Health & Fitness
The Comeback Machine
By Randy Southerland
The Life University Sport Science Institute is giving ?injured athletes a second chance.
For the competitive athlete at every level, injury has always been the bane of improved performance and sometimes victory. Jack, for example, ran cross country in high school and has consistently placed high in his age group at races ever since. That was until a knee injury sidelined him for more than six months. Even after rehabilitation and intensive training he never achieved his best times again.
Frustration led him to Life University, where a team of chiropractors, athletic trainers and other specialists are helping athletes not only regain their performance levels following injury, but make breakthroughs that seemed impossible.
The Life University Sport Science Institute [LUSSI] combines a unique multidisciplinary approach to testing and rehabilitation that is helping athletes reach new levels of sports performance.
“Most of the current rehab and testing protocols for athletes focus on rehabbing an area of injury and then looking at what we call gross motor testing—strength testing using a bench press or power testing using a vertical jump,” explains Dr. David Ward, Sport Performance Director in Life’s Sport Science Institute.
LUSSI’s approach is based on the recognition that when an athlete suffers an injury the body experiences a loss of communication between the area of injury, the particular joint and surrounding muscles and the brain, called a proprioceptive deficit.
“What happens then is the brain doesn’t get good information from the area of dysfunction telling it where the body is in space and what it’s trying to accomplish,” says Ward. “So the ability of the body to generate the most efficient pattern of activating muscles in the optimum amount at the right time becomes compromised.”
This condition can lead to repetitive injury and often a decrease in performance. No matter what the athlete’s performance level, “if they’ve got a proprioceptive deficit and you find and correct it, they can go to the next level,” he adds.
To identify this condition, they use a proprietary method developed by Ward and LUSSI’s director, John Downes, D.C. This unique approach allows them to not only identify the cause of the performance deficit, but also create a structured strategy of rehabilitation to correct it. The evaluation takes place before the athlete is put on a traditional strength and conditioning program. The goal is to ensure they’re in the optimum physical state to accept the rigors of that program—and ultimately get the maximum benefit.
“This is what we call a kinetic chain, meaning there is an interdependence between the nervous system, the muscular system and the skeletal system,” explains Ward. “If there is any kind of dysfunction in any one of them, the other two systems will become dysfunctional over time. So you’ve got to be able to identify where there are dysfunctions in the individual systems and then make corrections throughout them.”
Downes and Ward have taken methods and knowledge from various disciplines and pulled them together to create a process for discovering where in the kinetic chain a dysfunction has developed.
“Then we go back to correct all those different components,” Ward adds.
Most of the athletes they work with have been injured and are getting ready for rehab. Yet a number of performers are only now realizing they have a problem. Some have suffered injury in the distant past, went through recovery, but have never been able to get back to their old levels. It’s only when they receive an assessment that the underlying neurological issue is discovered.
The process begins with a physical history designed to rule out underlying pathology along with typical orthopedic and neurological tests. This is followed by a five-part assessment that examines the subject from neurological and biomechanical perspectives.
“We assess movement, muscle balance and their ability to stabilize their spine,” explains Ward. “Then, based on [the results], we get a picture of what their kinetic chain looks like. We’re looking for things that will hinder the athlete’s performance potential. The thinking being if they’ve got these deficits they’ll never be able to reach potential.”
This process, which can be completed in a few hours, is leading to significant results. Some participants have experienced immediate reductions in pain and dysfunction, while others have seen improved performance during rehab.
Downes and Ward, who worked together in private practice, developed the criteria they now use in creating a functional assessment. They examine how an athlete moves, and how he or she performs during certain neuron-musculoskeletal testing.
“Then we can couple that with nutritional assessment and typical physiology testing,” explains Downes. “We look at what their performance looks like today. Here are the things that we think they have issues with and here are our recommendations to correct those [problems]. They can either try them or we’ll take them through the process. Then they come back and we’ll retest to see what their performance gains are.”
Adjusting the spine plays an important role in the process. Care for student athletes is generally provided in the Life clinic, while outside athletes may be referred to a field doctor. While the process is appropriate for DCs who treat athletes, it isn’t limited to these professionals.
“It’s a multidisciplinary approach that can be used by chiropractors, but it can also be used by athletic trainers,” Ward says.
The program has a three-fold mission to blend education, application and research. It provides an opportunity for students in the University’s chiropractic and sports health science programs to get practical experience, while giving athletes a chance at greater achievement. The knowledge gained from working with athletes will eventually be translated into research papers and presentations that can help other professionals achieve the same kinds of results.
The department is examining the connections between subluxations, proprioceptive deficit and the use of chiropractic adjustments as a method to address these problems. The results should present a clearer picture of the role that these proprioceptive deficits play in inhibiting human movement and performance.
“The Sport Science Institute is taking the academics of the sport health science area, the performance desires of athletics and combining it with the athletics program,” says Downes.
The primary goal is to provide care for on-campus athletes such as those in the rugby, hockey, volleyball and other team and club sports. In addition, the program is also open to other athletes such as members of TeamUSA Rugby, which has sent several injured players to LUSSI for care.
“USA Rugby is very interested in what we’re doing and is in the process of designating Life University as a high performance-testing center for their athletes,” says Downes.
While the program has great appeal to high level amateur and professional athletes, it isn’t limited to them. Weekend warriors who just want to play tennis again or do their daily trail runs have also been enrolled. Youth sports are also a potential market for the services.
“We see a lot of kids that have a lot of potential when they are young and then either drop out of sports because that potential doesn’t grow with them or they get an injury that stops them,” says Ward. “We want to start looking at younger athletes, adolescents and above, who are participating in athletics to determine whether or not they are presenting with any of these kinds of deficits to see if we can correct them early on and enable them to continue their athletic or recreational activities.”
Eventually, not just athletes but people in all walks of life and levels of physical ability could benefit from these programs. Athletes will certainly be able to set new records, while those who just want to garden and play with their grandchildren will find new levels of energy and vitality.
©2006 Today's Chiropractic