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Preventing Sports Injuries

Since early 2020 kids involved in sports have seen practices and games postponed or canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Without proper conditioning and stretching, athletes are more prone to getting hurt. In this episode of the Inside Pediatrics Podcast, Chief of Sports Medicine Dr. Amit Momaya shares some tips on preventing injuries and safely getting back to play during COVID-19.
Preventing Sports Injuries
Featured Speaker:
Amit Momaya, MD
Amit Momaya, M.D. is a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and serves as Chief of Sports Medicine at Children’s of Alabama. Dr. Momaya has had extensive training in the care of patients with shoulder, elbow, hip and knee injuries. He takes care of athletes at all levels - from weekend warriors to professional athletes. Dr. Momaya currently serves as team physician for UAB Athletics, Legion FC (Birmingham’s pro soccer team), and John Carroll Catholic High School. As an active clinician scientist, his research has been published in leading orthopedic journals and he has presented at multiple local and national meetings. He continues to engage in clinical trials to help improve patient care and innovate in the growing field of sports medicine.
Transcription:

Tiffany Kaczorowski: Welcome to Inside Pediatrics, a podcast brought to you by Children's Hospital of Alabama in Birmingham. I'm Tiffany Kaczorowski. Today, we're talking with Dr. Amit Momaya, who's an Orthopedic Surgeon at UAB, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is Chief of Sports Medicine here at Children's. Dr. Momaya serves as team physician for UAB athletics and is also the team physician for our pro soccer team in town. The Birmingham Legion. Welcome Dr. Momaya.

Dr. Momaya: Thank you for having me.

Host: So, we're talking today about conditioning and injury prevention, as we've all lived through this COVID pandemic, you know, we understand spring sports were canceled for kids and for adolescents also summer, a lot of things have been canceled. So what types of things are you guys seeing in the clinic as far as injuries and due to that? People just not being conditioned?

Dr. Momaya: Sure. Due to the changes in our climate with COVID-19, we are seeing a lot of differences with athletes coming back to sports. Recently, one of the more common things we're seeing is a lot more increased level of soft tissue injuries, specifically ankle sprains and hamstring injuries. We're seeing a lot more largely because these athletes have actually been out of organized sports and structured workouts since March.

Host: So, what types of things can they do? You know, some of these sports are still being delayed in the Fall. What types of things can they do to stay in shape, to stay conditioned and help to prevent those injuries?

Dr. Momaya: Sure. One of the things that's important as these athletes return back to organized sports is to make sure that they have an appropriate ramp up period. You know, every time people come back to Fall sports, there's always a ramp up period, but they have to realize these athletes are not in the same position that they may have been last Fall. Last Fall, they may have been coming off Summer league Summer workouts with an organized team, so forth this season. We have to allow athletes greater time to get conditioned, get in cardiovascular shape, build up their strength. And that means that having a step up standardized protocol to go through for each athlete will be important.

Host: What are some of those things that they can do? The protocols that you guys recommend?

Dr. Momaya: Sure. You know, one of the things, for example, for cardiovascular fitness and running, we may recommend a kind of a 25, 50, 75, 100% kind of algorithm for week one, two, three, four, depending on the type of sport. So it's important that you kind of label it as a percentage of what they would normally do and ramp up on a week to week basis rather than a day to day basis, that some of these athletes may be used to doing. Some of the important things that can also do is to make sure they stretch appropriately. Now, a lot of their muscles and ligaments maybe feel tight because they have not gone through a routine stretching protocol in the summer and the spring. And so it's important for these athletes to stretch appropriately prior to engaging in vigorous activity and then may help potentially prevent or reduce injuries.

Host: Sure. And we also talked about sleep. Sleep is very basic, but very important.

Dr. Momaya: Sleep is underestimated, not only for athletes, but everyone in our society, especially with all the stress going around right now, sleep is an extremely important aspect of an athlete's ability to recover. There's actually been plenty of studies in the past that have demonstrated a correlation between the lack of sleep and increased injury risk. So we strongly recommend that athletes get at least approximately eight hours of sleep at night which can be very challenging these times with digital, social media and all the other distractions we have. But these athletes who are getting back to a sport need to realize that sleep is a very important part of this.

Host: Absolutely. And then also right now, you know, it's end of August, beginning of September, it's still extremely hot here in Birmingham, here in Alabama. And so some kids will definitely have a risk of heat exhaustion. What should parents be looking for?

Dr. Momaya: Yup. Parents should be very mindful of, you know, looking at their kid and seeing what they normally do. We can see quite a variable number of signs, including profuse, sweating, fatigue, some nausea. Those can be signs of potential heat exhaustion. It's important to make sure we take adequate hydration breaks throughout practice, even more than we did last Fall because these athletes need adequate hydration to prevent such things also to make sure they get adequate rest between high interval training is important. Sometimes we can get into a very dangerous situation where we have heat strokes, which need to be prevented at all costs. And some of the signs and symptoms could involve confusion, lethargy, and actually a lack of sweating can actually be one of the signs and that requires urgent transport to a hospital.

Host: And what types of things do you see coaches and team physicians doing on the sidelines, you know, say for a football practice or something like that to prevent heat, exhaustion and heat stroke?

Dr. Momaya: The important thing that we see a lot of, for example, taking care of the Birmingham Legion, FC, USL has done a very good job of promoting specific water breaks at times when the soccer game, you usually have 45 minutes of uninterrupted play when the temperatures were adequate. But during times when the heat index is higher, we've seen a lot of leagues make sure that they have adequate water breaks for the athletes to step away in the middle of the game, take a break and then reinstate play. Okay.

Host: Anything else that we can share?

Dr. Momaya: Yeah. I think the overall thing that parents and athletes should be aware of is that it's a very fluid situation with practices and games being disrupted. And the normal schedule may not occur that they're used to. And so they need to make sure they do everything they can with appropriate rest, appropriate stretching, appropriate, or ramping up of exercises. So they prevent injuries and are able to battle through this unchartered territory in the Fall.

Host: All right. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Momaya for joining us and for more resources and information, you can go to children'sal.org/sportsmedicine.

Conclusion: Thanks for listening to Inside Pediatrics, more podcasts like this one can be found at childrensal.org/insidepediatrics.