Following the Olympics:
I subscribe to google alerts for different stories relating to back and neck pain. This week, I have read about a hundred stories about olympic athletes and their back and neck injuries. If I hear one more interviewer ask the question ‘why do you think so many olympic athletes are having injuries?’ I will blow a cork! Aren’t there better questions they could ask? How about questions about their love lives? What kind of car are they drivin’?
Olympic and professional athletes are training at a much higher level than most of us ever will. Now, I know you are saying to yourself ”Aren’t they in peak condition? Shouldn’t they have less injuries?” Well, sure they are in peak condition- but if you look, pretty much all competitive sports (save for maybe curling?) have become ‘extreme sports.’ The overall stats for lifting, jumping, running, endurance- most metrics used to rank athletic performance- have all jumped by leaps and bounds. There are records from Olympic games earlier in the 20th century, where commentators essentially declared that we were approaching the limits of human performance. WOW- how wrong they were! Virtually every major record has been beaten in the past 2 sets of Olympic games. The technology to make us all faster, stronger, better nourished for endurance, and with better performance psychology has advanced so far- but in the end we are all limited by the laws of physiology, and ultimately gravity. As you reach the higher echelons of performance, you are more likely to be injured, regardless of conditioning. Now that being said- the Olympic athletes have access to training and knowledge to help minimize their likelihood of injury- but there is only so much you can do.
Chiropractors, Osteopaths, Physical Therapists, and all the rest- are all a waste of your money!
You may have read my ‘coming Monday’ post earlier in the week. I suppose the search engines latched onto the tag line- because I have gotten a ream of hate mail, primarily from Chiropractors and Physical Therapist. ‘How dare you call my work a waste of money- I help a hundred people a week with their back pain!’
Have you ever been on this blog before? If you read back a few posts and see what I am about you will know that I am not here to bash anybody. How about reading the post first? I am not calling any body a quack- and I am certainly not about to tout my work as any better than yours- wait and give it a read.
Fitness Challenge Update
People must have thought I dropped the ball on the fitness challenge until they read the post yesterday. Thanks for the updates some of you sent in. I am so glad you are choosing to do this along with me, and hope we can all talk at the beginning of 2011 about how we met the challenge, and lived up to our New Years Resolutions!
Have a great remainder of your weekend.
Andy
