Every fall, a lot of parents and coaches find themselves standing over an athlete trying to work out how serious it is. The athlete says they’re fine. They usually want to go back on. The game is close, there’s no obvious injury to look at, and everyone involved has an incentive to believe it’s nothing. […]
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Every fall, a handful of seasons end in the same way. An athlete plants, cuts, and goes down. Nobody touched them. There’s often a pop. And within about ninety seconds, everyone on the sideline has a fairly good idea of what just happened. ACL injuries are the defining catastrophic injury of soccer and volleyball, and […]
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There’s a category of athlete that clinics see constantly and that almost no training advice is written for. You’re not training for anything. You’re not on a program. You play — tennis on Tuesday evenings, a doubles match Saturday morning, a summer league, a pickup game, a softball season. You play hard when you play. […]
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Ask anyone who’s had it and you’ll get almost exactly that description. They pushed off for a drop shot. Something hit them in the back of the calf. They turned around, genuinely expecting to find a ball or a person behind them, and there was nobody there. That’s the classic presentation of tennis leg — […]
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Almost everyone preparing for a hike worries about going up. The climb is what looks hard on the map, it’s what leaves you breathing heavily, and it’s what people train for. Nobody stands at a trailhead in July feeling nervous about the return trip. But if you’ve ever come home from a big day out […]
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Here’s a scenario that plays out on trails every summer. Someone is picking their way down a rocky section, doing fine, and then their ankle rolls. Not dramatically — they catch themselves, swear, walk it off, and carry on. By the time they get back to the car it’s a bit sore. Within a week […]
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Of everything that goes wrong in a 5K build, shin pain is the most likely. It’s also the most likely to be dismissed. It starts as a dull ache after runs, it doesn’t stop you doing anything, and everybody calls it shin splints — a name so casual it sounds like something that resolves on […]
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Somewhere in the last few weeks you signed up for a 5K. Maybe a friend suggested it. Maybe it’s for a cause. Maybe you just decided this was the summer. Either way, you’ve now got a date on the calendar and you’ve started running. Here’s the thing worth knowing before you get much further: new […]
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Ask most athletes when they’re most likely to get hurt and they’ll say late in the season, when they’re tired and beaten up. It’s a reasonable guess. It’s usually wrong. The riskiest stretch of a spring season tends to be the beginning — tryouts, the first few weeks of practice, and the opening games. And […]
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There’s a sound people who work in sports learn to recognize. An athlete pulls up mid-sprint, reaches back for the back of their thigh, and everyone on the sideline knows what’s happened before anything is said. Hamstring strains are the signature injury of spring sports, and there are good reasons for that. There’s also an […]
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