Last weekend I got a tremendous opportunity to become a DVRT (Dynamic Variable Resistance Training) Master Trainer for Innovative Fitness Solutions. Not only was this an opportunity to learn from Josh Henkin, Troy Anderson, and Jessica Bento, but I also learned from the group of top fitness professionals that they brought in from all over the world.
One of these fitness professionals that impressed me was Mitch Hauschildt. It will be very difficult to find someone in the industry with a resume like Mitch...So I decided to interview him about a topic that I am very concerned with..."Training The Female Athlete"
Check out what Mitch has to say and see why Missouri State University trusts all of their athletes to Mitch:
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1.
Can you state your job
title and description at Missouri State University?
Prevention, Rehab, and Physical Performance
Coordinator for all 16 NCAA D1 Sports; Strength & Conditioning Coach for Women’s Basketball and
Volleyball
2. I know that you are a man of many hats...besides what you do at MSU, What other hats do you wear?
I actually wear a lot of hats on a daily
basis. I am a husband and father of 2
small children. Obviously, judging by my
title at MSU, I do a lot of different things there. Additionally, I am the founder of Maximum
Training Solutions, LLC, a sports medicine consulting and education
company. I am also a Sports Medicine
Instructor for TRX and a DVRT Master Instructor for Innovative Fitness
Solutions. Outside of my professional
duties, I am also on the leadership team for Man Up, an organization that performs
Christian based missions work in Africa.
3.
Can you talk a little
bit about young female athletes and why we are seeing more and more females
getting hurt while playing their sport?
I think that there are a number of reasons
that all likely play a small role, but add up to something that is
problematic. First, female sports have
never been so popular. Thus, 20 years
ago, female athletes just didn’t play the amount of games and reps that they do
now. Thus, they are exposed to a lot
more injuries.
Secondly, our female athletes are getting
taller and larger, but it just doesn’t seem that their overall strength levels
are improving at the same rate. So, they
have longer lever arms than ever, but no more strength, which provides them a
significantly lower mechanical advantage.
Another major issue is the way that they
are being trained. Many young high
school females are lifting at their schools with no thoughts of possible gender
differences by the high school strength coach or physical education
teacher. Females aren’t being taught how
to use their gluts and hips appropriately, even though we know that they tend
to be at a genetic disadvantage in this area.
They tend to have very little stability throughout their entire chain,
and very few people are teaching them how to decelerate safely under load.
On top of all of these factors, you can add
things like poor nutrition, not enough attention to recovery, and hormone
levels as other likely factors. You put
all of this together and it makes for a recipe for disaster.
4.
What types of injuries
do you see frequently coming up? In your
opinion, why are they coming up so frequently?
I still think that an ACL injury is most common, most feared
major injury. We have come a long way in
understanding why they continue to happen, but much of the research still isn’t
trickling down to youth parents and coaches, so the athletes at the greatest
risk are not getting what they need.
The other injury that we are seeing more of
is hip pain. There isn’t a lot of good
research out there or good orthopedists who are successfully treating young
athletic hip injuries. Many of these hip
injuries can fall under the classification of hip impingement, where the femur
and pelvis don’t function properly and end up pinching other tissue around the
joint. Cartilage tears in the hip are
also becoming more prevalent, but not quite to the level of the impingement
cases.
I believe that most of the hip pain that I
see is due to a lack of core stability.
This is especially true of athletes with poor rotational stability
and/or poor deceleration. Thus, they are
unable to appropriately stabilize their pelvis and the hip flexor tries to make
up for the difference. That becomes
problematic in the long run.
5.
What can be done to help
keep female athletes healthy before and after injury?
The best things that young female
athletes can do to stay healthy is to eat right, get plenty of sleep, and train
hard during their off-season. Their
training needs to be done by someone who understands the female body and the
differences between training them and, say, a college football player. Their program focus must be on training for
stability in the lower body and core.
This should start in isolated movement patterns, but must progress into
using their stability while running, decelerating, jumping, and rotating in
their sport.
And there is no replacement for
strength. At the end of the day,
strength is the fundamental basis of all athletic movement. Without strength, your athlete will never be
fast or jump high. The trick to a good
program is combining strength with stability and quality movement
patterns. When those are put together
into a quality, comprehensive program, the athlete stands a great chance at
staying healthy long term.
For more information regarding Mitch Hauschild, please check out at www.maximumtrainingsolutions.com
