Very Interesting Article on Hip Injuries #2

Here is the remainder of the article. Tomorrow we will discuss this from the Train2move perspective. 

“It’s interesting to see what injuries increase as we come out of the steroid era,” said Stan Conte, the head trainer for the LosAngeles Dodgers. 

The sudden prominence of hip injuries comes a year after an unusual number of baseball players sustained strained oblique muscles, which run from the ribs to the abdomen.

The apparent rash of hip injuries extends beyond baseball, doctors and trainers said. Athletes of all ages and skill levels and in varying sports are having hip problems at higher rates and being found to have labral tears, they said. Soccer and hockey players in particular have followed the conventional training wisdom in recent years and bolstered their knees. Now some of them, including Islanders Goalie Rick Dipietro and middle fielder Freddie Ljunberg of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders, who have both had labrum surgery, are having hip trouble.

“In soccer, they train harder than they used to train 10 to 15 to 20 years ago, when soccer had had a lot of A.C.L. tears,” said Dr. Andreas H. Gomoll, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School and a surgeon at Brighams and Women’s Hospital.

“They started worrying much more about knees; they now do special training to protect the knee. And one belief is that this is why we have more of these injuries because the strength is putting more pressure on the hips.”

Dr. Bryan T. Kelly, a surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, performed Utley’s operation and is scheduled to operate on Myers. He said he did not believe it was a coincidence that “I get 40 hockey players in a six-week period at the end of the season all coming into my office with the same-looking bone structure in their hips, all saying that they have been skating since they were 3 years old.”

Kelly added, “I believe we are seeing some consequences from having our kids over the past few decades playing sports more at younger ages.”

As magnetic imaging has become more sophisticated, doctors have gained the ability to see inside the hip and identify labral tears. 

“We are doing a much better job at imaging the injuries, and we are also seeing athletes with bigger bodies that are working harder on strength and conditioning, and the bigger, stronger muscles are allowing athletes to torque faster and more pressure is being put on the hip,” said Dr. Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Problems with labral tears occur when the head of the femur does not fit correctly in the hip socket. If it is not a good fit, the labrum is squeezed between the ball and the socket when the hip is flexed. Over time, the labrum can become irritated and tear.

The problem with an adolescent, doctors said, is that the head of the femur is still growing. Stress on the hip can cause the bone to become misshapen. As the athlete continues to play sports into adulthood, the improperly shaped bone rubs against the labrum.

“I believe the situation with the hips is similar to Little League baseball, where there is a high awareness to elbow injuries from pitching too much because the joints are still developing,” Kelly said. “But with the hips, nothing is said. There is nothing done to try and prevent damage from being done.”