Latest / From the Coach's Mouth / Episode 44: Dr. Chelsea Martin

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Episode 44: Dr. Chelsea Martin · From the Coach's Mouth

0:00
Usually the challenges arise when there is not an active
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recovery day or a rest day, when they are, again anecdotally
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starting to exceed about one game per day in a weekend
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tournament. Usually when it starts to exceed
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that, I'm hearing a little bit more problems.
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Not always, but that can be a little bit of a We'll call it a
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yellow flag. Whether you live northeast, West
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or South, the best fast kitchen phone comes from the coach's
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mouth. Welcome to the From the Coach's
0:46
Mouth podcast with your host Jay Bolden and Ken Krause.
1:06
Yes, hello everyone. Welcome to the From the Coach's
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Mouth podcast. I'm Ken here to talk to you
1:13
today along with my good buddy Jay Bolden.
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Jay, how you doing? Doing pretty well, Ken.
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How about yourself? Doing well, still trying to stay
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warm here in the cold Chicago winter.
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Yeah, So I have to ask you a question.
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I know you took a little time off.
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I took a little time off. Did any of your kids forget how
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to pitch or hit? Not so far.
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Man, that's amazing, isn't it? I mean, we took two weeks off
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barely any lessons and nobody forgot how to throw a ball or
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hit a ball. That's amazing.
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I just lessons fired back up and I love it.
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Nobody forgot how to hit her pitch.
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And now we're just we're we're out chasing those goals that we
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have for 2026 and, and yeah, it's great.
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So the rest actually paid off for some of my kids.
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They're looking pretty good. Yeah, I, I often find that, in
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fact, it's one of those things that makes me wonder about my
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teaching sometimes because I'll have a kid that I won't see for,
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let's say, 3 or 4 weeks. You know, either they're on
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vacation somewhere or maybe they just have some tournaments or
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things, whatever. I don't see them for a little
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while. They come back, they set a new
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personal best for pitching, and I think maybe the best thing I
2:17
could do is just leave them alone.
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Sometimes that might be the best case, right?
2:20
Just get out of their way, let them do their thing.
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I have that philosophy at times too.
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I'm like, maybe I just need to let this one do what they got to
2:27
do. But yeah, I couldn't agree with
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you more. So, but definitely excited that
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lessons are fired back up. Our season is just, you know,
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weeks away for us at Saint Xavier.
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I'm super excited for that. It's like I told you, it's like
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the second Christmas. Here comes all the softball.
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Yep. You know, and I think that the
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big key right now is teams start to fire up again because I know
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a lot of people take December off as they start to fire up.
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Remember that those girls are not in their top shape right
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now, especially when it comes to throwing.
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You know, let's not just get in there and start throwing like
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they've been doing this all summer long.
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You mean we should ease into it, Ken?
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Yeah, I think so. Probably a good idea.
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Yeah, but why should we suffer or make people suffer through
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with our opinions on that? We have an expert today in this
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area. What do you think?
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Should we bring her on and get a better qualified opinion than
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ours? Oh, most definitely better
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qualified than ours. Why don't you give some
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information about this amazing guest we have today?
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Hopefully there's people and parents and kids and players
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that are listening to this one today.
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Should be great, Ken. All right, well, you know this
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is perfect timing. While we are talking to today's
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guest, primarily as a result of her ongoing research in the area
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of injury prevention for athletes, it doesn't mean she
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doesn't have an amazing softball background herself.
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As a teen, she LED her Central Davidson High School team in
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Lexington, NC to not one, not 2, but three Division 2A state
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championships, the last after tearing her ACL in November of
3:54
her senior year and coming back in time for the play offs.
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During that time she also established herself in the long
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term record book for North Carolina high school softball.
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Her 206 consecutive innings without giving up a run still
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stands as a state record, as does her career ERA of .21.
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She is also fifth all time for strikeouts with 1292.
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Despite missing most of her senior season.
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Those performances LED her being named to three halls of fame,
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the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, the Central
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Davidson High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019, and the
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North Carolina Softball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2023.
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After her stellar high school career, our guest went on to
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play at the University of Louisville where she established
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herself as a closer before a recurrence of her ACL issues
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ended her collegiate playing career.
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She later went on to a brief collegiate coaching career with
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Pittsburgh and Georgia Southern before moving on to her current
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career as a physical therapist where she earned her PT and
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Doctor PT designations. Our guest is currently a
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graduate assistant at the University of North Carolina at
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Chapel Hill, where she is a doctoral student in the
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Department of Epidemiology. Brawl.
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There, she is contributing to projects at the Injury
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Prevention Research Center and the National Catastrophic Center
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for Sports Injury Surveillance on topics of workplace violence,
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musculoskeletal injuries, and catastrophic injuries.
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She is also contributed to research investigating clinical
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measures of the adolescent overhead athlete, collegiate
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athlete health and well-being, and injury surveillance using
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publicly available data among American professional leagues.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm from the coach's
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mouth. Welcome to Doctor Chelsea
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Martin. Good morning.
5:51
Thank you. So much for having me.
5:54
Well, we're delighted to have you here, especially, like we
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said, because this is a pretty critical time of year for injury
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and all that, so you're the perfect person to talk to.
6:04
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for
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having me. And, and you guys have also kind
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of mentioned a little bit too in the the intro about how, you
6:12
know, the offseason being very careful in terms of of ramping
6:15
kids back up. So I know that we're going to
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talk a lot about and would love to hear some of your
6:18
perspectives as well in this conversation.
6:21
Absolutely. Ken and I don't have a problem
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giving our perspectives. Yes, we've made that pretty
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clear. All right, well, I want to get
6:31
right into it. So you had a pretty stellar high
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school pitching career. Are there any particular
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memories that stand out for you? Yeah, sure.
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So I, I was fortunate enough to be coached under Coach Dean
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Poindexter at Central, as you mentioned.
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And, and what I would say is there, there's not a specific
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memory that that sticks out more in my mind as much as it was the
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environments that Coach Poindexter and the coaching
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staff created. I really felt like as an
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athlete, they cared about us as people 1st and athletes second.
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And I think that it was really a time where I, I reflect back on
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that to see that you know how possible that is in these
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coaching environments that when you care about the athletes
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first, they'll play hard for you.
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And when they know that they care about you, care about them,
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they will play hard for you. And so that really sticks out in
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my mind in terms of that environment that they created.
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And, and one of the things that I look back on was the efforts
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that they put in to continuing education for themselves.
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So for instance, the coaching staff there would in the
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offseason would go to coaching clinics at the University of
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Arizona. They would do coaching clinics
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locally and they would take that knowledge and bring it back to
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us as players. And they really created this
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environment where I felt like the training was so focused and
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very intentional. That was was this environment
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that allowed us to develop as athletes, right?
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And, and as a pitcher, I just felt like they did such a great
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job of, of communicating with my pitching coach outside of, of
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the high school itself. And so having that kind of open
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and back and forth communication where they, they really allowed
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me to train and develop with intentionality with working
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together with my pitching coach. So that's a lot of what I
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remember in terms of the environments that they created
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and how they went out of their way to develop themselves.
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And then if I think back to some of the, the successes that we
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had, you know, I remember even when we had the, the runner up
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my, my freshman year and you get that taste of success, like
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you're so close, but, but you just don't quite get that that
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championship at the end. I just remember that lit such a
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fire in me as an athlete and in, in the program itself where it
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just felt like not getting back. There wasn't an option, right?
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We just felt like we, we needed to be there every single year
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and we put in the work and, and really from that point forward,
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every championship was special. There was always different
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adversities, whether it was injury, especially my, my last
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year in my season season when my senior season when I had my ACL
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injury and it was really challenging to get back.
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But but no matter the adversities, once you kind of
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have that success and you put in that effort, it really drives
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you to to really go after your goals and put yourself out there
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to try to achieve those goals. Yeah, what a great concept that
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you mentioned that your high school coach is communicating
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with your pitching coach. I think Ken and I agree on all
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of that. I think and and we just had Rick
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Pauly on here too. I also think it should be from
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the college coaches to your pitching coach too.
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I think, you know, I think those that opening lines of
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communication only benefits the athlete, right, not the coaches
9:56
and the team. I mean it benefits the team too.
9:58
So what a great concept that that is that that they had that
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open lines of communication. And then again, how awesome is
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it that your coaches continue to to educate themselves on the
10:08
game and how athletes are? So I think that's great.
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And plus them them looking at you as a as a player first.
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I think that's that's the critical part of all that.
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You know, you knew that you had the support either way on there.
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That's such a great point you made there, Chelsea, But I want
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to ask you a little bit about your travel balls.
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Was it like that too, or was it different?
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And did you play travel ball? What program and, and, and did
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that help shape your pitching as well?
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Was there that communication as well too that we talked about,
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that you talked about? Yeah.
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So, so travel ball was a little bit different for me.
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And I have to preface with my experience with travel ball is
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very different from what athletes are experiencing these
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days, especially with the ones that I see coming into the
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clinic. So I do want to preface that.
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So thinking if I kind of Fast forward more towards my getting
10:55
into high school. So initially I played for the
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Lady Blues for a couple of years and it was a great experience.
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I, I, I think I, I never looked back on that experience thinking
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that the density of games was too much or we, we had, I, I
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felt like we had a lot of pitchers on staff to where I
11:12
didn't experience that moment of being overused, for example.
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I felt like I was able to recover and train during the
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week. And so that was a very positive
11:21
experience for me. And then I committed to
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Louisville and at the time they had requested that I play a
11:29
little bit kind of closer regional respective to
11:32
Louisville. So I ended up leaving the Lady
11:34
Blues to play with the Saint Louis chaos with with Evan
11:37
Beatty and did that for my junior season.
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And I would say that experience was, was really formidable for
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me because it was the really that first time when I started
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to play a little bit more on an international stage and, you
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know, going to Colorado and some of the big, you know,
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tournaments that you see nowadays.
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And so they they existed then as well.
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And so that was really that that test for me to see kind of where
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I measured up and, and how I really started to handle some of
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those adversities in game. That was a bit different from
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playing regional as well. So you got to play with some of
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the best of the best from the travel blog experience.
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But what I would say is, you know, in terms of dosing and
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seasonality, I had very distinct seasons, right?
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I had my high school season, which was, as mentioned, a
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really positive experience in terms of the environment that
12:27
they created. And then I had my summer travel
12:29
ball experience, which was also because we had, you know,
12:33
sizable staff. We were able to kind of manage
12:36
our training load from what I remember as a kid, because I
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really didn't deal with any injuries, you know, specific to
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arm or trunk injuries that you see with a lot of pitchers.
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And then I didn't play in the fall.
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You know, I played other sports. You know, there was kind of this
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this separation, these training seasons that I think I really
12:52
benefited from and there was that kind of bidirectional
12:56
communication with my pitching coach.
12:57
But I think the really big important thing for me that that
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I think, you know, if your listeners out there in terms of,
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you know, reflecting back on your own kids was I had that
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separation of seasons. I didn't overlap teams.
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I stayed with one team. And I think that that really
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helped me in my my formidable years when I was training,
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right, I really didn't have those entry experiences.
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What other sports did you play? Sure.
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So I credit my parents growing up, they they wanted to give
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myself and my brother as many opportunities as possible that
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they didn't had. So when I was a kid, I I felt
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like they threw us on everything.
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It was, you know, everything from yes, softball, C ball even
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earlier on to they put me in dance, they put me in
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gymnastics. They, you know, I tried soccer
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for a day and realized that was not for me.
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And and so I did ballet and, and so I was really kind of this
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multi faceted kid where they put me in a lot of different
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activities. And then as you know, kind of
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going into to middle school and really approaching high school,
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we started to kind of narrow down our age.
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What is the thing that you want to to focus on?
14:08
And let's focus on that and, and direct our resources that we
14:12
have to that. And so that's where softball
14:14
became more of my sport was really this kind of 8th, 8th to
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9th grade time frame and then into high school because I did
14:23
have, you know, very specific training seasons.
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I did also swim as well. So I swam in high school.
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That was separate from my softball seasons as well.
14:34
Chelsea, I want to, I want to talk a little bit about that
14:37
high school season. You had a ton of innings.
14:39
You have the record for the most, most innings there and and
14:42
strikeouts and all that sounds like that what you carried like
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a a tremendous load for that team over those years.
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Did you feel any pain in your shoulder or any other areas
14:52
outside the ACL injury or was just the ACL?
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No, I, I was very fortunate. But again, I think that was very
14:59
reflective of my training regimen.
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So if you think about the high school seasons, we had two games
15:04
per week. I had my recovery days and I
15:08
had, you know, my, my specific regimented practices and I had
15:11
my lessons on Saturday. There was always an off day in
15:14
there. And my training during the
15:18
season, you know, I had a very focused 30-40 minutes of
15:22
pitching and it was intentional. And from that I think that that
15:27
really benefited me. I also had a great pitching
15:29
coach where, you know, we really cleaned up my mechanics,
15:32
especially from my my early years of like 8th to 9th grade
15:34
in that transition. So I think I am, mechanically
15:38
speaking, I think I was able to really use my legs for my small
15:42
frame to be as efficient as possible to where it did take
15:45
stress off of my shoulder. But I think that combination of
15:48
being very intentional with how much I was playing and training
15:52
during the season, while still having a little bit of strength
15:56
and conditioning, you know, baked into my my regimen, having
16:00
my off seasons, I think really helped me where I didn't have
16:04
those overuse injuries at the shoulder.
16:07
There was a point I would say in, in my sophomore year during
16:12
my travel ball season where I did have a little bit of hand
16:14
pain, but I had this really severe rise ball curveball grip
16:19
that was very wide split finger. And so I started to have some,
16:23
some, some issues with my hand, but I, I adjusted my grip had
16:27
some a little bit of downtime from that and, and, and I was
16:29
fine. But overall, I think I was, I
16:32
was pretty fortunate and I think it was a reflection of the
16:35
intentionality of my training that I didn't have a lot of
16:38
overuse upper body injuries. From your perspective as an
16:41
athlete and now as a as a trainer and someone who's
16:45
studying sports, injury and all, for the other things that you
16:48
were doing while you were playing softball.
16:52
Is there something you would recommend to parents, have young
16:54
kids to say, put them into gymnastics or put them into
16:57
dance or this or that, that really gives them just such a
17:00
solid foundation? It's going to help them later
17:03
on. I think that's a great question.
17:05
I think the answer is yes. I think especially with your
17:08
athletes, especially pre puberty where and into puberty where you
17:15
want to put them in these different environments where
17:18
they get that variability in movement right versus reporting
17:22
performing the same repetitive movements over and over again.
17:24
I think that there's a lot of value to improving their
17:27
movement profiles, making them more well-rounded athletes and
17:32
this this period of development that I think is really crucial,
17:35
especially pre puberty. So I think as you know, you
17:38
think about your sports, like you mentioned, gymnastics,
17:42
dance, thinking about how can we do soccer, but then do a
17:46
throwing sport to where again, you're kind of sampling
17:48
different movement profiles that I think will benefit the
17:51
athletes later in life as well. But I will say there's caveats
17:56
to that. So one of the the topics that
18:00
that gets brought up and where I see athletes get into a little
18:02
bit more trouble is when there becomes the overlap, especially
18:07
in like really complimentary sports.
18:09
So I'll give you an example from a clinical standpoint.
18:12
I've had a number of athletes come into the clinic where
18:15
they're presenting with with shoulder pain.
18:18
And it's a softball athlete who is kind of midway through her
18:23
travel ball season and she's just having to pull back.
18:26
She's been dealing with it for a few weeks, but it's just despite
18:30
rest, despite trying to pull back training in the middle of
18:32
the week to try to sustain the the load on the weekend, she's
18:36
having shoulder pain. She also mentions that she's
18:40
starting up her volleyball travel ball season and then
18:45
she's also trying to prepare herself to start her volleyball
18:48
season with her school. She really wants to play for her
18:50
school. And so what's happening there is
18:53
there's there's too much overlap where an athlete is just not
18:59
responding well and they're not recovering well to those loads
19:06
to the shoulder that are repetitive and too similar that
19:09
are at too high of a frequency and intensity over a short
19:13
period of time. So I think that's where when I
19:16
talk about being multi sport, there's a little bit of a caveat
19:19
where you have to be careful where there's too much overlap.
19:22
We want to be really mindful of that as parents, as coaches.
19:25
That's such a valid point right there.
19:27
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely been my experience as well as
19:30
the girls who play volleyball and softball have to be careful
19:34
that they're not putting too much strain on the shoulder,
19:37
otherwise, you know, there you end up not playing either one
19:40
for a while. Right, Yeah.
19:42
And I think as as coaches and parents, but particularly as
19:45
coaches, I think just asking those simple questions can
19:50
really help you keep an eye out on those athletes and help
19:53
deliver education that might be needed to the parents as well.
19:56
I think again, along the lines of communication, it would
19:58
really help if people were communicating with each other.
20:01
You know, I, I feel like as we know, when you get into the
20:04
volleyball season, that coach wants that kid there six days a
20:07
week. And then the softball coach
20:08
wants them there two days a week, at night, one day on the
20:10
weekend. And the poor kid has no time off
20:13
whatsoever. So they're literally doing
20:15
something six days a week, 2 times a day and some days.
20:18
And I think that's just too much.
20:19
For anybody. Absolutely.
20:22
And so just communicating or trying to get people on the same
20:25
page, if if people would do that, you know, I think would be
20:28
just benefit the athlete for both teams.
20:30
So, you know, that's that's huge that you said that I think I
20:33
agree with. Can I see a lot of that too
20:34
during the volleyball season that, you know, we just really
20:37
have to bring things back a little bit?
20:39
But Chelsea, I want to ask you what what, how did you first
20:43
become interested in becoming a physical therapist?
20:45
Was this like the result of your injury or is this just something
20:48
that you just knew you were passionate about?
20:51
Sure. So I think like many physical
20:53
therapist, there's usually an origin story of you have an
20:56
injury and you have a positive experience with PT and I, I
21:00
would say that that was my experience.
21:01
So I first connected with PT with my first ACL injury in high
21:06
school. And I was, I knew that I, even
21:09
before that, I was always fascinated with, with science.
21:12
I love science, I loved math. I loved understanding how the
21:16
body worked. And so that was always kind of
21:18
there, especially with how I directed it towards my own
21:21
training. But then I had my injury
21:23
experience with my first ACL injury and I did have an overall
21:27
really positive experience with PT and I saw that that could be
21:31
a way that I could channel those interests that I had.
21:35
So then Fast forward into college, I, I set myself up to
21:39
be on that track to try to acquire the prereqs.
21:43
And so anytime that you do, whether it's anything, a lot of
21:47
times in the medical field, whether it's PT, occupational
21:50
therapy, Med school, you have to have all of these prerequisites.
21:54
And there's a lot of overlap with prerequisites, right?
21:57
So for me, I was thinking, all right, I know I love science.
22:01
PT seems like a really cool option.
22:03
I'm going to go ahead and set myself up to do these
22:05
prerequisites. So while I was at Louisville, I
22:08
got, I would say about 70% of those prerequisites before I
22:11
shifted gears and had my last ACL injury.
22:14
And it was really difficult to process because it was really
22:18
my, my career ending one with my last ACL injury, which took me
22:22
off that path a little bit because I, I just felt like I
22:25
had more to give the game and wanted to coach for a brief
22:28
period of time. And so coach for a brief period
22:32
of time got a few more of the, the prerequisites that while I
22:36
was still coaching to then transition into to PT school.
22:40
And I've never looked back that I, I knew from the, the early
22:44
months of my PT training that this is, this is who I am.
22:48
This is what I love. This is really part of my lived
22:52
experience and, and to be able to see how I could take PT as
22:56
well as now research and use those experiences personally as
23:00
well as professionally to help improve the lives of athletes.
23:04
I've not looked back since I've really loved and and seen the
23:07
the ability that I can take that and and improve my own little,
23:11
you know, piece of this world as well.
23:14
So you have a doctorate in in PT, So I'm curious, how's it
23:18
different from a normal physical therapy degree?
23:21
What additional privileges or opportunities or whatever does
23:24
it give you? Sure.
23:25
So actually the for PT you have to have a doctorate degree now.
23:30
So it used to be back in prior to the the early 2000s when they
23:36
started to transition that it was a master's degree and even
23:39
prior to that it was a bachelor's degree.
23:41
So really this is kind of the transition of the profession to
23:45
where you are now required to have a doctorate degree.
23:49
And a lot of that is reflective of of the increasing
23:51
responsibility. So depending on the state that
23:54
you live in, athletes can come to you directly.
23:57
Not Allstate states, but in North Carolina, where I live,
24:00
you don't have to have a referral from a physician, for
24:04
example, depending on, you know, some insurance and legislation
24:07
across states. But in North Carolina, athletes
24:09
can come to me directly. So some of that is reflective of
24:12
increased responsibility over time of the profession.
24:15
But now at this stage, a doctorate is the standard to be
24:20
able to practice as a physical therapist.
24:22
Let's, I want to get into the reason we brought you on here
24:25
today, one of the, one of the, the probably the best questions.
24:28
And Ken and I think we we hear this all the time from people
24:30
and, and we know how we feel about it, but we want to get
24:33
your expert opinion on this. One of the long held beliefs is
24:38
that in the softball world is that the the windmill pitching
24:42
style is a natural motion and they're therefore pitchers can
24:46
pitch all day and they can throw six games on the weekend.
24:49
So what's your thought on that and what has your research shown
24:52
you? Sure.
24:54
Well, the first thing that I would say is how are we defining
24:58
natural? I, I like to kind of pick apart
25:00
words a little bit to say to just kind of do use it as a
25:03
thought exercise, right? So if we think about natural,
25:07
you could think about it from the standpoint of what are some
25:11
of our fundamental movement patterns that we do as humans,
25:14
right? So we walk, we might run, we
25:18
throw overhand, right? So I think throwing implements
25:21
overhand is, is part of kind of that trajectory of development
25:25
depending on, on the spaces that you're, you're in window
25:28
pitching is not one of those developmental movement patterns
25:33
that you see. And so I, I like to kind of pick
25:35
apart the word natural a little bit to say that it's not a
25:39
movement that we would typically do in our day-to-day, whether
25:43
it's across our daily activities or any other sport except
25:47
softball. So I would start with that.
25:50
And from there, that kind of brings me into the, the topic of
25:55
it's a very complex movement, right?
25:58
It's not something we fundamentally do and it's also a
26:01
very complex movement where we're having to create these
26:05
rotational movements in two directions from launching off
26:09
the mound to then controlling this force that exceeds our our
26:12
body weight at foot contact to then turn and control the other
26:16
way. So it's a highly complex
26:19
movement. I I think where and what people
26:22
mean by natural is it does seem to suggest that when you look at
26:28
the volume of pitching that say a softball pitcher throws versus
26:32
a baseball pitcher, it is typically more, but there's also
26:36
more guidelines in baseball than there is softball.
26:40
The second thing is, is, is how do they present from an injury
26:43
standpoint? It is a little bit different
26:45
from baseball, right? So some of our our work, if we
26:48
look at some of the injury surveillance work and we compare
26:51
baseball to softball, if we ask surveillance questions about
26:54
what types of injuries athletes are are sustaining, we look at
26:58
that baseball to softball comparison, you start to see a
27:00
little bit of different distributions.
27:03
So obviously the shoulder is, is primarily implicated, but we
27:07
also have some elbow issues. But we know from baseball, those
27:10
elbow issues are different from softball.
27:12
And I think some of that is because of the position of the
27:15
arm that the the levers relative to where they are close to the
27:19
body, the brush contact versus being, you know, upright in that
27:23
more 9090 position. I think there's a little bit of
27:26
quote UN quote protection from that just from a standpoint of
27:29
just levers and physics, right? But it doesn't just because
27:34
there isn't guidelines and just because there's differences of
27:37
movements doesn't mean that it means that these athletes can
27:41
sustain these loads over a long period of time without any
27:44
oversight or restrictions or recovery days because these
27:47
athletes are getting injured. The third area that I think we
27:50
see injuries also is the low back as well.
27:53
So I mentioned shoulder, elbow, low back and also the types of
27:57
injuries. So baseball tends to get these
27:59
acute injuries that are related to overuse mechanisms that can
28:03
be really severe. Software athletes just tend to
28:06
have these more nagging related injuries that don't they go kind
28:11
of under the radar until they're a problem.
28:14
So that that is where I can see these kind of differences of
28:17
distribution. But it doesn't mean that it's
28:18
necessarily natural and it doesn't mean that the athletes
28:21
can, you know, sustain those loads over a long period of time
28:23
without any oversight. Well, yeah.
28:26
And I think that that's very important.
28:27
Just the, the whole idea of the distraction forces that are
28:32
going on, the fact that you are moving, you're not only forward
28:36
and go on a linear plane that way, but you also have a troll
28:38
transverse aspect to it. You're swinging things around.
28:42
Everything has to be timed up properly in order for it to
28:45
work. When I think about whether it's
28:47
natural or not, all you really have to do is look at the
28:50
typical bucket dad who's trying to demonstrate to his daughter
28:53
when he throws the ball back. But this isn't as hard as you're
28:56
making it. And they look as awkward as can
28:59
be. Or they hit the ceiling.
29:01
Right, yeah. And, and you, you really hit the
29:04
nail on the head can it's the, the sequencing of the timing of
29:08
these events is really challenging and it takes a long
29:11
time to learn, right. I, I love the analogy of the
29:14
bucket dad when they're trying to throw it back to the kid and
29:18
emulate that movement. It is not as easy as it looks.
29:21
I totally agree with you. Yeah, it's actually kind of
29:24
funny because sometimes, especially with a, a New Girl
29:27
that I get in, you know, I've done a couple of lessons with
29:29
her and the dad is trying to explain to the daughter for some
29:32
reason, you know, translating to her what I've been telling her.
29:36
And he's demonstrating something like, yeah, no, no, don't do it
29:38
that way. You know, it needs to look like
29:41
this because that visual aspect of it, you know, in the training
29:45
is very important too. So if they see that and they see
29:48
it demonstrated incorrectly, it's very likely that they're
29:52
going to pick up on it, especially since dad's or mom is
29:56
going to see them a lot more than I'm ever going to see them.
29:59
Absolutely. So have you developed any
30:01
guidelines as to like how many pitches per week or per day or
30:07
any of those sorts of things and by age, because again, it can
30:10
vary the load that and that an 8 year old or a 10 year old can
30:15
handle versus the load that a 22 year old could handle or I'm
30:19
sure it's quite different. Sure.
30:21
We'll, I will start with first what's available in the
30:24
literature and sadly it is very limited as you guys are probably
30:31
not surprised. Every about every year I do, I
30:35
do a talk with with coaches or clinicians depending on the
30:37
audience and we're it's usually on the topic of overhead
30:41
athletes. So I have, I'm presenting the
30:43
information from baseball and then I'm also presenting the
30:46
information from softball. And I, I go back to check the
30:48
literature every time I give these talks to see if there's
30:52
any of my colleagues have updated any of this information.
30:56
And sadly, the, the, the limitations are still there.
31:00
So we have two studies that are available that talks about
31:04
pitching guidelines that are specific to data that was
31:07
collected. And often times these are in the
31:09
form of surveys. So what we do know is very
31:14
generally, if kids are pitching more pitches per week, more
31:19
pitches per appearance or over a season, they are reporting more
31:23
shoulder or back pain. Again, small sample size.
31:27
It's, it's a survey that was sent out to, to kids who are
31:30
more at the high school level. So it's kind of more of this
31:33
preliminary evidence that we're, we're operating with.
31:36
We know that at more of the, again, amateur levels, like we
31:41
can take data from, say, game changer and look at pitching
31:44
behaviors and look at the amount of, of pitches that athletes
31:48
are, are throwing over a weekend per SE, But then it's not linked
31:52
to injury. So then we don't quite have that
31:54
level of evidence to know is it linked to injury.
31:57
And so I, I, I shared that to set up the challenge that I have
32:02
as a clinician who's also trying to provide some continuing
32:06
education on the clinician side. You know, we, we created these
32:10
independent study courses to help clinicians, you know,
32:14
elevate their, their evidence in terms of treating overhead
32:18
athletes in the clinic, including softball players.
32:21
But the evidence isn't there. And So what we're left with is
32:26
we can't do nothing, right? We can't just say, well, throw
32:29
my hands up. There's, you know, but you've
32:31
got an athlete in front of you, right?
32:34
So what I end up doing is asking more questions because there are
32:39
not guidelines. My job is then to to ask
32:43
questions to get a better understanding of how are they
32:46
responding to the current training load environment.
32:48
So, and this is something that I would encourage coaches to do as
32:52
well. There's some kind of low hanging
32:54
fruit here. When we have the absence of
32:56
guidelines, we can ask some simple questions to see how the
32:59
athletes are responding to the the load itself.
33:03
So what I will ask kids is, you know, how many teams are you
33:07
playing for? How long is your season?
33:09
What does a typical training week look like?
33:12
And what I can say is usually the challenges arise when there
33:16
is not an active recovery day or a rest day when they are, again,
33:22
anecdotally starting to exceed about one game per day in a
33:27
weekend tournament. Usually when it starts to exceed
33:30
that, I'm hearing a little bit more problems.
33:32
Not always, but that can be a little bit of a, we'll call it a
33:36
yellow flag. And then from there, it's kind
33:38
of the, the, how are they responding into the training
33:42
week? So if they're trying to sustain
33:45
the load over the weekend, are they been able to sustain
33:49
training, you know, for a couple of days per week during the the
33:52
training week prior to the weekend play?
33:55
Or are they having to pull back to try to sustain the weekend
33:59
play, which is problematic within themselves because you
34:01
get these low dips and these high spikes, right?
34:05
So I ask a lot of questions to see how that individual athlete
34:08
is responding. And most of the time when I'm
34:11
trying to give them some recommendations, I say you need
34:15
at least one or two active recovery days.
34:18
I find that athletes can be, depending on the personality,
34:22
can be they can be a little resistant to that.
34:26
I will say where they feel like there's this, this mindset,
34:29
especially a hard worker. And if I'm being honest, as an
34:32
athlete, I made might have been a little bit resistant to this
34:34
too, where they feel like if you frame it as a rest day, it is
34:38
synonymous with lazy. Yeah.
34:41
And it's not that, right. You, we have to really educate
34:44
our athletes to say that rest day is an active recovery day
34:48
and that is going to improve your performance.
34:50
So there's a lot of education to try to get the athlete to really
34:55
carve out that time where it could be, you're on a foam
34:58
roller, just hop on a bike for for 10-15 minutes, do some
35:02
dynamic stretching. Anything that's not this high
35:05
intensity activity, we got to pull back.
35:07
So you can perform that high intensity activity to the best
35:11
of your ability. And then from there, if an
35:15
athlete, especially in season, there needs to be kind of this
35:18
low intensity day, moderate intensity day.
35:21
So you're kind of getting this, this variability in training.
35:25
So it's, it's, it's hard to say what the amount is.
35:28
It's again, I kind of get that information from the questions
35:30
and how they're responding to the dose.
35:32
But I can tell you it's not an hour of pitching per per day,
35:36
every day, per week plus weekend training.
35:38
It needs to be this variability and load where you can get a lot
35:42
of going back to my high school experience, this really
35:45
intentionality focused approach and their training can be done
35:49
in half an hour. That versus going and pitching
35:52
for just, you know, 200 pitches, 100 pitches on end without any
35:56
intentionality behind it. Yep.
35:58
I think the other aspect that comes into this is how honest is
36:01
that kid going to be when you ask him these questions?
36:04
You know, a lot of high level athletes and especially I think
36:07
female athletes, you know, they're going to, you ask them
36:10
how they are and they're going to say, fine.
36:11
Any pain? No, I have a girl that few weeks
36:15
ago she was, she wasn't looking right.
36:17
Her speed was down. I'm asking her, are you tired?
36:21
Did you not get enough sleep? Are you sore?
36:23
No, no, no, no. None of those things.
36:26
And then I tell her, OK, well, let's do some walkthroughs,
36:29
Maybe we can pick it up here. And her dad jumps in and says,
36:33
Lily, what did the PG tell you? No walkthroughs.
36:37
And so why not? What?
36:38
She's having back pain. Well, then why didn't you say
36:42
something? Why didn't you say something
36:43
when I first asked you about it? Because that will completely
36:46
change what I'm going to ask you to do in lessons.
36:49
But you know, I, I don't know if it said she didn't want to admit
36:52
she had pain or if she just wanted, felt I would be
36:56
disappointed in her or whatever. But yeah, you got to be able to
37:00
encourage them to give you honest answers to are you tired?
37:04
Are you hurt? Are you sick?
37:06
Absolutely. And can you mention some
37:08
important things though, because 1, you mentioned asking
37:12
questions. You didn't just ask.
37:14
How are you feeling? Do you have any pain?
37:16
You asked more probing questions, right?
37:19
So you asked one question, which led to additional questions to
37:22
try to figure out what the driver of that drop in speed
37:25
was. And then you also based off of
37:28
speed, you're measuring something objectively, right?
37:31
Sometimes athletes, part of the challenge with this is yes, we
37:35
have to ask more questions of our athletes because that's part
37:38
of the screening process. But the athletes need to know
37:41
that they can trust you with that information and know that
37:46
you're not going to just shut them down or you're not going to
37:48
hold them back. They need to, there needs to be
37:50
that kind of bi directional communication where they feel
37:53
empowered to tell you that, but then they also know that they
37:56
can trust you with the information that what we do in
38:00
terms of adapting your training is not going to hold you back.
38:03
It's actually going to be to your benefit.
38:05
And I think that also speaks to a much larger cultural challenge
38:08
that we're working with, especially these, these elite
38:11
athletes is, and I, and I talk about this with my, my clinical
38:16
colleagues, where we know when, when one of our girls show up,
38:20
it's even more problematic because it's in many ways that
38:25
the culture of playing is to just kind of play through pain
38:27
and not say anything or you're going to miss an opportunity or,
38:31
you know, even more so like my, my team is counting on me.
38:34
There's smaller Staffs. And so there's, there's these
38:36
additional challenges in our sport.
38:39
Whereas sometimes on the baseball side, there's a little
38:42
bit more willingness and proactive approach where
38:46
athletes aren't as, yes, that's still a challenge, but I think
38:49
there's more willingness to come to the clinic sooner before it's
38:53
a more major problem. And so I think that that's some
38:56
of those cultural differences. And I think collectively as us
39:00
individually as coaches and organizations, if we could try
39:03
to do those small things to ask more questions, ask more probing
39:07
questions and build that trust with their athletes to know they
39:10
can trust that what we're doing is to their benefit.
39:14
And then playing the long game, knowing that that's there's
39:16
gonna be a learning effect of that and there's gonna be a buy
39:18
in period, but that's gonna benefit them in the long run.
39:21
I think it's gonna be really important.
39:23
I think also too, Chelsea, I think coaches need to get more
39:26
educated with this too. At Saint Xavier we have built in
39:29
recovery days, right? So not every day are we in the
39:32
bullpen throwing 100 and 10120 pitches like like we talked
39:35
about, you know, making it intentional, like our rest and
39:39
recovery day is, we'll roll here, we'll stretch, We'll we'll
39:42
do things that are, we'll ride the bike right.
39:44
We're, we're doing things where it's, it's low intensity, but
39:48
we're still working on things. Some days we'll work spins or
39:51
just, you know, where we're just doing it in our fingers, in our
39:54
hands. So I think having that built
39:56
into your, into your, kind of your, your, your menu or your
39:59
diet of a weekly diet of what your kids are doing, I think is
40:03
important too. And, and I don't, you know, at
40:05
the travel ball side, I don't really see a lot of that in high
40:08
school too. I think they want those kids
40:09
throwing almost everyday, bullpen, bullpen, bullpen.
40:12
And I think you need to have a day in there.
40:14
There's even times we'll have a mental day where we won't pick
40:17
up a ball. We'll just go and tap out of
40:19
softball completely and just do something where we're just
40:22
tapping out mentally to to to give that break.
40:24
I think the education of the game is evolving.
40:28
It's not like it used to be where where we make these kids
40:30
throw and throw and throw. So.
40:33
But I did want to ask you a question.
40:34
The current culture of travel softball right now is play,
40:39
play, play, play, play. I mean, I'm hearing that teams
40:41
are going to play up until the week before high school starts.
40:45
Do you feel that there's a correlation between the all
40:48
these extra games now and those injuries that that you're kind
40:53
of you're seeing? I would suspect that there are,
40:56
you know, anecdotally and even talking with coaches at the
41:00
collegiate level, kids are coming in a little bit more beat
41:06
up in terms of that. And I think some of that is that
41:10
intense cumulative exposure over time, we need to study it a
41:13
little bit better. And, and this is not unique to
41:15
softball. This is across many sports.
41:18
We talk about training load, but we need to improve the level of
41:21
evidence across many sports, not just softball.
41:25
But I, I think that when you talk to coaches, so like in some
41:29
of our qualitative work, which is kind of this intentional
41:32
focus group, we're gathering perspectives of coaches,
41:35
players, parents, you do see concerns related to injury
41:42
experiences that are far more common than what we can actually
41:46
capture on surveillance systems, especially in travel ball
41:49
spaces, right? We don't have that in these
41:52
travel ball spaces. So I like to say it's kind of
41:54
like this black box of information.
41:55
We know it's a problem, but it's hard to measure.
41:58
But when we get some of that qualitative information, I, I do
42:01
get a sense that kids are having these injury experiences more
42:05
frequently. Parents are concerned.
42:09
And we know that sometimes there's this disconnect whether
42:11
we, we've been talking about communication between athlete to
42:15
coach, parent to coach, and then this transition to college as
42:18
well where, where they do seem to have a little bit more
42:22
physical cumulative fatigue and, and challenges with injury that
42:26
they didn't have previously. And so part of that is, again, I
42:30
think it's challenging when that is the overarching culture and
42:36
environment that you're playing in.
42:37
And I think that one of the challenges that you'll hear
42:39
athletes talk about is this just like FOMO, the fear of missing
42:44
out on these opportunities. Like I know that my, my window
42:48
of opportunity to play might be through, you know, a getting a
42:51
sustaining a college scholarship.
42:52
And I only have this window to get that exposure.
42:56
And I think sometimes it's hard to, you know, really educate the
43:00
athlete if they're dealing with some of these injury related
43:03
issues and they're in that window.
43:05
It can be really hard to kind of convince and work them out of
43:08
that that injury experience when they feel this pull to like, I
43:12
have to be at every tournament and I have to do it because this
43:14
is my year. When sometimes it might be that
43:17
they're hurting themselves because they're playing injured
43:19
and they're they're not playing their best.
43:21
And so, yeah, I mean, at this point, you know, I, as my own
43:27
individual self can't change that model.
43:29
I can only change, you know, the encouragement, the education
43:32
that I provide the parent, the kid to try to be an advocate for
43:35
themselves. And that is asking a lot of a
43:38
parent and a, and a especially a player, right?
43:41
When they're having to kind of step in and, and, and try to, to
43:44
dictate maybe how much the athlete is playing or how we
43:46
have to kind of manage their training.
43:48
But it requires communication. It requires, you know, the
43:51
parent and the kid and and the coaches all advocating for the
43:54
right things. So I want to get a little bit
43:57
into some of the joint research that you're doing, you know,
44:00
with some of the other organizations kind of around
44:03
this. I mean, it's a fascinating
44:04
study. Can you tell us a little bit
44:05
about that and kind of how that all got going on, who the other
44:10
organizations are? Sure.
44:12
So I, I do research in both baseball softball spaces, sport
44:17
injury prevention more broadly. And I have been working in
44:22
different capacities with the Wake Forest pitching lab really
44:25
since 2019 when I was in PT school and I got introduced and
44:29
I just was like, hey, let me help on some studies.
44:31
I'd love to, to come over to the lab and come hang out with you
44:34
guys. And so they're, they're very
44:37
intentional with their work on the baseball side.
44:39
And I decided, you know what, I'm going to kind of dive into
44:41
this and, and work on a few different projects with them.
44:43
So I've been kind of working with them or contributing to
44:47
studies since 2019. And over the last couple of
44:50
years, while I've been working on some of these baseball
44:53
studies funded through Major League Baseball, we've talked
44:57
about how can we kind of expand some of these resources to
45:00
softball. And it's a little bit more
45:02
challenging, right? There's different funding, you
45:05
know, bodies and where you can access funding.
45:08
So that's a little bit more work to figure out what that path and
45:11
that Ave. looks like. But last year we started to put
45:15
together a a grant proposal and and you know, as I mentioned,
45:19
there's only two studies that look at anything related to
45:22
training load for softball. And we said, OK, we need to kind
45:25
of take a step back. And before we work with other
45:29
groups to try to make some guidelines, we really didn't
45:32
need to hear from the voices of the people that are on the
45:34
ground. So that's the coaches, the
45:36
parents, the players. You know, I might have the most
45:40
perfect, what I think is the most perfect intervention or
45:43
training load exposure that an athlete could have.
45:46
And I want to implement it. But if the people on the ground
45:49
don't value it, then it's garbage.
45:52
It's not going to work, right. So you really have to get that,
45:54
that voice in on the work. So right now what we're doing is
45:59
we, we've got 2 main aims. 1 is to try to do some of that
46:03
intentional focus group to understand the experiences of
46:06
training load and injury experiences with the athletes,
46:08
coaches, parents themselves across different levels.
46:12
And so we're trying to kind of map this to these different
46:15
levels of influence, right from policy or lack thereof, all the
46:19
way down to those coach interactions and what athletes
46:23
think intrinsically are influencing their training
46:26
loader injury experiences. So we have that aspect of it
46:30
while also trying to get them involved in the lab and doing
46:33
some initial tech testing to get them, you know, excited about,
46:37
you know, what are the possibilities for our sport and
46:40
what are some possible things that we can really build upon in
46:44
more of these these, you know, bio mechanic spaces that we can
46:48
build out into the future. So we're really kind of at that
46:50
early phase to try to engage with the community.
46:55
And then the second thing that we have been doing is, is a
46:57
survey which we've finished up and this is looking at more
47:00
general athlete health and Wellness.
47:02
So we sent out surveys to high school or former collegiate
47:06
athletes was current collegiate athletes to get a sense of what
47:10
is your overall health and well-being look like.
47:13
And this covered many domains. This was physical and injury
47:16
experiences, sport experiences. And so this asks many questions
47:20
related to have you had severe injuries?
47:23
Did you have an injury and did you not report the injury?
47:26
So kind of getting at some of those cultural related issues.
47:29
Do you have persistent pain? Do you take pain medications?
47:32
But then we expanded into mental health, general health to try to
47:37
get a better sense of what is it?
47:38
What do these athletes look like, not just in their current
47:41
collegiate phases, but also later in life with our former
47:44
athletes as well. So those are kind of the two
47:46
main projects that we're working on.
47:48
And then on the baseball side, which I hope to kind of
47:50
translate is we really need to improve the quality of our
47:54
evidence. So how can we do better with
47:56
observational studies and important and you know, really
47:59
improve the level of evidence? As you can imagine, can Jay, we
48:04
can't randomize everything in sport.
48:06
Like try try envisioning how would I even randomize training
48:09
load exposure with our athletes? You can't do it.
48:13
It's so we have to think about how we improve the actual study
48:17
designs themselves. So that's some of the work that
48:19
we're we're doing as part of my work with UNC.
48:21
So a lot of the work that I'm doing is Wake Forest pitching
48:24
lab, but it's also bringing in UNC where I'm located at and
48:28
then trying to get some collaborations and and efforts
48:31
from other colleagues at other universities as well.
48:33
Well, I would imagine too that part of the challenge of doing
48:37
all of this is that different athletes can handle different
48:39
loads. So there isn't just like one
48:42
single model that's going to work for everybody.
48:46
And that's probably is part of your challenge in designing
48:48
studies and going through the data.
48:50
So how do you go about that? How do you try to say, all
48:55
right, you know this 6 foot 4 kid with long arms and legs
48:59
versus A5 foot 4 athlete who has shorter arms and legs, but it's
49:04
just packed with muscles. How do you get that to translate
49:07
across both of them? Yeah, that's a great question.
49:09
So I, I look at this from clinician side of this on the
49:13
ground and then research side of this.
49:15
So from the clinician standpoint, it's a lot of what
49:19
we've already talked about. In the absence of evidence, I
49:21
have to take a good history. I have to know what your prior
49:25
responses are. I have to know what do you do
49:28
strength and conditioning? What is your just kind of
49:30
overall capacity for movement look like?
49:33
I have to have that communication with the pitching
49:35
coach and then applying that education of some of the things
49:38
that we talked about in our discussion up to this point.
49:41
From the research side there. I will say simply that there are
49:46
a lot of designs that we have not implemented in sports
49:49
medicine that I think that we can implement.
49:51
And I'll just briefly say things like in of one study design.
49:54
So briefly, what that means is I could follow individuals
49:59
singularly, take measures that are measured very frequently.
50:04
So you think about velocity, for example, and I measure fatigue
50:08
and I measure that daily, right? That's something that I should
50:10
be inherently tracking over time.
50:14
There are certain types of study designs where I could look at
50:17
the associations of that within just a couple of people because
50:20
I'm measuring it multiple times over a period of time.
50:24
So I have lots of individual variables measured very
50:27
frequently. So I think on the clinician
50:30
side, there's the answer that's more ask more questions and make
50:33
individual inferences and have open communication.
50:36
And on the research side, there's a lot of study designs
50:39
we haven't really delved into that we're starting to that I
50:42
think can be applied in softball.
50:43
That is hopefully some some work that we can do in the near
50:46
future. That sounds good.
50:49
I want to talk a little bit about ACL injuries.
50:51
I'm sure that's something that's close to your heart.
50:55
I mean, we've heard a lot about that, that ACL injuries are
50:58
probably the most common in female athletes.
51:01
A lot of the discussions about the Q angle, the way that the
51:04
thigh bone, you know, the femur comes down from the hips versus
51:07
what we would have in a male athlete.
51:09
Are there things that can be done to help avoid some of those
51:13
injuries where you know there's a known propensity for it?
51:16
Yeah, that's a great question. So I First off want to take this
51:20
question a little bit more high level 30,000 foot view first to
51:25
make your, your listeners aware. We did some work with the
51:28
International Olympic Committee as part of this international
51:31
group to try to synthesize the evidence in our girls and women
51:35
athletes around injury prevention measures and
51:38
modifiable risk factors. This was for all body regions
51:42
concussion. It took years to do.
51:45
It's it's out there and it's published.
51:47
But what I would say is what we, when we looked at synthesizing
51:51
all of that evidence over the last 25 years, only about 5% of
51:57
the literature is devoted to girls and women.
52:00
Wow, So 5. Percent, yeah, that's pretty,
52:03
pretty low. And of that five of that, all of
52:08
the literature, less than 2% was specifically devoted to girls
52:13
and women. So not mixed cohorts with with
52:17
boys and men as well. So I think we have to just be
52:20
honest with a lot of what ends up happening is we have not
52:24
devoted the resources to studying girls and women in
52:28
sport adequately to answer some of these questions.
52:30
And we have to be honest about it.
52:32
And a lot of times what we do is we take that literature from the
52:36
boys men's side of sports and we try to make those inference to
52:39
the to girls and women. That's not all.
52:41
It doesn't always align it the same way.
52:44
So from there what I would say is you have, we've done some
52:49
work related to anatomical differences, biological
52:55
differences and I would say that some of that is not, it's not
52:59
modifiable, right? I can't change my queuing right?
53:03
Right. My queue angle is my queue
53:04
angle. A lot of what we've really tried
53:07
to focus on is what is modifiable.
53:10
So these are things like movement profiles.
53:13
So some of the studies when we start to get into strength
53:16
neuromuscular training, how do you move whenever you're
53:20
performing jump activities, for example, in a very controlled
53:23
environment? Do I land with stiff landings
53:25
and poor trunk control or do I land with really good landing
53:30
mechanics? Those are things that we can
53:32
change and intervene on. We can also talk about the
53:36
training environment. We've talked a little bit about,
53:38
you know, exposure to strength and conditioning principle, how
53:41
much of what we're seeing is not because someone is necessarily
53:44
female, but because their training environment has just
53:47
been different historically speaking over years.
53:50
So our density of training, like we're now having all of these
53:53
increased opportunities for for girls and women in sport, but
53:56
the density is too much. But they don't have the training
53:58
exposure that maybe our boys and men have had over a longer
54:01
period of time, historically speaking.
54:03
So there's this these environmental components that we
54:06
need to kind of consider. So I share that to say for
54:10
coaches or even clinicians like myself, you can do simple things
54:14
like ensuring that you have an adequate warm up for your team.
54:17
You know, I, I, we did some, some injury prevention work in
54:20
our, in our local community. We had just like a little
54:22
workshop and when I talked to some of the parents about what
54:25
types of warmups do you do, a lot of them are still saying we
54:28
do static stretching in a circle.
54:30
So, you know, there there's some, you know, we could be
54:34
shocked at how there's still kind of this gap in terms of
54:36
prepping our athletes for movement, but it's still there
54:39
in our local communities where how can we just perform a
54:41
dynamic warm up properly? What types of cues can I can I
54:45
really kind of provide the athletes?
54:47
So it's improving their movement pattern, their landing
54:50
mechanics, that it's moving from slow movements first to fast
54:54
movements, incorporating core strength, working on single leg
54:59
balance. These are things that are
55:00
implemented in a warm up that don't take a lot of time, less
55:03
than 10 minutes, that can improve an athlete and their
55:06
movement patterns over years of of training as well.
55:10
So are there certain exercises or certain things that you
55:14
believe coaches should be doing with their athletes as they warm
55:18
them up? Are there some real core ones?
55:21
Like we've seen things from Doctor Stewart McGill up in
55:24
Canada who's a spine expert and he has his McGill big three
55:28
says, you know, if you're going to do nothing else, do this, Are
55:31
there any of those kinds of things where you say, hmm, you
55:34
know, these, these would be some good things that you should
55:36
always incorporate. Sure.
55:39
One would be we need to have some a strength component and
55:43
you need to have some sort of neuromuscular landing mechanic
55:46
based component. So what I would say is anytime
55:50
you can create some sort of core like it depending on where the
55:53
athletes at, sometimes static is better because they don't know
55:56
how to move right. So anytime that you can do a
55:59
core component, whether it is a plank, partnered plank with with
56:04
different bands doing some sort of lower body strengthening.
56:08
So can they perform a squat? Can they now move to more single
56:11
leg positions and can they do that repetitively?
56:14
So all of that can be kind of worked into a warm up where I
56:19
know that I'm getting a core component.
56:21
So we're able to get kind of trunk as well as like glute
56:26
trunk, Lumbopelvic stability. But then also can I get them
56:29
into single leg positions? And then I'm queuing some of
56:32
those specific movement patterns where they're not moving too
56:36
much or flexing too much from the trunk.
56:37
They're not stick with their landing because I can queue some
56:39
of those landing patterns as they're doing the dynamic warm
56:42
up. So let's say like box jump type
56:45
of thing, either up or down. A lot of what I remember seeing
56:49
with some training things or they were saying just jumping
56:51
down and getting into a stable position is an important aspect.
56:55
Yeah. So just to make that even more
56:57
simple because you know, in terms of access, people might
57:00
have not have access to some of the the box components, even
57:03
just doing box squats to single leg hops to then side single leg
57:10
hops, can they stick the landing?
57:11
So there's this progression from I'm moving from jump type
57:15
activities in place to the now I'm moving to jump activities
57:20
with a single leg. And now I'm starting to propel
57:22
myself forward in space. So there's kind of this
57:25
progression of double leg to single leg in place to then
57:29
moving to forward or sideways. But again, queuing those those
57:33
patterns of movement is is really important that we found
57:36
for for coaches and trainers that are working with these
57:38
athletes. And then what about for shoulder
57:41
injuries? Are there certain things that
57:43
coaches can do to help prepare their athletes for, you know,
57:48
shoulder stress and keep them from getting hurt while they're
57:51
practicing? Well, so I will go back to you
57:53
because I, I feel like this is the main point that needs to be
57:56
emphasized. Making sure you're monitoring
57:58
your athletes, asking questions like zero to 100%.
58:01
How are you feeling today? Making that a habit so an
58:04
athlete gets used to the questions and can kind of trust
58:07
you with that information and start to report more.
58:09
Honestly, that is like low hanging fruit priority number
58:13
one. From there, then be prepared to
58:16
adapt based off of the responses that they give you.
58:18
Whether it's lowering the dose of your planned practice or
58:22
increasing the dose or maintaining what you were you
58:24
had already planned for that practice.
58:26
From there, the second thing that I would be would say more
58:29
exercise based is we need to kind of focus on what we call
58:34
periscapular control. So being able to apply
58:38
resistance and move proficiently.
58:41
So you can do simple things with even just banded exercises that
58:45
you can kind of link to the chain link fence at your park to
58:48
work on some of your rotator cuff, periscapular musculature
58:51
strength, but then also pairing more what's called eccentric
58:55
string. So you think about like when we
58:57
throw, we're having to decelerate the arm.
58:59
So does the athlete have the capacity to do that?
59:02
So anytime that you can kind of do slow controlled eccentric
59:06
movements with bands can be really beneficial.
59:08
And it doesn't take a lot of time like even if you just do,
59:11
you know, two to three sets of eight to twelve of three
59:15
specific shoulder based activities, that's that's kind
59:18
of anchored resistance can be really easy implemented prep
59:21
work for those athletes that can in in many ways make a
59:24
difference as well. What are some of the other areas
59:27
where your research is taking you?
59:28
Are there any things that coaches and parents should be
59:33
aware of that perhaps they're not right now?
59:35
Yeah. I mean part of what we mentioned
59:37
is it's it's kind of multi pronged, right.
59:39
So it's getting their perspectives.
59:42
It's also looking at specifically the health and
59:46
Wellness component, because I think that oftentimes, you know,
59:49
we think we've talked about training low, but that general
59:51
health and Wellness does influence how they're going to
59:54
play and perform during their their sport.
59:57
So if my general health and Wellness is not where it needs
1:00:00
to be, that's going to impact your performance as well.
1:00:02
So kind of moving into more of that general health and Wellness
1:00:05
component. We're hoping to really publish
1:00:07
some of those findings in the next year or two.
1:00:09
It takes some time to get some of this information out, but
1:00:12
we're trying to really share it along these different avenues
1:00:15
with coaches when we get the opportunity to.
1:00:17
But I think a lot of it's that component of training load and
1:00:20
kind of implementing more of that health and Wellness and
1:00:22
really trying to. To create the two together and
1:00:24
sharing it with the community. OK.
1:00:26
Yeah. And I think that the training
1:00:28
load first softball folks, is really important because I hear
1:00:32
so many times, you know, I'll have an athlete come in once a
1:00:35
week for a lesson. All right?
1:00:37
And then you'll hear, OK, so they're practicing three days a
1:00:40
week, and then they're playing on the weekend.
1:00:43
They start on Friday, sometimes on Thursday, and they play maybe
1:00:47
through Sunday. And if their team is doing well,
1:00:49
they may play all the way through late Sunday night.
1:00:52
It's like, wow, at what point does rest and recovery become a
1:00:55
priority? And what at what point does does
1:00:58
this make sense? I mean, are there things that
1:01:01
they should be doing? You know, I know you would.
1:01:03
You talked about the active recovery days.
1:01:07
Are you seeing, I guess, are you seeing teams or programs doing
1:01:12
that or are they still kind of more?
1:01:13
We got to keep pushing out a fight through it, no pain, no
1:01:16
gain. I have seen it run the gamut
1:01:19
honestly from basically what what you and Jay are talking
1:01:22
about with really integrated approaches that are very
1:01:26
objective in terms of what a typical training week looks
1:01:30
like. You do see some programs that
1:01:32
are kind of taking that next step and and really doing their
1:01:34
due diligence to make sure we are prioritizing active
1:01:37
recovery. But then I see the complete
1:01:40
extreme of that where even from a an athlete standpoint where
1:01:45
they feel this kind of pressure, there's this kind of external
1:01:49
pressure to stay with the team and to play with multiple teams.
1:01:53
Or, you know, the the coaches aren't necessarily paying
1:01:56
attention to some of these other activities that they're doing
1:01:58
outside of their travel ball specific activities.
1:02:02
And so a lot of stuff is going under the radar or even to the
1:02:05
extent where, you know, in some of our qualitative work,
1:02:08
athletes are giving examples of when coaches just completely
1:02:11
ignored pain or coaches completely ignored, you know,
1:02:14
some of the feedback that they were giving them when they they
1:02:17
the athlete perceived that they felt like they knew that they
1:02:19
weren't responding well, but then there was no action to try
1:02:22
to change this. So I kind of still see that on
1:02:24
the extreme. And so because it kind of runs
1:02:27
that, you know, spectrum of good practice despite the lack of
1:02:32
evidence to just complete disregard for athletes, which I
1:02:35
don't think is always intended. It just, we're just not asking
1:02:38
the right questions or we kind of have this win at all cost
1:02:42
mentality. And and that at the end of the
1:02:45
day, going back to some of the experiences that I had as an
1:02:48
athlete where they cared about us as people and our well-being
1:02:52
first, winning second. But oftentimes those coincided
1:02:55
together. We got to be able to do both.
1:02:58
And so the fact that I kind of see the spectrum of of how
1:03:01
athletes are are experiencing this in their sport environments
1:03:04
tells me we still have a lot of work ahead of us.
1:03:06
Definitely. So where can coaches and parents
1:03:09
go to learn more about what you're doing?
1:03:11
Or maybe if you if you're looking for more data
1:03:14
collection, you know people who volunteer to send information,
1:03:16
where can they get a hold of you?
1:03:18
Yeah, absolutely. So social media, I'm at Chelsea
1:03:23
Martin PT, so you can find me there on Twitter.
1:03:26
You can also reach me at my e-mail.
1:03:28
I'm happy to take e-mail correspondence as well.
1:03:30
You have my e-mail, your help. Please feel free to share it
1:03:33
with your listeners. I'm happy to take that any
1:03:35
questions that people have. And the other thing I would say
1:03:38
is, is to reach out to the the Wake Forest Pitching Lab.
1:03:41
We've really been Doctor Kristen Nicholson.
1:03:43
I've been working with her to try to improve some of our
1:03:46
community engagement and we're really starting to kind of build
1:03:49
out resources for our athletes. But feel free to reach out to
1:03:52
the Wake Forest Pitching Lab as well, as we're starting to build
1:03:55
some of our evidence too as well.
1:03:56
OK, great. Well, we appreciate all the time
1:03:59
that you've spent with us today. I just have one more question
1:04:02
and that's any overall advice that you can give to coaches and
1:04:06
parents who want to keep their athletes healthier and is injury
1:04:09
free as possible. Screen your athletes, ask
1:04:12
questions, ask the simple questions.
1:04:15
Zero to 100% How are you feeling today?
1:04:17
Zero to 10. How hard was that work out?
1:04:20
If you do some of that low hanging fruit, I think that is
1:04:25
would help with a big majority of some of the challenges that
1:04:28
we're having and help us respond to some of the training
1:04:31
responses, whether in a positive way or negative way to try to
1:04:33
help improve the health of our athletes.
1:04:36
Awesome. Well, thank you so much Chelsea.
1:04:38
We really appreciate it. That's it for us this week.
1:04:42
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1:04:44
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