The foot is a pretty vital structure in cycling, especially if you are a competitive cycler. We depend on the foot to transfer all the load and forces to the pedal to work harder. The structure, integrity and comfort is vital to that process. Any problems are going to lessen performance if you are a competitive athlete and be a source of discomfort if you are a recreational cyclist.
Podiatrists diagnose and treat problems of the foot and often are very involved in cycling issues from the pain that can occur in the foot, to the set up of the bike, footwear and pedal and also the alignment issues of the foot for optimum performance and injury treatment and prevention. They will give advice on cycling footwear and the correct fit. Typically that footwear has to be quite tight fitting, which can result in a range of problems from pinched nerves and numb feet. Podiatry often use cycling orthotics to help these types of problems and to improve foot alignment. There was a good discussion on Podiatry Arena between podiatrists on foot othoses and cycling that is worth browsing if you want to follow this topic. In addition, they have these threads on cycling.
PodChatLive has this episode on Podiatry and cycling and this explain more about foot orthotics and what podiatrists can do to help the foot problems in cyclists.
If you read in many places, you would think that this thing of “overpronation” is evil and something that runners must do about if they have it. Overpronation is when the rearfoot rolls inwards at the ankle and the arch collapses. Foot orthotics and motion control running shoes are widely advocated to treat this. It is quite common to see this advanced as quite a problem in running magazine and running shoe websites. This has been linked to injuries such as plantar fasciitis, medial tibial stress syndrome and runners knee.
On the other hand, you have this video of Haille Gebrselassie running and very severely overpronation. Yet he was at the top of his game and never had any problems with his overpronation. This has led to lots of debates in professional circles and social media about this overpronation.
The reality is that if you read the actual scientific evidence (summarized here), yes overpronation is a problem, but a small problem, though statistically significant. It does increase the risk for a range of injuries in runners, but only a small amount.
The whole area is subject to many myths and to see clearly through it is that you need to stick to what the actual data and evidence shows. The above video of Haille Gebrselassie is an anecdote and not scientific evidence. As pointed out here, you can’t bring anecdotes to debates about data. There is really no debate, the evidence is quite clear on this.
Snowboarders as well as skiers are increasing in number yearly. As the numbers raise so do the number of injuries. More awareness is being put on snowboard safety and also ski safety as the injuries can be quite serious..
During the course of a year concerning 11 milion skiers as well as 4 million snowboarders in the USA alone are on the slopes at least once. The typical number of visits to the slopes is around 60 million. For every 1000 skiers, there are around 2.5 serious clinical injuries. This comes out to one injury every 430 days of skiing and also snowboarding.
The fatality rate of snowboarders is 40 percent lower than traditional skiers, they are more likely to be struck by skiers gone out of control than the other way around.
When skiers fall they move a lot which triggers them to be 3 to 4 times more probable to crash into something or a person. A snowboard on the other hand acts more like a seat support, protecting against moving. Death typically is caused from hitting something.
One of the most common injury faced by skiers is former cruciate ligament (ACL) strains. Those who were harmed skied much more years, but less days annually, were more likely to be female, are older, as well as dropped less frequently.
Prior to you beginning snowboarding make certain to take some lessons from a qualified instructor. Plus make sure you have the correct equipment. Inevitably you are accountable for your very own safety and security. The much safer you are the more fun you will certainly have on the slopes.
These highly cushioned sandals, flip flops or shoes that are meant to be worn after your race or hard training run in order to provide the feet with ultimate comfort while promoting a speedy recovery. They are usually soft and typically have some arch support and are suggested for use after training or competing to facilitate that recovery process and help the body relax.
There are several brands in the marketplace that you see being recommended, such as the OOFOS brand in the USA and the Archies brand in Australia.
OOFOS sandalsArchies
Some of these types of footwear are also being used as an alternative or adjunct to foot orthotics. This is because the amount of arch support that is built into a lot of these recovery shoes are similar to what you find in a pre-fabricated or over-the-counter foot orthotic
There has been no published scientific research that these types of recover footwear actually improve recover, but those that use them certianly attest to just how comfortable they are if they are sore after a hard training run or competition.
Basketball is a prominent secondary school sporting activity in the USA with 1 million participants every year. A recently published research study by scientists in the Center for Injury Study and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Medical facility is the first to contrast and also define the incident as well as circulation patterns of basketball-related injuries treated in emergency situation divisions as well as the high school sports training setup among teens and also teens.
The study, published online in the Journal of Athletic Training, examined data relating to adolescents 13-19 years of age who were treated in U.S. emergency departments (EDs) from 2005 to 2010 and those treated in the high school athletic training setting during the 2005–2006 through the 2010–2011 academic years for an injury associated with basketball. Nationally, 1,514,957 patients with basketball-related injuries were treated in EDs and 1,064,551 were treated in the athletic training setting.
The research discovered that generally, injuries that are a lot more quickly detected and dealt with, such as sprains/strains, were most likely to be dealt with onsite by a sports fitness instructor while a lot more severe injuries, such as fractures, that need extra considerable analysis and treatment procedures were much more typically treated in an ED.
“Athletic trainers play a really important role in helping to assess those more mild or moderate injuries and that helps alleviate a burden on the health care system and on families,” said Lara McKenzie, PhD, the study’s lead author and principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s. “They are right there on the sidelines. They are there when some of these things happen. And they can be a great resource for families to evaluate that injury immediately.”
In 1998, the American Medical Association suggested all high school sports programs employ a sports medication device containing a medical professional supervisor as well as an athletic fitness instructor, yet as of 2009, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association approximated just 42 percent of secondary school sports groups met this recommendation. With over half of U.S. secondary school athletes not having access to an athletic fitness instructor during method or competition, a huge majority of hurt players wind up in urgent treatment centers and emergency situation departments, some needlessly.
Dr. McKenzie, also a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, said that while athletic trainers cannot treat every injury, they can make the system more efficient by only sending athletes to the hospital when it is necessary and helping athletes return to play when it is safe.
“We are there to prevent injuries, evaluate them quickly, treat them immediately and try our best to make sure that as we return them to play we do it in the most safe and efficient way possible,” said Kerry Waple, ATC, certified athletic trainer in Sports Medicine at Nationwide Children’s. “There are a lot of injuries that happen that are winding up in urgent cares and emergency departments that don’t need to be there.”
Of the types of injuries that happen in basketball, the foot is commonly affected. Strains and sprains are reported in multiple other studies are the most commonly seen.
