FAQ Category: General

Research backs your coach up on this one. Compared to relaxed muscles, contracted muscles do a better job of absorbing the impact of a direct hit.

When you contract your muscles, the muscles stiffen for impact. This makes a kind of wall against injury. Contracted muscles distribute the force of a blow over a larger area. This may help prevent extensive damage to any one place in the muscle.

It used to be that doctors recommended long periods of rest after an injury like yours. But they soon found that extended rest led to other problems, such as stiff joints and weak muscles.

Researchers suggest complete rest of the injured leg for 24 to 48 hours after a contusion. This seems to be the right amount of time to prevent extra blood from forming within the muscle. After a day or two, you should be able to start light movement such as walking, as pain permits. Avoid aggressive stretching, which may cause the formation of bone tissue within the thigh muscle, a condition called myositis ossificans.

Once you have better range of movement in your leg, you should be able to return to full activity. Talk to a doctor or sports trainer about how soon it’s safe to return to soccer, given the severity of your injury.

Many studies have shown that regular physical activity can help with high blood pressure. Various types of exercise such as walking, jogging, cycling, and swimming have proven to lower blood pressure. Daily walking at a brisk pace for two miles has been shown to lower blood pressure in postmenopausal women. Some women have even shown a return to normal blood pressure.

Increasing your activity and exercise may be all that’s needed to lower your blood pressure. Sometimes medications are also needed. A physician is the best one to evaluate and advise you.

Arthrography is a tool doctors use to find the source of patients’ symptoms. By injecting a special substance or “contrast solution” into a painful joint, doctors can see soft tissues and joint structures to see what may be causing pain and other symptoms. Doctors may use single or multiple injections, depending on the joint being studied.

When the muscles aren’t used, they shrink and weaken over time. The longer the bed rest, the more the muscles deteriorate. There are ways to combat this problem, though. Simple muscle contraction exercises can get the muscles to work without forcing the person to move around. A doctor or physical therapist can help suggest muscle training exercises to maintain muscle size and strength during bed rest.

Space travel “unloads” the muscles, putting them in a state of weightlessness. This means the muscles aren’t working as usual, which can cause them to shrink and become weak over time.

Scientists at NASA are concerned about this problem, especially as space flights get longer. Researchers are developing special muscle training programs that can be done quickly and easily, so astronauts can maintain muscle size and strength in flight.

Doctors apply this research to prescribe just the right amount of exercise for their patients who are on bed rest or unable to use an injured limb. Muscles can stay fit without over-working.

Quite possibly. Two major studies have shown a higher fracture rate among premenopausal women (your age group) who used birth control pills. Other research suggests that this is even true when women using the pill also did high impact exercises. The effects of the pill seem to lessen the bone-building effects of exercise.

Surprisingly, one study showed that women who used the pill and didn’t exercise had better density in their spine bones than those using the pill who exercised regularly. This highlights the negative effect of exercise on bone health among women who use oral contraceptives. If you’re concerned about the health of your bones, make a point of talking with your health care provider about things you can do to optimize your bone health.

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to trauma. Inflammation causes healing cells to move to the site of the injury, to begin the process of repair. Inflammation also causes pain and swelling. The medication you’ve been prescribed is supposed to ease swelling and pain from inflammation.

Nonsteriodal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are very safe and effective when used for short periods of time. With long-term use, however, they may reduce muscle strength and healing. For this reason, NSAIDs may only be advised for the first few days after an injury.

Researchers are still trying to answer questions about the long-term effects of NSAIDs. Your doctor can tell you more about what he or she expects in your case.

Of course, what is “intense” and “moderately intense” differs from person to person. For these new guidelines, moderate intensity means that your heart beats at least 20 times more each minute than when at rest. Moderate also means you are breathing harder but can still talk to someone else. You may begin to sweat slightly.

The average adult in good health who can walk a distance of two miles in 30 minutes is usually exercising at a moderately intense level.

The American College of Sports Medicine along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have announced these new guidelines for improved health. Every adult is encouraged to accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderately intense physical activity. This should be done every day or nearly every day.

The activity can be as simple as household chores, gardening, or grocery shopping when done at a moderate intensity. Basically, this means any activity you do that is not slow or leisurely for you. What seems slow to a 25-year-old adult may be moderately intense for a 75-year-old. The activity can be five or 10 minutes long, but with all the activities added up, there should be at least 30 minutes a day on most days.

Exercising for 30 minutes without stopping is also an option. This can be a walking program, bowling, cycling, or more vigorous activities such as jogging, tennis, swimming, or other exercise.

Not necessarily. The results of several recent studies have shown that stretching before strenuous activity is not a surefire way to prevent injuries. Surprisingly, improving your general fitness has a bigger impact on preventing training-related injuries in the lower limbs.

This is not meant to discourage people from keeping good flexibility in their joints and muscles. You still need to warm up before heading out for your jog. This can be as simple as bouncing lightly on the balls of your feet. Also, “walk before you run” in order to gradually increase your heart rate. Once you’ve warmed up, you can start your jog.

Most health experts agree that stretching has more of an effect when muscles are warmed up. So you might want to consider stretching after your jog.

Leaking urine is a condition called urinary incontinence. This can happen when there is weakness of the pelvic floor muscles. These are the muscles your coach was talking about that support the bladder. Estrogen levels can drop in women who exercise hard over a long period of time. The hormone estrogen helps the pelvic floor muscles maintain their shape, support, and strength. The problem can worsen if the woman is not eating properly because of an eating disorder such as anorexia (loss of appetite and not eating). So even though you’re exercising every day, other factors may be causing these muscles to weaken.

This type of incontinence can usually be treated successfully. The first step is to see your doctor. Several treatment options are available, including medications, nutritional counseling, and specific exercises.

This is a common problem among women who have been pregnant. It is especially common among women who have had more than one baby. There is a group of muscles and ligaments that forms a sling inside the body to hold the bladder in its proper place. These muscles are called the pelvic floor muscles. When extra pressure is placed on the pelvic floor muscles from obesity or pregnancy, the sling drops down, stretches out, and no longer holds the bladder up. When this happens, there can be leaking of urine, a condition called urinary incontinence.

Urinary incontinence can start after the birth of a child. Leakage may go away in time, once the body regains its former shape and the hormones that control muscle tone return to normal. How soon this happens depends on whether the woman is breastfeeding, if there was damage to the nerves controlling the pelvic floor muscles, and how much muscle tone is normally present for that person. Most often, exercises to strengthen the muscles holding the bladder are recommended.

You should discuss this with your doctor. He or she can refer you to a nurse or physical therapist. After examining you, a specific program of exercises can be prescribed.

Dribbling or leaking urine is a condition called urinary incontinence. There are two kinds of urinary incontinence: stress incontinence and urge incontinence. Both are caused by problems with the ligaments and muscles supporting the bladder. Stress incontinence is usually caused by damage, weakness, or overstretching of the muscles that hold the bladder in place. These muscles are called the pelvic floor muscles. This problem occurs most often in women after childbirth and in men after prostate problems. Urge incontinence is also caused by a problem with one particular muscle around the bladder called the detrusor muscle. This muscle may contract at the wrong time, causing urine to leak out of the bladder.

With stress incontinence, any activity that puts pressure on the bladder can cause urine to leak out. This is the type of incontinence you’ve described. It can also happen in some people when laughing or sneezing, lifting heavy items or weights, or quickly changing positions (standing up after sitting).

There are many treatment ideas that can help with this problem. The first step is to see a physician, physical therapist, or nurse who specializes in these kinds of problems. Once you have been evaluated and the specific cause or causes have been identified, treatment can be started. Exercises and electrical stimulation can be used to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. Other options include a special device to help hold the bladder in place, called a pessary. If these measures don’t help, surgery may be recommended.

It’s a good idea to try to keep your mother’s muscles strong during this time of bed rest. This will help ensure a fuller recovery when she is finally up and moving.

Studies suggest that she may not have to do a lot of exercises to maintain her muscle tone. In a recent study, 20 minutes of muscle contraction exercises every three days helped a group of young, healthy subjects maintain muscle size and strength.

Your mother’s doctor or physical therapist can design a program of exercises for her. The number and frequency of exercises will depend on your mother’s age, condition, and duration of bed rest.

Not necessarily. Researchers recently reviewed injury reports from the first season of Major League Soccer in the United States. There were 237 players on 10 teams. Players’ ages ranged from 18 to 38. Their average age was 27.

Three hundred ninety-nine injuries were recorded over the course of the season. Most of them resulted in brief or no lapses in playing time. In general, players were more likely to be injured in competition than in practice. But there were no differences between older and younger players in rate or severity of injury. Players’ positions also didn’t make them more prone to injury.

Time and intensity of playing seemed to take a toll over the course of the season, regardless of players’ ages. There were more injuries at the end of the season than at the beginning or middle, though this increase was fairly slight.

If you’re still concerned about injury, talk with a doctor or trainer. He or she may be able to suggest some preventive measures.

Like most sports, soccer poses some risks. But according to a recent article, the level of risk may be relatively small.

Two hundred thirty-seven athletes participated in the first season of US Major League Soccer. They had roughly six injuries for every 1,000 hours of playing time. Most injuries involved the knee or ankle. Injuries were 12 times more common during games as they were during practice.

Notably, however, one-third of the injuries didn’t result in any loss of playing time. Of the remaining 256 injuries, most (59 percent) put players out for less than a week. Only 13 percent were major injuries that kept players off the field for more than one month.

Obviously, soccer does cause injuries. But according to these figures, pro soccer players aren’t likely to be kept out of the game for long.

Kegel exercises, or squeezing the pelvic floor muscles to stop urinary flow, can help strengthen the pubococcygeal muscle which promotes continence. But a recent study suggests that this isn’t the only way to keep the pelvic muscles in good shape.

Researchers asked women to squeeze their deep abdominal muscles, to see whether this would activate the muscles of the pelvic floor. It did. In fact, women got as much of a contraction in the pelvic floor when they used their abs as when they tried to tighten the pelvic muscles alone.

It doesn’t hurt to do Kegel exercises. But this research suggests that you may strengthen your pelvic floor muscles just by using your abdominals and keeping active. Talk with your doctor about what kind of prevention he or she recommends in your case.

Surgery can stabilize the fractured pelvis. Failing to operate quickly may prevent the area from healing properly. It may also make patients more prone to blood clots in their blood vessels.

A recent study found that patients who developed blood clots after pelvic trauma had about a ten-day delay between their injury and surgery. Meanwhile, patients who had surgery within five days of injury were less likely to develop blood clots.

Blood clots are a very serious condition. They can even be fatal. Operating sooner seems to be one means of prevention. Other treatment, such as using mechanical devices to keep good blood flow, may lower the chances a clot will form.

Research isn’t yet clear on this issue. A recent study compared two such compression devices. One gave a low-pressure pulse, first to the calf and then to the thigh. The other gave a high-pressure pulse to the calf and foot. Patients with major trauma to the pelvis wore one of these devices after surgery until they were discharged from the hospital.

The authors thought the high-pressure calf-foot device would be more effective in preventing blood clots than the low-pressure thigh-calf device. Yet there were no major differences between the two, possibly because there weren’t enough patients in the study to show such differences. Patients who had the low-pressure device were a little more likely to have larger clots, but this trend was slight.

What is clear is that either type of device is far better than nothing at all. Without preventive care, the rate of blood clots may be as high as 61 percent with pelvic trauma. In contrast, the rate of blood clots in this study was 14 percent overall.