Blog: Kicking and Screaming That Sports are Fun, Healthy and Safe for Our Kids.

Dear Lindsay Injuries during sporting activities are commonplace. However, what is important to understand here is not to put all children into cotton wool or to blame every contributing party. The answer is to get children outside - playing and moving as early as possible, in as many different ways as possible and in as many different environments as possible. In fact, put them as more risk! And before you scream in astonishment as this statement, please keep reading. Please. It is well known that movement patterns are deteriorating at a very fast rate. We have become adapted to living in a 'human zoo' - sitting the majority of the time - at desks, in front of televisions and computers, on chairs and in cars. When we then move from this state of very comfortable living to the 'hurly burly' of the playing field - or indeed to the gym - our bodies do not have the capacity to adapt. In short, our 'modern' bodies are not wired to cope. Movement pattern quality is a determinant of performance and injury. Poor quality movement is both a cause of injury and is caused by injury. Coaches who are 'up-to-date' should be screening athletes for movement quality and from these screen be able to identify potential injury and have training programs designed to counter these individual risks. Many golfers have come into youth training programs barely able to stand properly. Their posture and movement patterns are so poor that a large amount of work if required to get them moving and performing to a baseline standard before the sport specific movements apply. The late Ramsay McMaster, top golf physiotherapist from Melbourne, screened literally thousands of junior players and described the problem as a 'structural catastrophe'. The problem today - particularly with the advent of professional sport - is that young children are pushed into programs to which their body is not quite capable of undertaking - but just as it is the fault of the program, it is, in fact more a fault of the children's poor structure which comes from not moving enough and from early enough. The US marines are taking down their baseline entry standards for fitness. Why? When the tests are performed, the injury rates are multiplying - not because necessarily because of a lack of strength, but because the movement patterns required to perform these tests are not there. My god-daughter - age 11, damaged her knee quite recently also. She, too, was very keen athlete - and sitting out was tiresome. A physiotherapist consulted with a local surgeon who sent her for an MRI . He diagnosed 'medial plica syndrome' and operated. Undergoing this course of action without having previously assessed full-body movement patterns, is unforgivable. Any injury to anyone must be assessed locally but also in light of full-body movement patterns. Even something as simple as a bunion needs to be examined this way! That bunion may be causing local discomfort - and the pain can be treated to allay symptoms - but movement will have caused this bunion and movement needs to be addressed to address it! In the case of the knee - it is a joint which is particularly vulnerable if the hips and ankles have mobility/stability issues. If the knees is injured - of course local trauma due to the accident may have caused the problem. However, it is most probably likely that there was an underlying weakness here prior to the accident. This weakness will show up in a screen. The type of screen being run by the highly acclaimed Gray Cook (see GrayCook.com) is now being recognised by professional teams and athletes as a baseline standard for assessing movement which acts to find where the weakest links in the body are. I suggest that you visit someone who is certified to conduct this screen and then make sure that any trainers being used subsequently are aware of the main weaknesses found in the screen and act to work on what, in effect, are the weakest links. The APTA in the United States, thanks to the hard work of many physical therapists - most notably Shirley Sahrmann - have worked, since the 1980's on the premise that movement or its impairment is THE factor in pain syndromes. Please therefore, do encourage children to get outside and play. Hopscotch. Climbing. Balancing. Monkey Bars. Jump Rope. All these represent the sensory challenges that children need to develop the motor patterns required for developing adaptability to move well and for a long time to come. I teach Pilates and to many people in their 80's. Some can move fantastically well. Some cannot move at all. Some have had hip replacements and struggle to walk. Others are still skiing. These long-term results are not arrived at by chance. They are arrived at by continued attention to moving and moving well for the whole of your life. Good luck with Safe Kids. But please make sure that are also Moving Kids! Kind Regards Helen Helen Wadsworth BA, MSc, PGCE, Pilates Foundation