Brian Schiff’s Blog

As fall sports near, many athletes are taking to the field again.  We have been busy training soccer, field hockey, football and lacrosse athletes this summer.  I am doing a speed clinic for a local varsity female field hockey team in 2 weeks.  One of the things I always educate coaches and players on is single leg reaching progressions.

Why?  Because they can be implemented on the field quickly and easily without equipment.  In addition, they address balance and strengthening together.  Most athletes I see need hip strengthening anyway, and these drills will provide dynamic strength work for them.  This will inevitably decrease injury potential.

I have included a series of single leg reaches that you can easily implement in your training protocols as well.  If you are not using these, please consider adding them immediately.  You may be surprised to find that even your best athletes may struggle with some of these or have poor balance/stability.  Any athletes with hypermobility will benefit from the stability training and likely see fewer ankle and knee injuries.

I will show you a series of lower leg reaches today as follows:

1. Anterior reach
2. Posterior reach
3. Anterior to posterior reach
4. Lateral reach
5. Diagonal cross-over reach

Stay tuned, as I will share my single leg upper body reaching progression in the next post.

Ever have a persistent ache in the shoulder with certain exercises in the gym?  I am talking about a nagging pain along the top or end of the shoulder with bench press, flies, dips, military press or even pull-ups?

Well, one of my staff members has just this type of pain.  He first asked me to look at his shoulder about 6 weeks ago.  I felt there was nothing substantially wrong with the rotator cuff or labrum and recommended he work on rotator cuff and scapular strengthening while backing off the heavy strength training (he is a natural body builder preparing for a show).

He told me about 2 weeks ago that it was still not better.  He complained of more site specific pain along the AC joint.  There was no obvious subluxation present but he was tender right along the end of the clavicle.  I suggested he see a shoulder specialist I know.

The AC joint below (joined by ligaments not visible on x-ray)

His MRI results revealed a micro fracture of the distal clavicle.  Doc says he can continue to train but needs to back off the weight on bench press and avoid pull-ups.  I also suggested he skip dips and he has been now for some time.  So, what caused it?  Good question as he only recalled pain when doing flies during a workout a few months back. 

Could this have caused it?  Maybe.  Pulling the arm across or toward the mid line of the body brings the clavicle into close approximation with the acromion of the shoulder.  There may have been a loading moment (especially with heavy dumbbells) where he strained the joint.  Or, perhaps it was the result of repetitive micro-trauma as the result of lots of heavy chest work.

Regardless, the take away points here are:

• Repetitive upper body lifts (especially those requiring lots of clavicle spinning, elevation and rotation like pressing, dips, pull-ups, and upright rows) may cause stress to the AC joint. 
• Flies do cause approximation and in people with any AC joint arthritis mild compression of the AC joint as the arm comes toward mid line
• Chest movements are likely to affect pain as the pecs attach directly to the clavicle
• Obscure chronic shoulder pain may be related to AC joint irritation that does not show up on an X-ray
• Shoulder pain with lifting may be related to AC joint pain rather than rotator cuff dysfunction in some cases

As a general rule, I caution all my clients over the age of 35 to go easy on the dips for sure as I find this one exercise more than any other tends to flare up an arthritic AC joint fast.  That is the double edged sword of strength training – repetition is necessary to get results but the repetitive nature is capable of taking good exercises and wreaking havoc on the body long term.  Form matters as does avoiding harmful range of motion with lifting.

In the end, let your shoulder guide your decision making in the gym.  In my staff member’s case, he will be fine and recover 100%, although he will likely have to modify his lifting and endure some pain as he pushes on toward his competition.

I have trained hundreds of soccer players over the years ranging in age from age 8 to the ranks of MLS professionals.  The sport has taught me such an acute appreciation for body control and field agility.

For years, I have focused my lower body training on ground based movements such as lunges, squats, and multiplanar reaching progressions with great success.  To me, the lunge has always made great sense in terms of the apparent functional carry over or at the very least the related muscle activation pattern with sprinting, cutting and changing direction, not to mention acceleration.

A recent study in the May Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research looked at how walking forward lunges and jumping forward lunges impacted delayed onset muscle soreness, hamstring strength and sprinting performance.

Interestingly enough, after 6 weeks of training, the group doing walking lunges showed a 35% increase in concentric hamstring strength, while the jumping group had improved sprint running performance.  In past studies of 10 weeks of training using Nordic hamstring exercises, soccer players typically showed an 11% increase in eccentric hamstring strength. 

Meanwhile, neither group expereinced an increase in quadriceps strength, but the  control group actually saw a 7% reduction in quadriceps strength.  This would lend credence to my belief that while all the running in soccer is quad dominant, running itself does not increase quad strength per se.

Now, in regard to muscle soreness, there were no significant differences between groups per se, but delayed onset muscle soreness as measured 2 days after exercise did negatively impact running and jumping, but not strength.  No real surprise here.

The takeaways for coaches is that incorporating lunge walks and jumping lunges in training may bring about dual benefits.  Improved sprint performance is desirable as well as better hamstring strength for the prevention of muscle and knee injuries.  Increasing hamstring strength obviously is helpful in balancing Quad/Ham ratios for the reduction of ACL injuries as well as hopefully decreasing the likelihood of hamstring strains at ground impact through mid stance in running.  On the latter point, I favor deeper or reaching lunges to provide a greater stretch or elongation of the proximall hamstring fibers as well. 

I also like to employ a walking lunge with trunk rotation as part of my dynamic warm-up with my soccer players.  I ask them to rotate the trunk to the side of the lead leg which helps encourage hip abduction thereby activating the gluteus medius and reducing the internal rotation and valgus moment at the knee.  So, if you coach or train young soccer players, be sure to consider adding these body weight lunge exercises to your program 1-2x/week in the off-season and pre-season.

I had a former client of mine email the other day and ask for some hamstring exercises to relieve stiffness and soreness.  This female athlete suffered two ACL tears in high school in the same knee within 7 months of each other.  The first one was non-contact and the other was due to a questionable slide tackle  from a competitor only a few weeks after she returned ot full play.

Needless to say, I rehabbed her both times and she did great.  This girl is a phenomenal athlete to be sure.  She moves powerfully but gracefully at the saem time.  She is going to play for Clemson next year on scholarship.  After her surgery, she had some mild hamstring stiffness and soreness that eventually resolved in her return to play progression with me.    Since she needed some summer rehab exercises to knock out the stiffness again, I decided to put together a short video sequence of exercises for her to do.

Keep in mind, many field and court athletes suffer hamstring strains.  This athlete just had some residual stiffness related to her surgeries.  In the female athlete, we cant’ spend enough time strengthening the hamstrings.  However, here are some critical errors I have seen strength coaches and therapists make over the years:

1. Focus too much on isolation exercises
2. Rely too much on passive stretch/pain response
3. Under emphasize eccentric proximal closed chain work
4. Disregard the rotational component of the hamstrings 

Any one or combination of these things will lead to incomplete rehab or almost guarantee a recurring injury and chronic inflammation.  while I do not profess to know it all when it comes to these things, I do have firsthand experience (two torn hamstrings – ouch!) and I have put athletes with chronic hamstring issues back to full play in as little as 3 weeks when they have had up to 12 weeks of unsuccessful rehab elsewhere.  Magic?  Not at all.  It involves systematically tarfeting the tissue and properly preapring it for the activity to come.

So, I have included a series of 5 exercises I think you should include as part of a performance, prevention or rehab plan for your athletes in this short video (less than 60 seconds).  Not only will these exercises make your athletes healthier, they will also improve strength, mobility, and balance as well.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day.  I have included a clip of a recent interview I did with the local Fox News affiliate on the rise in certain injuries I have seen in youth sports.  Unfortunately, I continue to see certain overuse injuries and other patterns of injuries that we, as strength and conditioning professionals, can reduce with proper training.