azdad1978
Championship!!!!
Training approach credited for lack of injuries
Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 7, 2005 12:00 AM
A team needs some luck to stay healthy, but the Suns have been granted both luck and an innovative training staff to keep them at the top of their game.
The trainers' system, which involves studying a player to learn which injuries he could be likely to suffer and prescribing preventive therapy, has made believers in the locker room.
Despite the pain.
Players willingly allow a trainer to cause them to cringe atop a training table. It's as much a part of the Suns' pregame routine as warm-up shots and meetings.
Although nobody tracks total games missed to injury until the end of the season, head athletic trainer Aaron Nelson believes the Suns have the lowest total, particularly when one eliminates faux injury-list appearances by Zarko Cabarkapa and Yuta Tabuse and down time for Jake Voskuhl's appendectomy and Leandro Barbosa's chicken pox.
Suns players have missed only 14 games because of acute injuries. The starting lineup has been available in 64 of 74 games for the league-leading Suns. By Nelson's count of injuries to the 12-man roster, 39 games have been lost to injury this season, compared with 158, 154 and 159 in the previous three seasons.
"That is ridiculous," he said.
The Suns are the only pro team to have a fully integrated partnership with the National Academy of Sports Medicine, for which team physician Craig Phelps and Nelson are advisory board members.
The NASM concept is to determine what injuries to which athletes are predisposed by studying bodies' movements and flexibility. In turn, Nelson, assistant athletic trainer Mike Elliott and strength coach Erik Phillips have cut the treatments for injuries by more than half (from 2,500 treatments during the 2002-2003 season to 950 in 2003-2004).
Chain of life
The basis of their approach is a "kinetic chain," which has a weak muscle eliciting a reaction that causes injuries elsewhere.
An ankle sprain could be caused by weak rear and hip muscles. It could cause a hip flexor muscle to tighten, prompting a pelvic rotation that leads to back or hamstring pain.
The old-fashioned way to treat injuries uses stimulation or ice for weeks, possibly causing a player to miss games or practices, only to see the injury recur. In the Suns' case, they take photos of players in various squats, then feed the photos into a computer program. It tells what injuries may occur in a player based on the turn of his feet and knees, and the arch of his back. He then is assigned flexibility exercises and corrective therapy to prevent injury.
"If something is tight, something else is weak," Elliott said. "We're correcting imbalances."
Quentin Richardson often is the first to take in the corrective therapy. Trainers address six areas to improve his flexibility. Just this season, he has added 20 degrees of flexibility in his quadriceps.
"I really don't like it," Richardson said. But he keeps showing up, just like all of the players who have recently come from another team without the same approach.
Jim Jackson plopped on a table wearing headphones, waving his fingers to the rap music with his eyes shut as Elliott contorted his legs. He winced so much that his eyelids vanished as Elliott's fingers dug deep to loosen muscles in a 20-minute therapy session.
Later, Elliott had forward Shawn Marion jumping off the table with Elliott's fingers into his calves and Elliott's other hand shifting Marion's heels.
"It hurts more than you'd think," Amaré Stoudemire attested.
If the players did not feel the difference on the court, they would not tolerate such painful probes and twists.
The payoff
New players have arrived with chronic knee or back pain that is gone in a day with a corrective exercise and therapy. Antonio McDyess had a knee injury that leaves many people unable to walk. His work with the Suns staff last season enabled him to play injury free and get a four-year, $23 million deal with Detroit.
"It's a huge benefit," said Steve Nash, a training-room regular before and after practices, shootarounds and games. "It has a cumulative effect. If your body is more receptive every night, it's going to help you over the long term. He (Nelson) allows my body to loosen up and to move with less restrictions. If I have to play with less freedom, it's going to build up more issues over time.
"I've never had better trainers. They're super hungry, work unbelievably hard and probably are overqualified."
Phillips came from Denver, where most of the training staff's work involved ice, stimulation and ultrasounds. On many staffs, the strength coach and athletic trainer don't share approaches. But Phillips is on board with NASM principles.
"It's more synergistic work here between three trainers, who all are strength coaches, too," Phillips said.
Their jobs go beyond the reach of a kinetic chain. Nelson handles coaches' and players' tickets (three per game for each), per diem money, luggage and travel itineraries. Coach Mike D'Antoni counts on Nelson and his staff for more than in-game foul counts.
"I trust them a lot on whether to practice harder or when to ease up," D'Antoni said. "They have a good gauge of the players. They know, with our type of game, we need to keep a high-octane body."
Coaches may lose sleep over their teams, but trainers lose sleep to the schedule. On a game day, Nelson arrives at 5:50 a.m. and leaves the arena at 11 p.m. In between, he might read the latest in athletic training and "kinetic chain" discoveries sent to him by Michael Clark, NASM chief executive officer.
"It's unique," Clark said. "It's the future of sports medicine. When you pay players that much money, you've got to keep them on the floor. Results speak for themselves always."
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/0407sunstrainers0407.html
Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 7, 2005 12:00 AM
A team needs some luck to stay healthy, but the Suns have been granted both luck and an innovative training staff to keep them at the top of their game.
The trainers' system, which involves studying a player to learn which injuries he could be likely to suffer and prescribing preventive therapy, has made believers in the locker room.
Despite the pain.
Players willingly allow a trainer to cause them to cringe atop a training table. It's as much a part of the Suns' pregame routine as warm-up shots and meetings.
Although nobody tracks total games missed to injury until the end of the season, head athletic trainer Aaron Nelson believes the Suns have the lowest total, particularly when one eliminates faux injury-list appearances by Zarko Cabarkapa and Yuta Tabuse and down time for Jake Voskuhl's appendectomy and Leandro Barbosa's chicken pox.
Suns players have missed only 14 games because of acute injuries. The starting lineup has been available in 64 of 74 games for the league-leading Suns. By Nelson's count of injuries to the 12-man roster, 39 games have been lost to injury this season, compared with 158, 154 and 159 in the previous three seasons.
"That is ridiculous," he said.
The Suns are the only pro team to have a fully integrated partnership with the National Academy of Sports Medicine, for which team physician Craig Phelps and Nelson are advisory board members.
The NASM concept is to determine what injuries to which athletes are predisposed by studying bodies' movements and flexibility. In turn, Nelson, assistant athletic trainer Mike Elliott and strength coach Erik Phillips have cut the treatments for injuries by more than half (from 2,500 treatments during the 2002-2003 season to 950 in 2003-2004).
Chain of life
The basis of their approach is a "kinetic chain," which has a weak muscle eliciting a reaction that causes injuries elsewhere.
An ankle sprain could be caused by weak rear and hip muscles. It could cause a hip flexor muscle to tighten, prompting a pelvic rotation that leads to back or hamstring pain.
The old-fashioned way to treat injuries uses stimulation or ice for weeks, possibly causing a player to miss games or practices, only to see the injury recur. In the Suns' case, they take photos of players in various squats, then feed the photos into a computer program. It tells what injuries may occur in a player based on the turn of his feet and knees, and the arch of his back. He then is assigned flexibility exercises and corrective therapy to prevent injury.
"If something is tight, something else is weak," Elliott said. "We're correcting imbalances."
Quentin Richardson often is the first to take in the corrective therapy. Trainers address six areas to improve his flexibility. Just this season, he has added 20 degrees of flexibility in his quadriceps.
"I really don't like it," Richardson said. But he keeps showing up, just like all of the players who have recently come from another team without the same approach.
Jim Jackson plopped on a table wearing headphones, waving his fingers to the rap music with his eyes shut as Elliott contorted his legs. He winced so much that his eyelids vanished as Elliott's fingers dug deep to loosen muscles in a 20-minute therapy session.
Later, Elliott had forward Shawn Marion jumping off the table with Elliott's fingers into his calves and Elliott's other hand shifting Marion's heels.
"It hurts more than you'd think," Amaré Stoudemire attested.
If the players did not feel the difference on the court, they would not tolerate such painful probes and twists.
The payoff
New players have arrived with chronic knee or back pain that is gone in a day with a corrective exercise and therapy. Antonio McDyess had a knee injury that leaves many people unable to walk. His work with the Suns staff last season enabled him to play injury free and get a four-year, $23 million deal with Detroit.
"It's a huge benefit," said Steve Nash, a training-room regular before and after practices, shootarounds and games. "It has a cumulative effect. If your body is more receptive every night, it's going to help you over the long term. He (Nelson) allows my body to loosen up and to move with less restrictions. If I have to play with less freedom, it's going to build up more issues over time.
"I've never had better trainers. They're super hungry, work unbelievably hard and probably are overqualified."
Phillips came from Denver, where most of the training staff's work involved ice, stimulation and ultrasounds. On many staffs, the strength coach and athletic trainer don't share approaches. But Phillips is on board with NASM principles.
"It's more synergistic work here between three trainers, who all are strength coaches, too," Phillips said.
Their jobs go beyond the reach of a kinetic chain. Nelson handles coaches' and players' tickets (three per game for each), per diem money, luggage and travel itineraries. Coach Mike D'Antoni counts on Nelson and his staff for more than in-game foul counts.
"I trust them a lot on whether to practice harder or when to ease up," D'Antoni said. "They have a good gauge of the players. They know, with our type of game, we need to keep a high-octane body."
Coaches may lose sleep over their teams, but trainers lose sleep to the schedule. On a game day, Nelson arrives at 5:50 a.m. and leaves the arena at 11 p.m. In between, he might read the latest in athletic training and "kinetic chain" discoveries sent to him by Michael Clark, NASM chief executive officer.
"It's unique," Clark said. "It's the future of sports medicine. When you pay players that much money, you've got to keep them on the floor. Results speak for themselves always."
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/0407sunstrainers0407.html
Still impressed with the article though 
I'd love to have dietecians and strength coachs. I would always be in shape and get hot chicks! These guys are so lucky 
