports Hernias

Treating and preventing strained groins and sports hernias follows that of any muscle strain.

Use the RICE treatment.
Avoid movements that cause more pain in the area until your groin is fully healed.
Gently stretch the area and eventually strengthen it.
See a specialist that can help you both recover from your pulled groin and prevent it from happening in the future.
Do a dynamic warm up before activity to prevent extra strain.
Work on range of motion and correct posture during each and every movement.

Like any injury, strained groins and sports hernias need time to heal. It’s particularly important to allow your body time to recover from a groin strain and sports hernia. If you don’t recover fully, you’re more likely to injury it again.

Sprains, Strains, And Muscle Tears: The Complete Guide

"<yoastmark

Sprains, strains, and tears – they’re equally painful and can force you to take a break from your sport. They’re very similar injuries and have similar causes. Yet, these injuries are different and affect different parts of the body. Sprains are tears that happen in the ligaments when you overstretch, torque, or otherwise overstress in some way a ligament. A strain on the other hand (or a pulled muscle) is overstretching a muscle and can result in an actual muscle tear or tear in the tendon.

Usually, sprains, strains, and tears have one cause in common – they’re usually caused by an acute accident. The leg is overextended, causing a strain in the thigh muscle. The knee is jolted cause a sprain in the ligaments. Or, you change direction too fast causing a tear in your calf muscle. These injuries are common for athletes and are usually not too severe. However, this doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Learning the difference between sprains, strains, and tears can help you better treat it so you can recover quickly.

What Are Sprains?

Sprains are simply the overstretching and tearing of ligaments. The most common type of sprain is an ankle sprain. Rolling your ankle, changing direction quickly, or stepping on your ankle the wrong way can all lead to a sprain. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), sprains are classified into three levels of severity:

Grade 1 sprain (mild): Slight stretching and some damage to the fibers (fibrils) of the ligament.
Grade 2 sprain (moderate): Partial tearing of the ligament. There is abnormal looseness (laxity) in the joint when it is moved in certain ways.
Grade 3 sprain (severe): Complete tear of the ligament. This causes significant instability and makes the joint nonfunctional.

Symptoms of a sprain include pain, swelling, lack of mobility in the joint, or even hearing or feeling a pop at the time of injury. Pain will usually increase between each level severity. For example, if you have a mild ankle sprain, you might be able to walk on it with a little pain. However, if the ankle sprain is severe, you probably won’t be able to put any weight on it at all without intense pain. You also won’t be able to move your ankle if it’s a severe sprain resulting in a tear.

Although not serious, if not treated, sprains can lead to muscle imbalances that can contribute to more pain and even injury. Most of the time, and depending on the severity of the sprain, RICE is the best treatment. For moderate sprains, you may need a brace and some severe sprains may even require surgery to repair any tears, according to the AAOS.

Sprains are not always preventable if the cause was an acute accident. However, many times, sprains are caused by instability and lack of proper muscle training. By properly strengthening your supporting muscles, working on positioning and sports-centric movements, along with flexibility and stability training, many sprains can be prevented.

What Are Strains?

A strain is very similar to a sprain, but it’s an injury to the muscle and/or tendons as opposed to the ligaments. The most at-risk parts of the body for a strain are the foot, leg, and back. Like a sprain, a strain is the overstretching of a muscle and/or tendon. It can be stretched so far that it actually results in a tear.

Strains are often the result of misalignment and poor posture. This is especially true if you’ve strained your back. Lifting incorrectly or slipping and falling can cause what’s called an acute strain. However, chronic strains can occur during any movement or exercise that is prolonged or repetitive, such as baseball, tennis, and golf. According to the AAOS, sports that require quick movements put athletes at high risk of strains.

Soccer, football, hockey, boxing, wrestling and other contact sports put athletes at risk for strains, as do sports that feature quick starts, such as hurdling, long jump, and running races. Gymnastics, tennis, rowing, golf and other sports that require extensive gripping, have a high incidence of hand sprains. Elbow strains frequently occur in racquet, throwing, and contact sports.

Strains, like sprains, are treated with RICE. However, to prevent further injury, you should follow up any RICE treatment with specific exercises targeted for strengthening the area that’s now been weakened by the strain.

Muscle Tears – A Strain Gone Too Far

Muscle tears are the result of a strain that’s gone too far to the point of tearing the muscle. However, it’s not just a muscle that can tear but your tendon and ligaments as well. A sprain that’s serious enough can end in your ligament tearing.

While a sprain occurs from a joint being forced into an unnatural position – like twisting your ankle – a tear to the ligament occurs when that position becomes even worse. Similarly, a strain that results in a tear is when the muscles are overstretched to the point of tearing. When your muscles are put under stress, microtears happen. These microtears happen during weightlifting and usage, which is why you’ll often feel sore after workouts. However, the larger tears are ones that occur from over-straining the muscles.

The symptoms of a muscle tear are pain in the muscle, muscle tightness, a bruised feeling, weakness, and the inability to fully stretch out the muscle.

Usually, injuries to the muscles are the result of muscle imbalances, and poor training and conditioning, as well as improper use. Treatment for a muscle tear or ligament tear varies depending on severity. Often, ligament tears result in stabilization, elevation, and sometimes surgery. Muscle tears can usually heal on their own through the RICE treatment unless it’s serious enough to require a brace.

Preventing Sprains, Strains, and Tears

Sometimes, it’s impossible to prevent injuries 100% of the time. After all, accidents do happen – even to the best and strongest of us all. However, there are some things you can do to make you less vulnerable to sprains, strains, and tears. Working on muscle imbalances, strengthening the right muscles, and making sure your moving properly will help lower your risk of these injuries. Figuring out where your vulnerabilities lie is important for any injury prevention.

Do you have weak hips or a weak core? How about your balance and stability? Do your joints have full mobility and range of motion? All these things contribute to injury prevention. If you want to prevent an injury, look at where you might have weaknesses and work to close those gaps.

Are Your Shoes Causing You Running Pain?

You’ve checked your running form and your feet. All seems well, yet you still have running pain. Have you checked your shoes? Even if you think you have the most supportive and top-of-the-line running shoes, they may still be giving you problems.

Running pain could be the result of many things, from an oncoming to injury to muscle imbalance. While you might be tempted to think the worse, it could simply be due to what you’re wearing on your feet.

In fact, new studies show that your running shoes are linked more than ever to the way you run. This means that your shoes may actually be changing the way you run, contributing to your pain from running as well as raising your risk of injury.

Comfy Isn’t Always The Answer To Running Pain

You know the feeling: mile after mile of being on your feet, pounding the pavement, and they start to hurt. The pain isn’t necessarily from having bad feet, i.e. flat feet or weak arches. You know it’s simply from putting weight on your feet for hours.

Your feet hurt, so you head to the shoe store to find the most comfortable running shoe. One that is cushioned and give enough bounce to take the edge off. However, a new study on the Hoka Conquest shoe – one of the most cushioned shoes on the market – recently discovered that this cushioning and forced bounce might actually be contributing to running injuries and pain. The study found that runners who had a more cushioned shoe were more likely to have shin splints and stress fractures than those who ran in a less bouncy and cushioned shoe.

The reason? Cushioned and bouncy shoes change the way runners are running.

The more cushioned the shoe, the more “false” bounce it creates. This bounce alters the natural bounce a runner has while running. When you run, your legs are naturally creating a bounce through the movements of the knees and feet. To run, you bend your knees and ankles to create the bouncing movement and roll your foot from heel to toe to push forward. However, when you add something unnatural into the mix – like extra bounciness from a shoe – you change your natural running stride. This is what could be contributing to your pain and oncoming injuries.

A Bouncier Shoe = Less Control

The bouncier the shoe, the more likely it is that you won’t be bending your knees and ankles as you should create the bounce since your shoe is doing it for you. The researchers found that those runners with a more cushioned shoe had stiffer legs while running, inhibiting their ability to run correctly and run naturally.

Moreover, the more cushion that’s provided in the shoe, the harder it is to feel your foot placement on the pavement. Without feeling where your foot is landing, you could be rolling your foot without knowing it, landing on the wrong part of the foot. You might also be landing incorrectly.

Although adding cushion to your shoe might help take the edge off of those long miles, it might actually be masking some running form and stride problems until it’s too late.

Your Shoes Are Too Supportive

You’ve probably experienced it before or at least know someone who knows someone who’s experienced it. Shin splints are plaguing you. Plantar fasciitis is reoccurring. Your ankles are also in pain. Instead of heading to a physical therapist, podiatrist, or orthopedic doctor to figure out the problem, you head to a running shoe store. These stores often have “foot experts” who put you through tests that conclude – yep, you have a pronation problem. The answer? Get a more supportive shoe.

So, you get the most supportive shoe on the market. And, the problem gets worse.

This is because a supportive shoe isn’t always the answer. Although your diagnosis might be correct – maybe you do have a pronation problem – support isn’t always the answer. Many times, it’s training your foot to land correctly that’s going to correct your problems.

Furthermore, too supportive of shoes means a stiff shoe. Stiffness means not being able to control your gait. Lack of gait control can lead to more problems than shin splints and ankle pain. It could lead to knee pain and even hip injuries and lower back pain.

When you opt for a more supportive shoe, you’re merely masking the problem of incorrect running form and gait. By training your body to run naturally and correctly and training your feet to land properly, you’ll actually be solving the problem and not merely creating a quick fix.

Handpicked Content:
Running Tips From A Physical Therapist
An Inside Look At Physical Therapy And Running
What Is The Alter-G Anti-Gravity Treadmill?

Get A Proper Diagnosis

If you’re having running the pain, your best option is to get a proper medical diagnosis. Yes, heading to a doctor or physical therapist seems unnecessary if you can still run. After all, it’s just a little pain, right? “Let’s just try the minimal approach first,” you think. However, by not getting someone to look at the whole picture – i.e., your biomechanics, your gait, everything – you’re just delaying the inevitable – more pain and injury.

Before you go buy a new running shoe, have a physical therapist look at the problem first to determine if it really is your feet that’s the problem.

Hip Pain? You Might Have This Injury

In most sports, the hips take their fair share of a beating. From direct impacts to overuse to twisting, hip pain is no stranger to the athlete. For an athlete, hip pain can be the result of many causes or conditions, from muscle strain to chronic conditions.

If you’re an athlete, then you’re probably no stranger to pain. You put your body through the wringer each and every day at practice and at training. From normal muscle usage soreness to outright acute injuries, you almost expect pain as an athlete. It seems like a normal part of playing sports. Indeed, sports can lead to much pain and many injuries; yet, that doesn’t necessarily make it normal. Nor does it mean you shouldn’t do anything about it. This is no more true than with hip pain.

Along with the feet, the hips are probably the most used and abused part of the body. They help stabilize your lower body, enabling you to twist and turn in sometimes unnatural ways. They allow you to move your legs forward to backward and side to side. Without your hips, you wouldn’t even be able to sit down.

The way hips are used, especially for athletes, pain tends to be quite common. And, as much as you use your hips in everyday movements, you can feel that pain even when you’re not playing your sport. Hip pain can be a real killer and prevent you from moving efficiently. And, make no mistake about it, but hip pain can affect any athlete, not just the ones that play impact sports. Even swimmers can get a hip injury.

There are many causes of hip pain for athletes, and it doesn’t just come from a traumatic injury. Some hip pain is caused by less dramatic injuries, which makes it harder to spot early on and catch before that hip pain becomes a full-blown injury.

Pulling Your Groin

Ouch. Even reading it can make you twinge with imaginative pain. Although groin pulls are more common in high impact sports and sports that require a lot of leg lifting – think figure skating or ballet – you can pull your groin just by walking. Yes, that’s right, even walking can cause a pulled groin if your adductors are not strong enough or your torque it just right. If you have pain in the front of the hip and down the inner thigh, even right at the groin, chances are you pulled or strained it.

Many times, a simple strain can be fixed by taking a little time off from the activity that gives you pain. Doing the RICE treatment may also help. However, once you pull your groin, chances are you’ll do it again. This is because more often than not, a pulled groin is due to weak hip muscles and weak core muscles. Moreover, if it wasn’t from trauma, it’s due to bad positioning.

Preventing A Pulled Groin Muscle

Doing a dynamic warm-up that properly gets you moving, including dynamic stretches and drills.
Work on your lateral hip muscles and core strength. A strong core enables you to have a stable base, which supports your hip muscles and all movements.
Strengthen your thigh muscles, especially the inner thigh, as well as your glutes. All of which support hip movement.
Practice sports-specific drills that mimic the movements of your sports, such as cutting and sprinting – both of which can cause groin pulls.
Be aware of how you move, called proprioception. Having a strong sense of how your body is moving will help you engage the right muscles when you need them so that you have the support you need to avoid an injury.

Labral Tear In The Hips

Your hip joint has a cartilage that lines it for cushioning and to prevent too much stress to the bone during movement. This cartilage is called labrum cartilage and you can tear it through repetitive use or during a sports accident. Sudden twisting or falling can result in a labral tear. Labral tears are quite common in sports that require a lot of sudden movement, starting and stopping, such as soccer, hockey and football. It’s also common in figure skaters.

Like a pulled groin, you’ll feel pain in the groin and hips, especially when twisting. You might even feel a clicking or snapping feeling when the hips are in motion.

Similar to groin pulls, the best medicine is rest and RICE, as well as physical therapy.

Preventing Labral Hip Tears

Many prevention techniques for hip labral tears are the same as groin pulls, in addition to the following tips.

Work on your mobility for your lower body. This means making sure you’re adequately strong from the lower core down to your feet.
You also want to make sure you’re moving properly. Slow down any movements of your sport during drills so that you can work on posture.
Maintain flexibility in the hips, groin, and hamstrings, which circles back to mobility.

Handpicked Content:
Gait Training For Preventing Injuries
How To Prevent Injuries With Core Stability Training
Ice Vs Heat: When To Use Each One

Hip Bursitis

Hip bursitis is something most runners expect to get as it’s so common. In fact, if you’re a runner, chances are you’ve known somebody or know of somebody who suffers from it. Hip bursitis is simply inflammation of the hip bursa, which cases pain and irritation in the hips. It’s mostly caused by overuse. It’s tell-tale symptom is pain in the upper thigh and hip joint and can get so bad that it sidelines you completely from sports.

You’ll need to fully recover from this one before heading back out on a run, or it’ll just come back to haunt you.

Three Things You Can Do For Hip Bursitis

Hip Bursitis Prevention

Like the other hip injuries listed, the best way to prevent bursitis is through hip strengthening and flexibility. It can’t be stress enough the importance of proper hip movement and functioning, which comes from properly strengthened muscles that support the joint.

Piriformis Syndrome In Athletes

It’s a pain in the butt – quite literally. Piriformis syndrome causes pain in the buttocks as well as can cause sciatica. The syndrome is the result of a tight piriformis, the muscle that runs from the sacrum to the outer hip. Alternatively, a shortened piriformis can also cause the pain. You may think that it’s impossible for muscles to shorten. However, the piriformis can shorten if you have bad sleeping posture or stand with one hip jutted out.

Piriformis syndrome is often mistaken for lower back pain, even though lower back pain can be caused by this syndrome. Your relief and treatment can come from manual therapy as well as physical therapy. You’ll need to work on alignment as well as strengthening.

Preventing Piriformis Syndrome

Take up a proper sleeping position.
Work on your alignment.
Stretch and strengthen your piriformis.

Hip Pain And Physical Therapy

With any pain, especially if you’re an athlete, it’s important to get it checked out. You want to make sure you know the direct cause of the pain so that you can treat it in the best way. By simply guessing what the problem is, you could be headed for even more pain or injury. Furthermore, you could be putting more stress elsewhere on the body if you’re treating your pain improperly.

Physical therapy doesn’t just work for the injured. It also works for those in pain. Physical therapists will create a treatment program based on the diagnosis of your pain.

3 Things You Can Do To For Hip Bursitis

If you’re suffering from hip pain it could be caused by an injury such as hip bursitis. It affects many athletes, especially runners and those in running-oriented sports. With specific exercises and stretches, or through physical therapy, you can treat hip bursitis.

If you’re a runner or participate in running-oriented sports like soccer and football, then chances are you’ve had some hip pain in some form. Maybe it hasn’t been painful enough to make you deal with it. Yet, leaving hip pain untreated can lead to more serious injury. More importantly, however, it can prevent you from doing what you love.

While hip pain can lead to a serious injury, it may also be a symptom of an injury. Hip bursitis is a common problem among athletes that do a lot of running. Its tell-tale symptom? Pain in the upper thigh and hip joint. Left untreated, hip bursitis can prevent you from running and even walking due to the pain. Moreover, however, it could eventually lead to surgery if you do not take care of it right away.

What Is Hip Bursitis?

Each of your joints needs help moving smoothly and freely. Both muscles and tendons help your joints move efficiently, but it’s a fluid-filled sac between the joints that reduces friction and allows smooth motion. Similar to how things are easier to move across wet or icy surfaces, the sac – called the bursa sac – allows your joints to move easier and smoother.

There are two major bursae of the hip joint that can become inflamed and cause hip pain. One bursa sits right between the outside of the hip (where it’s most boney) and the tendon that passes over this area. Another bursa sits right on the inside of the hip near the grown. Bursitis is when this bursa becomes inflamed. Usually, the bursa on the outside of the hip is the most common area that gets inflamed. Pain results when then tendon passes over this area.

When you walk or run, or move your leg backward and forward, a tendon in your hip must pass over the bone with bursitis. This is why such simple tasks as walking become painful and difficult when you’re suffering from hip bursitis.

Overuse Through Running

Sometimes, hip bursitis is the result of an acute injury or surgery. However, in most cases, it’s simply caused by overuse and misuse. Runners experience hip pain related to bursitis quite frequently due to the high impact movement of moving the leg backward and forward. This is especially true for long-distance runners. However, those athletes that do a lot of sprinting, such as soccer and football, could also experience inflammation in the hip joint.

Although many people assume their hip pain is related to the injury, there are specific symptoms of hip bursitis. Pain is mostly concentrated where the bursa is located – the bony part of the upper/outer thing. Other symptoms include tenderness in that specific area as well as swelling and difficulty sleeping on the same side. Running, and even walking if the bursitis is left untreated, can be painful and difficult.

Even though your symptoms might match up with hip bursitis, you need to get a clear diagnosis as many other hip injuries and medical conditions have the same symptoms. Iliotibial band tendonitis, hip pointers, and low-back problems can all result in the same pain that hip bursitis produces. You would be better off to get an official diagnosis than treat it yourself. Leaving your bursitis or hip pain untreated or doing the wrong treatment could result in further injury.

Handpicked Content:
Your Guide To Overtraining Injuries
Joint Stability vs. Joint Mobility
Prehab: What It Is And How To Do It

Treating Hip Bursitis

Usually, the easiest way to treat hip bursitis is to avoid activities that make the symptoms worse. However, who wants to give up running if that’s the sport you love, or if it’s involved your sport? While avoiding such activities might not be possible, there are other options for managing bursitis and even lowering the risk of getting it.

As with many overuse injuries, the cause is repetitive stress with lack of adequate breaks. So, making sure you’re recovering is important to reduce your risk of hip bursitis. Furthermore, reducing the stress of the hip joint and tendons by making sure you supporting muscles are strong will also help.

Physical therapy works to increase hip strength and flexibility, as well as make sure the muscles that support your hips are functioning properly. Having a strong core as well as working on your thigh muscles helps your hips move more efficiently. When you have a strong core and thigh muscles, you’re recruiting supporting and stabilizing muscles to help your hips. It puts less stress on your hips, which leads to a lower risk of bursitis.

Exercises For Hip Pain

You should always get officially diagnosed if you have hip pain. Even if your symptoms are text-book bursitis – or any other hip condition – there could be something going on that’s the underlying reason for your pain for which you’re unaware. To have the best chance of success with treating your hip pain, you want to make sure you’re treating the right thing, which means getting an official diagnosis. A doctor, as well as a physical therapist, can diagnose you and put you on a treatment program.

For hip pain, however, you can find relief and even manage some of the pain with the following exercises. These are common exercises that are usually included in a therapy program for treating hip pain and hip bursitis.

Bridges use your supporting muscles for the hips – hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps. It’s done by lying on your back with your legs bent and your feet flat on the ground. While contracting your core – this is key – lift your hips and buttocks off the floor and sink down to the floor slowly. Repetitions vary depending on your therapy program, but you can do up to 5 sets of 20 reps.
Side Leg Raises strengthens another important supporting muscle, the iliotibial band. It helps with side leg motion. It may not make sense to strengthen this muscle when your pain is from moving your leg backward and forwards, which is why it’s often neglected. However, the IT band enhances the stability of the hip, as well as the knee. Lie on your side on the floor with your legs straight out from you at about 45 degrees. Lift your top leg up, extended fully with your quadriceps and core engaged. Lower it back down to the starting position. You can do up to 15 reps of 4 sets on each leg.
You can also add on in a similar fashion to Side Leg Raises, Leg Circles, which enhance your range of motion and strength. With this exercise, instead of lifting your leg up and down, you draw circles in the air with your foot. Do up to 10 reps of 2 sets for each leg.

How To Avoid Muscle Loss As You Age

Muscle loss is common as we age, usually starting in the 40s and declining faster in the 50s. It’s called sarcopenia. And, although it affects each and every one of us, doctors are still not certain why it happens. You can’t avoid it entirely, but there are things you can do to prevent some of the effects.

Most of us think of muscle loss happening when we’re in our 70s and 80s – the time of life when frailty and lack of independence overtake us. Indeed, although we feel invincible in our younger years, muscle loss will happen to us all. It’s only a matter of time. And, unfortunately for some us, it may happen sooner than later.

Muscle mass begins to decline, according to researchers, in the 40s and continues faster into the 50s. So, although you might not yet be “frail”, muscle loss is a concern for many of us. It makes it harder to run that 10k, enjoy taking care of the lawn, and eventually can cause bladder problems, among many other problems.

Doctors still don’t know why muscle loss happens. Yet, they do know that there are certain things you can do to prevent some of the effects. You can do this before it starts setting in and even when your muscle mass has already started to decline.

Understanding Muscle Loss

When you start to lose muscle mass as you age, it’s called sarcopenia. It’s fairly normal for everyone, but the rate of decline varies. And, it’s still frustrating nonetheless. While an avid runner may be able to knock out three miles in under 30 minutes in their youth, when sarcopenia sets it, it may take them longer.

Sarcopenia makes it difficult to move efficiently, enjoy exercise, recover from physical activity, and even recover from illness. Ultimately, it’ll make it difficult to have independence as you get older.

Usually, muscle loss is not something to be too concerned with if you’re already a healthy and active individual. However, if you live a fairly sedentary lifestyle with poor nutrition, you could be leading to massive life-changing muscle loss.

Doctors aren’t certain what causes sarcopenia. However, they do know that inactivity, poor nutrition, dietary inflammation and changes in hormones can all contributed to the condition. Hormonal changes, in particular, are most likely the culprit for aging women as they go through menopause around the same time that sarcopenia sets in.

Steps To Take In Preventing Sarcopenia

No, you can’t prevent muscle loss entirely. However, there’s plenty you can do today before sarcopenia sets in to prevent or lessen many of its effects. In fact, even if you are currently experiencing muscle loss, you can slow down its effects by following a healthier lifestyle.

What does this entail?

It means exercising frequently – at least 30 minutes a day. In a sedentary life, you should be active even more than 30 minutes a day. Depending on how much you sit, you should aim for at least 50 minutes as the human body was not made to be sedentary. Your muscles and heart need to work to maintain health and fitness. The more active you can be, the better. And, although the recommendation is made to at least walk, you should also incorporate some amount of resistance training – i.e., weight training – to really lessen the effects of sarcopenia.

Handpicked Content:
What Is Functional Strength Training?  
Smart Tips For Staying Active In Age

Nutrition is also another important factor in slowing the decline of muscle loss. Eating a high carb and high sugar diet causes a lot of inflammation in the body. As the body fights the inflammation, it causes it to work harder which makes the body function less efficiently. When the body has to work hardly than it needs to, it causes more stress on the muscles, which in turn can lead to a decline in muscle mass.

Furthermore, the muscles need nutrition to function efficiently. When you deprive your muscles of nutrition, it’s like depriving your body of oxygen. It becomes hard to function. Researchers believe that insufficient protein could be a contributing factor in sarcopenia. Eating enough protein from meat and fish, as well as rice and beans, can slow down the effects of muscle loss.

You need both nutrition and exercise to prevent the effects of muscle loss. The familiar saying “Use it or Lose it” is pretty accurate. So, use your muscles, exercising them properly, and eat right so that you don’t lose it.

Pain While Texting? It Could Be De Quervain’s

When it gets cold out, many people complain of pain in the wrist, fingers, and thumb when typing or texting. It’s called De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, and it affects more than your texting.

In 2018, Americans sent on average 27 billion texts per day. Yes, you read that right. On average, we as a nation sent almost 30 billion text per day, which equals out to about 94 texts per day per person. There were also 281 billion more emails sent worldwide. That’s a lot of typing and texting. With all that typing and texting, it’s no wonder that increasingly more people are complaining about pain in the fingers, wrist, and especially thumbs. This pain, when concentrated in the thumb and wrist area, is known as De Quervain’s tenosynovitis (or tendinosis).

Many people may think that they have arthritis or carpal tunnel. De Quervain’s can lead to those things if not treated. However, if you’re too young to have arthritis or carpal tunnel, the pain in your wrist and thumb is most likely from typing and texting too much.

What Is De Quervain’s?

Quite simply, De Quervain’s is inflammation of the tendons that run alongside the thumb side of the wrist. Doctors and medical researchers don’t know what causes the inflammation. More than likely, however, they think it’s due to overuse and misuse. Those who work in an office setting and spend a lot of time typing on computers may be at a higher risk of having De Quervain’s since you use your thumb and fingers to type, which are connected to your wrist.

Those who spend a lot of time texting may also be prone to pain along the thumb and wrist. However, any movement that uses the wrist or pulls the thumb away from the risk can result in the painful condition. Such activities as tennis and golf, as well as playing the piano and carpentry, can also result in the disease.

When you move your thumb around, especially away from the wrist, you pull on the tendons that run alongside the thumb and wrist. When you move your thumb this way repetitively, it could lead to swelling and thickening of the tendons, which results in pain.

Symptoms

Usually, when someone has De Quervain’s, they have pain and swelling at the base of the thumb where it connects to the wrist. However, other symptoms include:

Pain during movement of the thumb or wrist when typing, texting, or grasping;
Pain when you make a fist;
Feeling or hearing a cracking or popping as you move your thumb;
Difficulty gripping or having a weak grip.

Dealing With De Quervain’s

If you’re formally diagnosed as having De Quervain’s, you’re most likely going to wear a wrist splint for two to three weeks. However, if you don’t need to be formally diagnosed to reap the benefits of these recommendations for dealing with wrist and thumb pain. In fact, doing these recommended tips may help you manage any pain from overuse due to typing and texting and even avoid it in the future.

Place your affected hand palm-side down on a table. Move your thumb back and forth slowly away from your fingers and wrist. Repeat this 5 to 10 times. You can also do it with your hand sideways and little finger on the table.
With your affected hand palm-side down on a table, gently move your thumb up and down slowly. Repeat this 5 to 10 times. Once you know longer feel pain while doing this exercise, move your hand and wrist off the table and continue the exercise.
Place an elastic band around the tips of the fingers and thumb. Move your thumb against the resistance of the band. Repeat about 10 times.
Stretch out your arm of the affected hand. With our other hand, slowly push down on the back of the hand, stretching the wrist. Hold this position for no longer than 30 seconds, take a break, and repeat up to three times. Then, do the same thing, but stretch upwards instead of downwards.
Hold a can – not a weight – upright in the affected hand. Turn the can to the side (your palm should now be facing down) and then return to the starting position of the palm facing to the side. Repeat two sets of 15.

Another recommendation is using heat on the affected area to loosen the tightness of the tendon and ice to reduce swelling.

The most important thing for preventing De Quervain’s or any hand, finger, and wrist pain is to take frequent breaks from typing and texting.