With a musculoskeletal injury prevalence as high as 77% among adult athletes, it is easy to overlook the mental health consequences of an injury. Athletes are particularly susceptible to mental health challenges when injured due to their athletic identity and associated identity loss when injured, along with a social environment which can suppress personal autonomy. Across the board, injury among athletes is related to higher risk for generalized anxiety and depression. Injured athletes are likely to have sleep disturbances, adverse alcohol behaviors, and adverse nutritional behaviors. Athletes forced into early retirement following injury are at a higher risk for psychological distress and addictive/abusive behaviors. As rehab professionals, it is important to consider the mental impact an injury has on not just athletes, but all people. We can provide safe spaces to share emotions and provide contacts to trusted mental health professionals. Even early stages of rehab should include exercises/activities which provide patients/clients with some return to their identity. For athletes, this may be finding ways to sweat or breath hard during a workout, while for others it may be incorporating their children or animals into their session. There is no limit to the number of creative ways we can tie to a person's pre-injury identity.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37014610/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

This scoping review investigated the impact Achilles tendon rupture had on performance in elite sports, and if there was a difference between operative and non-operative management. A clear takeaway from their results is that performance after Achilles rupture is position dependent in many sports, and the positions or sports which require a high degree of acceleration/deceleration and explosive movements are harder to return to at a high level than other positions/sports. Return to performance for NBA players can take three years for a return to prior level, with 61-80% of NBA players returning to play and 44-46% of players returning for more than 2 years post injury. There are a lot of factors outside of just physical ability that impact the decision to continue playing, like age and contract status, which could impact these numbers. It is important as rehab professionals to take into account the whole context of the athlete, including the athlete's wishes/preferences, to appropriately determine the course of rehab. It is important to note, that there are currently no studies on nonoperative management and return to play of elite athletes. This is likely because the nonoperative return to sport timeline is significantly extended compared to the operative timeline, and professional athletes want to return to playing as soon as possible. If you like what you see, please like, comment, share, and follow our page. Any support is greatly appreciated! Reference: (LaPrade et al., 2022) Return-to-play and performance after operative treatment of Achilles tendon rupture in elite male athletes: a scoping review

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35144918/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

This week is about manipulating training variables. We discuss "Dose-response modelling of resistance exercise across outcome domains in strength and conditioning: a meta analysis" by Swinton et al., published in Sports Medicine in 2024. There are thousands of minute changes to resistance training variables, like intensity, frequency, and volume, that rehab and strength and conditioning professionals can make to achieve the desired stimulus for their patients/clients. This recent meta-analysis of 295 studies (6,710 participants) looked at the impact these training variables have on five different physical domains: strength, power, and jump, sprint, and change of direction performance. Resistance training had the largest effect on muscle strength, while it had the least effect on sprint performance. The authors suggest that this is likely due to specificity of resistance training and out measures of muscular strength, while sprint performance is a complex task that requires skilled practice to improve. Intensity was the variable that had the largest impact on physical domains. The effect of resistance training was greater as intensity increased for sprinting and muscle strength, while the effect on jump performance was greatest at lower intensities. Intensities ranging from roughly 50-70% were most effective for power development, and there was little effect of intensity on change of direction performance. These data are useful when designing training programs meant to maximize certain physical domains over others.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38652410/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

This week we talk about "The Cutting Movement Assessment Score (CMAS) Qualitative Screening Tool: Application to Mitigate Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Risk during Cutting" published in Biomechanics in 2021. The Cutting Movement Assessment Score (CMAS) is a 9-item qualitative screening tool to assess hip, knee, foot, and trunk kinematics during 45 to 90 degree cutting tasks. Most items are scored dichotomously (either yes or no). It requires 2-3 cameras and a video analysis software to be able to accurately score the athlete. This should increase the intra and inter-rater reliability of the score. An overall score of 3 is low, 4-6 is moderate, and greater than or equal to 7 is high. In theory, the higher an athlete's score, the more they demonstrate postures and kinematic variables associated with increased ACL injury risk. However, a high score on the CMAS does not necessarily mean an increased risk of ACL injury, and those with a low score can still sustain an ACL injury. The primary purpose of this article was to describe why one would perform the CMAS, how it is performed and scored, and what to do with the information from the test. The test itself is not indicative of ACL injury risk, but could be useful in movement screening for team sport and return to cutting rehabilitation following ACL injury.

The abstract can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-024-02043-y

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

This week, the squad sits down to talk about stretching training with this narrative review "Discussing conflicting explanatory approaches in flexibility training under consideration of physiology: a narrative review" published by Warneke et al. in Sports Medicine in 2024.

The abstract can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-024-02043-y

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Mike and Pat talk running again! This time, we talk about "The "impacts cause injury" hypothesis: running in circles or making new strides" by Gruber, published in 2023 in the Journal of Biomechanics.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37364393/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Mike and Pat talk about an article that is hot off the press: "Early Surgery Versus Exercise Therapy and Patient Education for Traumatic and Nontraumatic Meniscal Tears in Young Adults—An Exploratory Analysis From the DREAM Trial." This was published in the Journal of Sports and Orthopedic Physical Therapy by Damsted et al.

The article abstract can be found here: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2024.12245

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

This week we discuss "Effects of blood flow restriction training on muscular strength and hypertrophy in older individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis" by Centner et al. This was published in 2019 in Sports Medicine.

The article abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30306467/

The safety consideration article can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293767736_SAFETY_CONSIDERATIONS_WITH_BLOOD_FLOW_RESTRICTED_RESISTANCE_TRAINING

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Mike and Pat quickly sat down to record a bonus episode because the squad was unable to meet this past week. Our bonus episode is on an area that both Mike and Pat are passionate about, but we still haven't really talked about on the podcast: running! This article is "Spatiotemporal and ground-reaction force characteristics as risk factors for running-related injury" by Malisoux et al 2022 (this group has a lot of good running-related research).

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35049407/

This episode dives into "Where does blood flow restriction fit in the toolbox of athletic development: a narrative review of the proposed mechanisms and potential applications" by Davids et al. This was published in Sports Medicine in 2023.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37578669/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!