Young Athletes Injury Prevention Program
Picture a young 3rd grade boy who keeps trying to stretch his neck awkwardly and straighten his right eye by rolling it to the right constantly and whose dad is called in to the parent teacher conference to be told that his son may be “somewhat hyperactive.” Now fast-forward to a 7th grade boy who attempts a lay up in basketball and feels a sharp shooting pain in his low back. Now look at the picture of the doctor writing this and who’s web page you have just visited.
That kid was me. In my About the Doctor section, you can get all the details of why I became a Doctor of Chiropractic, but for now and to keep this short and to the point, I will share with you what the real problem was and the result of not fixing it. As it turns out, the neck twitch was a subluxated vertebra in my neck that kept me pre occupied and caused zinging pain into my scalp and pressure behind my right eye. The knife like pain that went off in my low back like a shotgun shell in deer season was a result of a 10 mm right leg length deficiency due to an over pronated right foot. I now know that prescription orthotic with a small heel lift and a few trips to the chiropractor would have changed my life!
The result was a kid who never really reached his full potential as an athlete and leader due to problems that could easily have been prevented. What’s more disturbing is that the problem is replayed over and over everyday with promising young people who are looking for a way to express their God given talents and can’t because of either injury or inability to reach their full athletic potential.
Our Young Athletes Injury Prevention Exam is simple and yet one of the most effective ways to assure your child is given the full advantage of having a chance to succeed in sports to their fullest ability. This simple exam takes about 30 minutes and can drastically reduce the chances of the following injuries while at the same time optimizing your child’s athletic performance.
Elbow tendonitis
Wrist Pain
Attention Deficit
The Young Athlete Biomechanical Exam Unfortunately young athletes between the ages between 6 and 14 are one the most underserved segment of our population. This group of young athletes are conditioned and coached primarily by well-intentioned dads. Sure they have had a physical by their family physician that may have diagnosed anything from allergies to childhood diabetes. Aside from an all too brief scoliosis screening, most will have never had a specialist look at their unique biomechanics. A simple set of measurements and muscle tests will go a long way and that is just what we do for our Young Athletes at Back To Health!The most underserved segment of our athletic population has to be kids age 6-14. This group of young athletes are conditioned and coached primarily by well-intentioned dads. If there happens to be any type of pre-season examination, it will typically be done by the family doctor, whose exam might rule out anything from allergies to childhood diabetes, but will most likely never look at the biomechanics of this young athlete.
Each child entering the sports arena needs to be fully evaluated, informed of structural corrections that need to be made, and managed through those corrections.
The Young Athlete Biomechanical Exam: Unfortunately, Scoliosis screenings are today’s version of a biomechanical exam. These screenings, many of which are performed by unskilled people if at all, in no way locate the many specific structural imbalances, areas of vulnerability to injury, and decreased performance potential. Despite that fact that most health insurances suggest and encourage us as parents to wait for it to break and then fix it, we are far better off to prevent conditions such as Osgood-Schlatter’s, frequent headaches, attention deficits, or sudden onset of low back pain, elbow, knee, or shoulder pain.
So what does the Young Athlete Biomechanical Exam consist of?
1. A visual exam by the doctor looking for symmetry, heights, and balanceFrom behind… the doctor will look at ears, scapulae, waist folds, hips, gluteal crease, knee space, inner ankles, and heels.From the side…the doctor will look at neck curve, mid back curve, low back curve, and the angle of the pelvis in relation to horizontal.From the front…the doctor will look at the head’s alignment with the body, shoulders, hips, arm lengths, knees, and feet.
2. Range of Motion: Neck, mid back, pelvis, hips, knees, ankles, toes, shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers.
3. Muscle Tests including: abdominals, obliques, low back extensors, adductors, Abductors, quads, sartorius, hamstrings, hip flexors, calves, plantar flexors, foot flexors, biceps, triceps, deltoids, rhomboids, lats, traps, wrist flexors and extensors, pectoralis, neck flexors, extensors, and rotators.
4. Measurements including Leg Lengths, Arch Drop, Hip Heights, Height, Weight and Body Mass Index.
5. Orthopedic Tests
6. Front and side X-Rays of the Low Back and Neck