More "Russian Hamstring" Stuff
What I have read over the last day has been a bit of a concern to me as I have used this exercise with players.
I did so on the recomendation of FIFA's injury prevention programme, see link:
http://www.fifa.com/en/development/medicalsection/0,1236,4,00.html
.... talk about misleading information!!
This was posted in response to the posts on the Russian Hamstring exercise. As far as I am concerned this is another example of the ‘Doctor as god’ syndrome,” because the study that showed a supposed reduction in ACL injuries in female youth soccer players was sponsored by a Doctor then of course this must be an OK exercise. To my knowledge there has been little or no research on the issues that I brought up. FIFA endorses is because the Doctor is a team doctor for US Soccer. This perhaps is one of the most frustrating things I have seen over the years. Things like this take on a life of their own and no one ever questions them. When the study was being done involving this exercise and several other questionable practices I spoke to the person designing the study and my comments fell on deaf ears. In fact I would not let my daughter participate in the study because I thought several aspects of the program were fundamentally flawed. There is so much more to it that what they looked at, but the conclusion that I came as flawed as this exercise is and several other things they did, if you get them doing something then ACL injures will decline! By the way for a routine that is more beneficial to include in warm-up go to www.gambetta.com/downloads and see the Lunge & Reach Routine.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 9/20/2006 08:55:00 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Here is a good example I deal with on occasion.
Athlete develops pain any place on the posterior of there body from thorax down. Athlete goes to Chiro/PT/OrthoMD etc. Athlete comes home to say: "They want me to do physioball hamstring curls/leg curls/GH machine etc to strengthen my weak hamstrings that are causing all my problems, trouble in the middle east, and rising oil prices"
Ok, a little exaggggeration there, but only on the last two comments.
People - with advanced degrees included - are not good at systems thinking. there are lots of possible reasons for this but I think it is part of the root of this type of issue... which goes way beyond hamstrings.
I was doing a running workout the other day with an athlete, and was trying to modify what I did based on PT. Finally (good lesson for me on doing what you believe is best not trying to modify if you believe the modification is not in line with your values and the athletes best interest) she said, if that (PT info) wasnt an issue how would you do this. I shifted gears and the session became much better. She (and I) learned a lot and she walked away with tools to become a better runner.
Doc God syndrome as you call it could really be called percieved expert syndrome. It is a cousin of guru syndrome and it can affect all of us if we are not vigilant in thinking and acting on what we believe, know and observe to be the best option.
Off my soap box now!
Will
All this hamstring injury preventation talk is striking very close to home for me as I just recently pulled a hamstring for the first time. I was showing off by doing a series of cartwheels while stupidly ignoring the tightness in my leg until.... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. So I iced for a couple of days and curtailed my daily walking and other leg exercises for another week. I'm no longer in pain but my hamstring is still very tight and I am now not really sure what to do next to get back into the swing of things.
So, any advice on rehabilitating an injured hamstring?
I had a "Doctor as God" experience this morning. I had taped an athlete's ankle for a positional fault of the fibula following an ankle sprain. The effects were quite dramatic, the athlete went from crutches to full weight bearing. The athlete's orthopedic MD quite painfully ripped it off, claiming it was a waste of time. Should I bother sending him the plethora of articles that support it?
I have alot of respect for Mr. Gambetta. In regards to the Russian Hamstring exercise I've read his basis for not using it, but I have only seen positive results from utilizing it. I can't debate the issue, and at times wonder why my athletes have improved. The movement is knee flexion and not hip extension but the ones the do it have better results than the ones that don't. The ones that don't improve greatly once we progress into it.
Again I can't debate it just my experience w/ the movement.
Shane
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