Proper maintenance of the CORE will prevent disabling abdominal and back injuries from occurring. It looks like the Miami Heat may need to revise their CORE strengthening and maintenance program to prevent injuries like the one that Bosh received.
(prHWY.com) May 21, 2012 - Elmsford, NY -- From the looks of it the other night, the Miami Heat is in dire need of some extra help, particularly from the services of Chris Bosh. Is his return a likely one though? Abdominal strains are devastating injuries, especially while in the midst of a seven game series. Abdominal strains often affect one or more of the following muscle groups: rectus abdominus, internal and external obliques, and transverse abdominus. This cluster of muscles creates the front wall of your CORE, which then connects to your back through a connective tissue called your thorical lumbar fascia.
Your CORE is essentially like a belt; the tighter and more reactive your belt is, the less likely you are to sustain an injury to your abdomen and lower back. Once the CORE has been disrupted due to strain, your ability to stabilize your upper and lower torso is greatly reduced.
However, not all strains are created equally. Grade one strains often have a favorable and quick outcome. With this grade, 25% of the fibers in any of the aforementioned muscle groups are disrupted. The return for this level of injury is 7-10 days. A grade two strain is a condition that typically requires around six weeks to heal, due to the fact that up to 50% of the muscle fibers are disrupted. A grade three strain is when more than 75% of the muscle fibers are strained, and usually requires surgery to reconnect the ruptured tissues. This will require 3-4 months to return.
With the grades of fiber disruption understood, let's look at the roles of each region of the body in terms of mobility and stabilization.
Your body should ideally have an alternating pattern of regions that are stable and then mobile. For example, the foot should be stable, ankle mobile, knee stable, hip mobile, the lumbar spine (core) should be stable, while the mid spine should be mobile, etc...
The muscles of the abdominal wall create a stable CORE, by which your arms and legs can move freely. Nothing demonstrates this concept better than the movements witnessed while playing basketball, football, and pretty much any other athletic activity. Having an injured abdominal wall will limit the ability to lift ones arms up, bend, twist, squat, run, jump...you get the point. If the CORE doesn't remain as stable as it should, then the neighboring regions will begin to function differently and inefficiently. This makes one susceptible to reoccurring strains and other possible injuries outside of the abdominal wall.
Chris Bosh likely sustained at least a grade two injury, based upon the news indicating his "indefinite" return. Any injury will require the affected tissues to reach a point where some scar tissue has formed, and then eventually matures and strengthens. This is why the prognosis is at least a six week return for a grade two strain, and Chris Bosh will likely be sidelined for at the rest of this series.
Unless Spoelstra is able to devise a new CORE strengthening strategy and muster up an unwavering determination from his players to follow it, then it looks like the Heat will be "Boshed" with injuries.
For more information of how Executive Park Physical Therapy in Yonkers and Elmsford NY can help stabilize your CORE, visit
http://www.executiveparkpt.com.
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