Jumping into Spring Sports Could Land You Right Back on the Couch

By Katy Stafford Medill News Service

Longer, warmer days are luring weekend warriors out of hibernation and back onto the tennis courts, bike trails and sidewalks for a run.

Unfortunately, hospital visits for sports and exercise-related injuries rise right along with the athletics. Experts say starting slow and maintaining body flexibility are key ways to avoid the emergency room.

“The main risk is trying to do too much too soon,” says Dr. Bruce Reider, director of sports medicine and professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

Muscular strength erodes, decreasing as much as 35 percent for winter couch potatoes who stop exercising for three to 12 weeks.

“People remember where they were in the fall and try to go right back to it,” Reider says.

Your first step should be to evaluate what you have been doing for the last four months and what you want to be doing in the months ahead. “Lay out a game plan,” says Fabio Comana, exercise physiologist and spokesman for the American Council on Exercise.

This should include consulting a doctor if you have suffered an injury or have had any serious health problems since your last workout.

Part of this assessment should also include setting goals, Comana adds.

Refer to the smartly named acronym SMART. The letters stand for specific, measurable, adjustable, realistic and time frame and goals should address each of these points. A SMART goal might be running a mile in under 10 minutes and achieving that speed within one month.

If you have multiple goals, think about setting up a session with a personal trainer who can provide a sense of direction, Comana says. The trainer can also provide strategies suited to your schedule and current level of fitness.

Reider suggests setting a concrete schedule of workouts as part of a fitness regimen. Pencil it into your date book. If you haven’t worked out all winter, he recommends working out twice a week for two weeks. Then add a day for the next two weeks to eventually build up to about five sessions per week.

He emphasizes the importance of having at least one day of rest per week and alternating between heavy and light workouts.

One way to make getting back into your exercise routine really difficult is to push too hard in the beginning, Comana says. “Going slowly helps build up motivation.”

Having fun does, too, he adds. “Make the activity as enjoyable as possible so you will want to continue doing it.”

Stacy Boyer, fitness director at Bally Total Fitness in Naperville, suggests starting out with an activity such as Pilates to strengthen your core, build endurance and improve balance. This is a great warm up exercise for any sport, she says.

“You need to do (exercises) to prepare your body as a whole,” she says.

Boyer also reiterated the age-old wisdom of warming up before a workout and cooling down after. This should involve stretching, which she recommends we all do every day.

The take-home message of the experts: Make sure your body is strong and limber before you run a race on the first 65-degree Saturday of spring.

GRAPHIC: If you’ve already overdone it

So your first bout of spring fever lured you out to the playing field – and landed you right back on the couch?

Take care of those overuse injuries, or you risk being out of action for the season.

Shin splints, strained muscles, rotator cuff pain and knee pain are common spring injuries. If you can still bear weight and the swelling is minimal, you should be OK, says Dr. Bruce Reider, director of sports medicine and professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

During the first two days of the injury, follow the rules of the acronym RICE: rest, ice and elevate. Reider says to ice for 20- minute periods every two to three hours and take an over-the- counter anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen. Keep a cloth between your skin and the ice to prevent frostbite, he adds.

Any swelling should go down in about 48 hours. If it doesn’t, see your doctor.

Some of these injuries can take six months to heal completely. During that time, make sure to stop any activity if it causes pain to the injured area.

(c) 2006 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.