Very Interesting Article on Hip Injuries

I will break this into 2 posts since it is a little long but I really want you to read it, then we will discuss it following in another post. It is very interesting how trainers understand cause and effect but refuse to train within a system that is able to address the fact that our muscular systems are constantly changing based on the stimulus it receives. I better stop before I use this entire post talking about my take on an article you have not even read yet. Here you go, enjoy. 

Hips Are Bringing More Athletes to Their Knees 

By Michael S. Schmidt

Published: May 31, 2009 

The quest to build ever more proficient athletes keeps hitting unexpected snags, and perhaps nowhere is this more vivid than in Major League Baseball. Several top players have been hampered by a hip ailment that was unheard of in the sport a decade ago.

Knee injuries to countless recreational and professional athletes in recent years made anterior cruciate ligament a household phrase and compelled trainers to emphasize building leg strength. Sports medicine experts now say that approach, while mitigating knee injuries, may be making hips vulnerable.

“No matter what we do, as complex as we try and make workouts and training methods, we lose sight of other things,” said Mackie Shilstone, a trainer based in New Orleans, who works with baseball, football and hockey players who are rehabilitating injuries. “We tend to concentrate on what is directly in front of us.

“In all my years as a trainer, I have not seen anything like the increase in hip injuries that I have seen over the past two years.”

No studies have been published to confirm this phenomenon. But many trainers and orthopedists say the anecdotal evidence is jarring, and medical staffs for Major League Baseball teams and franchises in other sports are scrambling to understand why athletes’ hips suddenly seem so fragile.

Experts said other factors could be at work in addition to the overemphasis on leg strength. Advances in magnetic imaging have enabled doctors to see inside the hip and identify certain ailments, and the increasing number of children playing sports at younger ages has led to more instances of improper bone development.

Several of baseball’s biggest stars — including Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies and Carlos Delgado of the Mets — have been forced to the sideline after having surgery to repair a torn labrum, the cartilage that runs along the rim of the hip socket. Rodriguez recently returned after missing two months, and Delgado has said he may not return this season. On Thursday, one of Utley’s teammates, pitcher Brett Myers, was found to have a damaged labrum in his hip. He is expected to have surgery this week.

Not all doctors are convinced that training is the culprit.

“It’s not like workouts have changed all of a sudden; it doesn’t explain it,” said Christopher Powers, an associate professor of biokinesiology at the University of Southern California. “People and doctors are just more aware of it diagnostically. We’ve always had hip problems; now we are just finding it better.”

The number of players on the disabled list because of hip and groin-muscle injuries rose to 34 in 2008 from 20 in 2007. Through the first quarter of this season, at least 13 players have gone on the disabled list with hip injuries. 

“Delgado and A-Rod asked me about it,” said Utley, who had hip surgery last November after the Phillies won the World Series. “They both wanted to know what I did to keep playing.

“Before, guys never had hip surgeries and never let them work on their hips. But this was different.”

No sports medicine experts pointed to performance-enhancing drugs in explaining the rise in hip injuries. But dozens of major league baseball players, including Rodriguez, have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs in recent years, raising suspicions every time a new injury trend appears.