Commonwealth Sports Medicine

There are three kinds of athletes: those that have been injured, those that are injured, and those that will be injured.  To excel in competitions athletes must push themselves to their limits.  To train for competitions they must overload their physical systems in order to obtain a training adaptation.  It’s at these times that injuries can occur.
It’s been estimated that up to 17 million sport injuries occur each year in the United States.  This not only occurs among elite athletes, but among weekend warriors as well.  In the 1990s, sport-related emergency room visits increased 33% for persons between 35 and 54 years old and 54% for persons 65 years and older.

It was once thought that sports injuries were not only caused, but also cured, solely by physical processes; the mental aspects of injuries were largely ignored.  This was exemplified in the “old school” mentality when athletes were expected to fight through their pain regardless of its source and coaches treated injured athletes as worthless because they were not contributing.  These antiquated attitudes, however, began to change in the 1970s when physicians began to recognize that behavioral and psychological factors played a significant role in putting athletes at risk for injury as well as in injury rehabilitation.

Research has demonstrated that increased stress and coping difficulties increase the risk of injury.  For example, a study conducted on the University of Washington football team found that only 9% of the players with low life stress experienced injuries compared to 50% of the players with high life stress.

Stress increases the risk of injury in three ways.  First, when individuals experience stress they become physically tense.  When muscles are tense, coordination and motor speed decrease.  If you’ve ever tried to navigate through a mass sprint at the end of a race while maintaining a death grip on your handlebars, you might have first-hand knowledge of how muscle tension can affect coordination.

Secondly, when people feel tense their focus narrows.  It’s as if they are looking through a camera with a telephoto lens: They focus only on a few details, but can miss other important things happening around them.  If anxiety leads you to glue your eyes to the wheel in front of you and you don’t notice the pothole you’re about to ride into, you could be in for a bad day.

Thirdly, anxiety can cause a person to have difficulty maintaining their focus.  They can become so distracted by their anxiety that they miss something important.  All too often this leads a rider to break the first tenant of cycling:  Keep the rubber side down!

Psychological factors are also important in the injury recovery process.  A 1996 survey revealed that about half of 482 certified athletic trainers believe that every injured athlete suffers negative psychological effects.  The most common of these effects were stress and anxiety, anger, non-compliance with treatment, and problems with concentration and attention.

The good news is that this same body of research has clearly shown that athletes can use mental skills to cope with or control these psychological factors.  For example, a study with collegiate athletes who were taught relaxation training showed a 52% decrease in injury rates among swimmers and a 33% injury rate decrease among football players.  Additionally, several studies have shown that injured athletes who practiced such mental skills as a goal-setting, relaxation training and positive self-talk experienced increases in attention and decreases in stress, subjective pain and recovery time.

Okay, so what does all this data mean?  What should you do to minimize your risk of injury and to maximize your recovery after an injury?  Here are some tips to consider:

•    Learn stress management techniques.  Strategies to help you relax both physically and mentally can help you cope more effectively with life stress to avoid injury and to decrease anxiety and facilitate recovery after an injury.

•    Avoid risks when you are stressed.  When you are stressed your coordination and concentration suffer, leading you to be more vulnerable to injury.  The lesson here is this:  After your heartthrob dumps you is not a good time to practice those tricky technical descents at 50 miles an hour!

•    Know the difference between “good” and “bad” pain.  Don’t get the idea that I’m suggesting that you be so careful that you don’t train hard.  No one ever won a race with their mother running along side them screaming, “Be careful!  Don’t go so fast!  Don’t ride so close together – you’ll poke an eye out!”  What I am suggesting is that you learn to distinguish the kind of pain that comes with hard training from the pain that tells you something is wrong.  This largely comes from experience and paying attention to how your body feels.  When in doubt, consult your physician.

•    Use thought-stopping and thought-replacement.  After an injury it’s easy to catastrophize and tell yourself that your season is over or that you will never return to your previous form.  These thoughts may not be true, but they definitely will not help you recover.  To cope with this, become more aware of what you say to yourself by making a list of your negative self-talk.  Then think of a word or image that commands you to stop this type of thinking and use it every time you notice yourself having a negative thought.  Next, make a list of more positive and realistic thoughts that you can use in place of the negative ones, such as, “Yes this stinks, but if I stick to it and work hard I can make progress.”

•    Use imagery.  Imagery is a powerful tool, and can be used in two ways during injury rehabilitation.  First, you can use imagery to mentally rehearse technical skills and race strategies.  This will improve your muscle memory and strengthen your mental blueprint to keep you sharp while your body heals.  Secondly, you can use imagery to facilitate the healing process by imagining such things as diminished the swelling and increasing the blood flow to the injured area.  It helps if you have your physician show you a model or picture of your injury.  I know, this sounds hokey, but believe it or not research clearly indicates that it works.

•    Use goal-setting.  One of the worst things after an injury is the realization that you can’t do nearly as much as you used to.  This can add to your feelings of helplessness and despair.  To cope with this, it’s important to establish clear goals for your rehabilitation.  Start by thinking of your ultimate dream goal, and then make a list of the things that you need to do that can get you there (see my January, 2008 newsletter on goal-setting for more information on how to do this).  Determining realistic short-term goals and strategies to accomplish them will help you feel more confident, in more control, and assist you in complying with the treatment prescribed to you by your physician, physical therapist, or athletic trainer.

If you have a question or a topic you’d like to see covered in a future newsletter, email me at Dana@TheExtraGear.com.  I’m also available for free talks or teleconferences to groups of athletes who want to improve their mental skills, so contact me for details if you’re interested.

Until next time, Ride Smart!

Dana Blackmer, Sports Psychologist is here with video’s of the upcoming Jefferson Cup Road Race, with an additional kick: tips on how to use imagery techniques while watching the videos to improve mental preparation and enhance performance.  Dana additionally gives you turn by turn video narration highlighting many facets of the course from former winner Gary Hoffman’s perspective.  The Jefferson Cup road course is divided into three parts along with Dana’s imagery techniques.

Video#1 Video#2 Video#3

If you like what you have seen here, check out Dana’s web site:

Eighty-two year-old Lois Creamer displays some of her medals and certificates from the
various 10K and half-marathon events in which she’s competed.

On the Road, Again
By Patty Kruszewski, Henrico Citizen Managing Editor

Like most people who work full-time, Lois Creamer looks forward to the weekends.

But that’s where Creamer’s similarity to most people ends.

At 82, the legal secretary for Williams Mullen rises at seven every weekday to commute from her western Henrico home to the
law firm’s downtown offices. If a coworker happens to mention the word retirement, she just smiles.
“Retire?” she gently chides them. “Oh, that is a bad word!”

And while the typical worker looks forward to Saturdays as a chance to sleep in, Creamer would not dream of it.

“I wake up at 5 a.m. on weekends and I can’t wait to get out of bed and prepare. I’m so motivated!”

Her reason to “prepare” at that hour? Two years ago, Creamer joined the Ukrops Monument Avenue 10K training team at the
Tuckahoe YMCA and bonded with a group of runners and walkers who continue to train together to this day. Not only do the
friends get together for Saturday training at The Collegiate School, but they also travel as a group to out-of-town races.

So after Creamer walked several 10Ks (a bad knee rules out running) and was looking for a new challenge, they encouraged her to
join them for a half marathon.

“It was just magical!” she says of September’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach. Participating in her first half
marathon was exciting in itself; but an experience four miles from the finish line, as her energy started to fade, convinced her the
weekend was charmed.

“I got on Atlantic Avenue,” she recalls, “and I had just gotten the words in my mind, ‘I’m not going to make it’ – when Joe Vassar
came running back!” Her friend had finished his race and returned to accompany and encourage her for the final leg.

“He distracted me,” she says gratefully. “And he told me not to look at the street signs, because they’re all numbered!”

What’s more, Creamer crossed the finish line with the top time in her age group, and came home laden with medals and plaques to
add to her collection on the wall at Williams Mullen.

War Bride to First Mate
Perhaps it was inevitable that Creamer would grow up fitness-minded and excel in things physical. A native of Australia, she
began “calisthenics” as a three-year-old, then swam and played tennis while studying shorthand, business skills and even millinery
at a girls technical school.

In 1942, she met a young American soldier who was training at a camp outside Melbourne. They were introduced by friends he
had encountered at a local hangout serving milkshakes – otherwise known as a “milk bar.”

Creamer pauses to laugh as she tells the story, exclaiming, “My children like to say, ‘Mom! You met Dad at a bar!’”

Their wartime courtship lasted four years, of which they spent all but three months apart. “I wrote him every day,” she says, “and
sent him boiled fruitcakes, so they wouldn’t spoil.”

When she arrived in the States at age 21, she got off the ship (which held 800 other war brides) on the West Coast and boarded a
train for her husband’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. As the train passed through bleak northern landscapes in Idaho and
Montana, she recalls occasional pangs of doubt and thoughts of, “What have I done?”

Two children followed, but Creamer continued her active lifestyle; voice lessons and an opera workshop led eventually to song
and dance performances at a local dinner theater. A charter member of the Norfolk Savoyards (Gilbert and Sullivan), she also
worked for the law firm of Willcox and Savage, and cites as a favorite memory the time she played the the jilted bride in “Trial by
Jury” for a room full of lawyers and judges at a Virginia Bar meeting.

Her musical and thespian activities helped Creamer deal with the devastation when her marriage dissolved after more than 20
years.

“Having confidence in oneself and knowing you can accomplish what you want by keeping a positive attitude. . . is so important,”
she says.

After the divorce, she “sold everything” and saved her dinner theater earnings to visit family in Australia, knowing it was her last
chance to see her mother. Although she found work in Melbourne and stayed three months, Creamer could not bear living so far
from her children.

“I came back the cheapest way I could find,” she says, “by ship and Greyhound bus to Norfolk, where friends from the church met
me – very bedraggled! All I had left was $200 in my pocket to get started all over again.”

At a retreat for divorced women, Creamer befriended some Richmonders, and began visiting the area.

Ready for a change, she moved from Tidewater in 1973 and took on a job with the first of three Richmond law firms. She also
sang in church choirs at Second Presbyterian and River Road Baptist Church; took Mini-Med School classes and riding lessons
(becoming a board member for the Richmond Mounted Squad); mastered a Coast Guard sailing course and served her second
husband, Bob Creamer, as first mate on his sailboat. Married in 1980, the couple had only a short time together before Bob died
four years later.

Rocking On
Dancing remained her passion and physical outlet, and she eventually went on to compete with the Regency Dance Academy.

“I had such joy when I danced,” she says longingly, wincing as she relates the story of the torn hamstring that ended her dance
career. “It almost killed me,” she says of the injury — though it failed to keep her off her feet for long. From water wRocking On
Dancing remained her passion and physical outlet, and she eventually went on to compete with the Regency Dance Academy.

“I had such joy when I danced,” she says longingly, wincing as she relates the story of the torn hamstring that ended her dance
career. “It almost killed me,” she says of the injury — though it failed to keep her off her feet for long. From water walking in the
Y pool she moved to water aerobics, and finally, to the walking and pilates she practices today. “I would be running if I could!”

Five years ago, she encountered another setback: a job lay-off. In her late 70s, she was out of work for 10 months. “I was so
bored!” she recalls. Buying a computer, she sent out resumes to her many contacts in the legal profession, and landed the position
at Williams Mullen – adding, in the process, to her growing fan club.

“At work,” she says, “they tell me they don’t know how I do it. But I just don’t like to sit still. You have to keep moving and not
dry up.”

Another fan is her Tuckahoe Y Training Team coach, Dan Blankenship.

“At 82,” Blankenship says of Creamer, “she sets the bar for anyone saying they cannot participate in the program. Lois is a great
lady and good motivator for our team.”
In addition to the 10K in April, Creamer looks forward to Virginia Beach’s Shamrock half marathon in March – and of course a
repeat of the Rock ‘n’ Roll.

“I plan to do this as long as I’m living,” Creamer emphasizes. “There are not enough hours in the day for me to do everything I
want to do.

“Stay tuned for the next!”

Here is an article that patient passed on to me this past week…..Dr. Stadler

Personal Best

But First, Doctor, What Was Your Marathon Time?

HIPPOCRATES THE OLYMPIAN Athletic patients may want to find physically fit physicians.

YOU are an athlete, or, at least, very active. Should you seek doctors who are athletes, too? After all, some obese people pass around lists of “fat friendly” doctors who treat them with respect. Women often want female doctors.

Are athletes also a special group? And, if so, do they fare any differently if they see doctors who are athletes?“Nobody knows,” said Dr. James Fries, a 20-mile-a-week runner and a professor of medicine at Stanford. “There’s no data.”

There are some hints, though, said Dr. Ronald Davis, who is the president of the American Medical Association and a specialist in preventive medicine at the Henry Ford Health System, which includes hospitals, clinics, a managed-care plan and a large physician group practice.

Dr. Davis cited a study by Dr. Erica Frank, who is now at the University of British Columbia. Her study, published a few years ago, involved a survey of about 4,000 female doctors and found that those who were at least moderately active were much more comfortable advising patients about exercise and encouraging them to exercise.

A doctor who is physically active, Dr. Davis said, “is more likely to provide advice on exercise that will be meaningful to patients.”

That stands to reason, Dr. Fries and other physicians said. Doctors who are athletes, he added, are less likely to say “untoward things like that running destroys the knees or that you need an electrocardiogram before you can exercise.”

But it is not always obvious whether a doctor is an athlete. Some tell their athletic patients about their exploits. Some have photos in their offices showing them crossing finish lines. With others, though, unless you ask, you may never know.

Of course, good doctors can be sedentary and terrible doctors can be athletic. What matters most is the doctor’s skill and training and whether you feel comfortable with the doctor. Some active people, in fact, say they had an awful experience when they sought out an athletic doctor.

But in general, doctors who are athletes tend to be more aware that active people want to stay active more than anything else, said Dr. William Kraus, 53, a cardiologist who is a professor of medicine at Duke and runs 35 miles a week and finishes 5-kilometer races in about 20 minutes. He said athletic doctors are less likely to take the easy way out and tell an active person who is injured or ill to stop exercising.

“For many of us, that’s just unacceptable,” Dr. Kraus said.

That was the reaction of Richard Hulnick, 40, a manager for business development at the New York Road Runners, when an orthopedist told him to stop running. He saw the doctor because his knee was bothering him. But the doctor, who, Mr. Hulnick said, “did not look like an athlete,” told him to take up another sport.

“I wanted to get better,” Mr. Hulnick said. “I wanted someone to work with me, but he didn’t tell me what to do.” So Mr. Hulnick walked out of the doctor’s office and resumed running. His knee recovered on its own and he never saw that doctor again, he said. Since then, he has completed six marathons and an Ironman distance triathlon.

Dr. Paul Thompson, a 60-year-old marathon runner (he finished second in his age group in the Chicago Marathon last year) and the director of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, said he often finds himself giving different advice to athletes than he would to more sedentary patients.

For example, he said, a woman with a malfunctioning heart valve came to him for a second opinion. Another cardiologist had told her there was no need to replace the valve because the woman had no symptoms. But she had been a competitive triathlete. So when she told Dr. Thompson that she had recently run a five-mile race in 50 minutes, he was suspicious. He asked her if that was her usual pace, and she told him that her time was actually much slower than in the past.

“To me, it was quite clear she was limited in her exercise tolerance,” Dr. Thompson said. He recommended she have the valve replaced, and she did.

Dr. William Roberts, a runner, skier and sailboat racer who is a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota, said active people sought him out to such an extent that his practice gradually turned into one made up mostly of athletes.

“They know I like physical activity and I am willing to try to find ways to keep them active,” said Dr. Roberts, a former president of the American College of Sports Medicine. He recently saw a patient with atrial fibrillation, a heart disorder. The man said other doctors had told him to stop exercising, so he had come to Dr. Roberts hoping to hear a different message.

He did. Dr. Roberts said he told the man that he could exercise as long as he kept his heart rate from going too high, and as long as he had no chest pain or shortness of breath.

Some athletes, like Jon Luff, a 40-year-old aerospace engineer who ran the New York City marathon in 2:39:59 said that if experience is any guide, stay away from doctors who know nothing about training. Mr. Luff’s wife is a doctor, as are three close friends, so he said he shouldn’t speak too freely. But then, just thinking about doctor problems, the floodgates opened.

“I have a story concerning heart rates,” Mr. Luff said. “I have one concerning tendinitis. I had a doctor tell me once that I had mono and had to stop everything.” Mr. Luff was 18 at the time and withdrew from two national competitions. It turned out he had only a cold.

Mr. Luff also has a good friend, Bill Burke, who was initially turned down by the Air Force because he has a resting heart rate of 33. Mr. Burke, who was the national champion in 1,500 meters in 1993, said he had to go to a cardiologist for a medical waiver, which allowed the Air Force to accept him. The cardiologist, Mr. Burke said, told him, “You’re either about to check out, or you’re going to be around for a very long time.”

Then there is the story of a Harvard professor, a surgeon. “He once told me that nobody should run marathons because it destroys knee cartilage,” said Mr. Luff, who knows, however, that most research, including a major study by Dr. Fries, has found that runners actually have a lower risk of knee arthritis.

Yet not every mistaken doctor is a nonathlete. Those who are athletes can be wrong, too.

That is what Patricia Sener, 43, an open-water swimmer who lives in Brooklyn, discovered when she had a problem and went to a doctor who specialized in treating athletes. The doctor pointed to a gray spot in an M.R.I. of her knee and told her she might need a major operation to replace her anterior cruciate ligament. But he said he would not know for sure until she was on the operating table.

“I’m training for the English Channel,” Ms. Sener said. “I’m on a time line. I can’t afford six months off.”

She went to a different doctor, a swimmer, for a second opinion.

“He pointed to the exact same spot on the M.R.I. and said: ‘See this. It’s normal.’” All she needed, she said, was physical therapy to strengthen the connecting muscle and ligaments around her knee and stabilize it. She recovered.

Athletes, though, are not the easiest patients, doctors said.

“They drive you nuts,” Dr. Thompson said. “They are very demanding. They are innately a select group, and a lot of athletes have a superior attitude. They are a little bit defensive.”

They tend, in fact, to be like one of my running partners, who told me that when it comes to a diagnosis, she regards doctors mainly as a source for a second opinion. The first opinion is her own, she said.

Perhaps the best indication of whether athletes should seek fit doctors is to ask doctors who are athletes whether they choose athletic doctors for themselves.

Dr. Roberts said there was no question: he chose a doctor who is an athlete, and so did his wife, a skier. His doctor, David Thorson, is a skier who was his partner when he was in private practice.

“I recruited him in the early 1990s after we raced against each other in sailboats,” Dr. Roberts said. He has been Dr. Thorson’s patient ever since.

A patient passed this on to me recently. New York Times January 3, 2008

A copy of the original article can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/health/nutrition/03Best.html?ex=1357102800&en=ab0c7b339e565219&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

‘Lois Cramer Making New Strides’

Take a look at one Lois Cramer and her recent publication showing all she has achieved.  We passed the article around the office and everyone at CSM is so proud of you.