The United States, owners of what is considered by many Americans (and Congressional leaders alike) to be the “greatest health care system in the world”, spends 50 percent more on health care than any other country in the world. In 2006, US health care expenditure was over $7,000 per person. Expenditures have also tripled since 1990. Ouch.
So what does this money get us? How about an international ranking of just 15th in preventable death, 24th in life expectancy, and 28th in infant mortality. Money well spent?
More than 75% of US health care spending is on people with highly preventable chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes. And to make matters worse, 7 of 10 deaths among Americans each year are from these same chronic conditions.
But it gets even worse. We have Generations X and Z on deck, ready to push the envelope of both chronic medical conditions and health economics. Fortunately, we have a solution – if only we choose to use it.
It was a memorable Looney Tunes cartoon. You might remember it – the one in which we hear Bugs Bunny’s witty repartee with Christopher Columbus - "the world, she's a round" ... "no, the world she's a flat"! It might be as funny now as it was when I was 10 years old.
The perceptual debate that underlies this snippet of animated humor is a common challenge in the world of health and fitness and just about any topic of conversation or study. And it never seems to go away.
Let’s just give this phenomenon a name and call it "Flat Earth Syndrome". Better yet, so that it looks more “medical”, or perhaps more imposing, let’s give it an acronym – FES. Ohhhhhh. Ahhhhhhh, The power of the acronym.
But why a syndrome? It has a consistent pattern of symptoms that are characteristic of a particular disorder – a disorder of thinking, a fight between evidence and belief. It could be the shape of the earth, the treatment you receive for your back pain, or the fitness program you use to lose weight.
The Top 10 list of endurance sport training errors covers, in my estimation, about 99% of all training errors. Imagine if there were ways to deal with these 10 training errors. We might just find ourselves in training nirvana. Optimal training, fewer injury risks, and improved performance – I think they call that a win-win-win situation.
The basis for any discussion of training needs to begin with a simple concept – there must be a specific intent for each and every workout in the training plan. A training plan’s primary purpose is to build sports performance capacity, and to do so by applying the principles of the sports sciences. When we do so, we then find that the top 10 training errors can be addressed effectively via just 5 simple adjustments to the training plan.
In the previous post, I had listed and described my top 5 endurance sport training errors. It only took a few minutes to realize that there are easily a “second five” errors that are begging to be included. How could I deny them the opportunity of fame?
In my experience clinically and as a coach, I am convinced that these 10 factors either increase the risk of injury or prevent the athlete from attaining his/her performance goals. Address these factors, and you can effectively optimize your workouts while removing the vast majority of limiters in your endurance sport training.
So without further adieu, here are five more endurance sport training errors to consider, followed by the complete top 10 list.
I have spent many years as a physiotherapist fixing injured athletes, especially runners and triathletes, and have heard many a tale of running injury woe. On further analysis, most of these tales of injury have a common theme.
When you review the sports sciences research on running injuries, you find that there is just one factor, the common theme, that correlates directly with the onset of these problems.
Is it “biomechanical mal-alignment”, with issues such as leg length discrepancies or excessive foot pronation? No.
Is it any specific type of running shoe (or lack thereof)? No.
The one factor that correlates directly with the onset of running injuries is, imagine this, training.
“Training error” is common in most endurance sports. Sad as that may be, there is a beauty in knowing this. Why? Because training can be readily adjusted and optimized. Adjust the training plan – and minimize the risk of injury. And better yet, optimize your performance in the meantime. Now that is a “win-win” if ever there was one.
Here are the top 5 errors that I have found in the training plans of endurance sport athletes.
The United States is currently faced with an antiquated, gatekeeper-driven approach to health care that best exemplifies defensive behaviors, territorial debates and turf battles more so than “patient-centered care”. While lobbyists throw millions of dollars at legislators in order to protect the sacred turf of gatekeepers, the patient suffers.
There are many lessons in patient-centered health that can be learned from the global village. The rest of the world has quietly moved forward and embraced direct access to physical therapy as an effective means of enhancing patient-centered care and in increasing access to appropriate care. They have done so with great success. You don’t have to go any further than our neighbor to the north to find one of the world leaders in direct access to physical therapy.
Let’s examine what the international perspectives on direct access to physical therapy, what can be learned from these cumulative international experiences, and what the limiters are in this country.
May 6, 1954 was a landmark day. Much in the same way that Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound on October 14, 1947 – forever changing the dynamics of what was thought to be possible in the air - Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile and forever changed what was thought to be possible by a running human on land.
On that fateful day in 1954, there were just 1,000 people in attendance at the University of Oxford running track. At the time, Bannister was a 25 year-old medical student. Today, he is Sir Roger Bannister, neurosurgeon.
The physical barrier that was broken that day was significant. People wondered if the 4 minute barrier would ever be broken. Was it possible physically? When he crossed the finish line with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, not only did he break through a perceived physical barrier, but he broke through a tremendous psychological barrier as well.
One man, four minutes, and suddenly there were new perceptions on the limits of human performance.
Allan Besselink, PT, DPT, Ph.D., Dip.MDT has a unique voice in the world of sports, education, and health care. Read more about Allan here.