I have a female that has come to me recently. She plays basketball and softball. She told me that she would like to do cross country because somone told her that it would help her in her other sports. She also told me that she has had an IT Band problem in the past and definite weaknesses can be seen when she performs some movements. I would just like some comments on what to tell her. I dont see how long distance running on uneven surfaces would help an athlete who wants to become explosive. Am I right? Especially since she has had those problems in the past and has numerous weaknesses due to the fact that she has never been trained. I figured that if she really wanted to help herself her time would be better devoted to gaining strength and all the other factors instead of doing cross country.
Any help would be great.
Explain speed and endurance and how very different they really are. I like to use track and field as the model for my speed/power athletes who talk about improving “endurance” by doing lots and lots of distance running. You want to look like a marathoner, or ben johnson? Appeal to her interests and explain that this running can actually reduce her vertical jump and speed.
I think there are some threads on BBall training. I dont think running exessive distance will help her much. Try to model her running supplement to what she does on the court (speed and speed endurance+plyos?). I knew someone who ran for South Carolina U. and he told me the BBall players did alot track work NOT long distance runs. Stop wasting time and get the all the info you need from Charlie’s Ebooks. I believe theres a pic of a BBall player on the cover 
my 2 cents…
Thanks. I know what she should do. I have read all of Charlies stuff. It is her parents and other ignorant coaches that come up with this stuff. I was mainly looking for some other stuff/research/data that would help my case even more.
I have had success with a self myofacial release using a foam roller. Mike Boyle (Athlete’sPerformance.com) has done a lot of work in this area. Also as far as cross country goes as the group suggested run long and slow get slow and less explosive.
I started hearing a cracking noise about a few years back. This noise kept on getting worse and worse throughout the years, finally after losing a lot of weight and doing cardio twice a day, my knee was just to painful to do lunge. I went to many different physiotherapists and they all sucked until I met a woman who was the physiotherapist for the Canadian Olympic rugby team. She explained to me that the reason I was hearing that noise every time I would flex my knees past parallel was that my patella (knee) was grinding against my knee cap and wasn’t going in its proper alignment. She said that my legs were really tight on both sides and especially on my I-band (side of leg). She said that my inner muscle/s of my quad shut down to protect my legs from getting worse by the contracting of my outside quads. So when I contracted my knee my kneecap would veer off to the outside of my leg.
The recipe for recovery was to quit any lifting immediately and work on stretching for a couple of weeks. The stretches I did were the figure 4 stretch were your lying on your back and with one foot against the wall at a 90 degree angle and the other foot crossed below your knee towards your waist and the other stretch was the I-band stretch with you placing one foot in front of the other with both feet about shoulder width apart and most of the weight on the back leg with some on the front for balance and then you bend towards the back leg side. She would then have me come in throughout the week and do one legged squats with a biofeedback machine so that my brain could relearn how to use my muscle properly, afterwards she would have me sit on the doctors bed and partially contract my leg (each leg one at a time) to full extension while do electro stim. This is how my body learned how to restart the inside muscles of my quad.
Also do stretching for a couple of weeks, then continue stretching and start one-leg squatting to a comfortable degree, then couple of weeks later do full squats, then slowly add weight (i.e. if your max is 335lbs then start by doing the bar at 10-30 reps and then add 10 pounds every week till about 4 months, then you can do your regular lifting but start out on the safe side. Always do stretching throughout the rehab process. Stretch for 1 minute on and 1 minute of for a total of 3 times per day. Also use anti-flam cream on your knee after each weigthlifting session or whenever your knee gets irritated and if it does get irritated the stop doing the thing that irritated it.
These are just general guidelines, know the root cause of your injury first before rehabing it; otherwise you will be wasting your time!
I could not to do a lunge in January, now I’m squatting 335lbs, lunging 180lbs with dumbells, feel no pain while doing the exercises and rarely feel pain at any othertime.
Remember when you get the best, then you can become your best.
Supervenomsuperman,
Sounds like you found an excellent therapist. I am very familiar with PT’s and I know that the skills they possess vary greatly.
The difference between what you did and what many other athletes do is that when you knew therapy wasn’t working you sought better help instead of trying to “tough it out”.
Thier is nothing like cleaning up the mess that a PT or chiro left for me after subpar therapy on an athlete…