7-14-2010 Weekly Tips

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives

Travis Manners, PT, SCS, CSCS
Improving Your Golf Game - It's Not as Hard as You Think, Part 2

So here we are, midway through the golf season, and you are still getting laughed at by your “buddies”. But fear not. If you followed my first article in improving your game, you have some greatly improved thoracic and hip mobility and are ready to move on to the next component of a potent golf swing: joint stability. Click here for the complete tip...

7-2-10 Weekly Tips

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives

Adam Stephenson, CSCS
How Many Calories?

Whenever I talk to someone about nutrition, the conversation revolves around calories. It’s common to think that the number one way to lose weight is to decrease the calories taken in and increase the calories expended. While this has been proven true, I believe that those who are looking to change their diet or lose weight are overlooking a key factor: All Calories Are Not Created Equal. Click here for the complete tip...

Marisa Gulizia, DPT, PT, CSCS
Working Like a Dog Can Cause a Scotty Dog Fracture

Spondylolysis is a stress fracture in the pars interarticularis area of the vertebrae, or sometimes referred to as the neck of the “Scotty Dog”. A precursor to this condition is called a spondylolisthesis where the bone is initially weak at this area before it fractures. Although a spondylolysis can be caused from genetic factors, this type of fracture is most commonly seen in children and teen athletes as an overuse injury. Click here for the complete tip...

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives

David Fiech, MS, CSCS
Speed is a Skill

Many people believe genetics determine whether or not someone is capable of becoming fast and there is not much that can be done to alter what you have been given. Sometimes a young athlete is told by his or her parents that they are not likely to be fast or be able to jump very high because the parents themselves have never been fast or able to jump high. This can then become a self-fulfilling prophecy destroying any chances a young athlete might have in reaching a high level of performance in sports that require speed and power. During the last 15 years, some interesting research has shown how these beliefs are completely unfounded. Very few physical traits are fixed while many are highly alterable.Click here for the complete tip...

Nick Wegener, DPT, PT, ATC, CSCS
Hang Out Those Lats!

Recently I had a discussion with a colleague regarding the idea of stretching related to low back pain and how so much emphasis is often misplaced on stretching the hamstrings and it dawned on me that this would be a perfect topic to bring up in our tips section. Today, I want to talk about the muscle group that I feel should be the most emphasized when focusing on any low back flexibility program and that is your Latissimus dorsi. Click here for the complete tip...

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives

Travis Manners, PT, SCS, CSCS

Improving Your Golf Game – It’s Not as Hard as You Think, Part 1
With summer getting into full swing, the distinct sound of “ping” starts to fill the air. So there you are, on the tee box with your buddy (or maybe your boss or that client you want to impress) and you just got out driven by a good 30 yards. How embarrassing. The game of golf can be a humbling one, but rest assured it does not have to be as soon as you have the keys to helping you reach your maximum swing potential. Click here for the complete tip...

Jayme Nekuda

My story...
I had just finished the Rotterdam (Netherlands) marathon and my Achilles tendon was very sore and inflamed. So, while still in Rotterdam I called and made an appointment at OrthoWest for the day I returned (on a Friday). Dr. Thompson told me I needed physical therapy. I was going to take PT somewhere closer to where I work and it would have been more convenient. Dr. Michael Thompson said I could go where ever I wanted to, but that the Athletes' Training Center would be a good fit for me. I called there Friday evening and scheduled an appointment for the following Monday.

Three weeks from the Rotterdam marathon, with the help of Marisa, I was able to run the Lincoln marathon - which was on my 51st birthday no less. I have run the Lincoln marathon several times; however, this year they had permission to finish in Memorial Stadium on the 50-yard line. I owe a great deal to Marisa and the Athletes' Training Center for helping me accomplish my goal and run this marathon three weeks after running the Rotterdam marathon.

I am now trying to get completely healed so I can run the Amsterdam marathon this fall (the last of one of my husband's bucket lists which is the top ten marathons according to Runner's World magazine). Exactly two weeks after Amsterdam is the Athens Greece marathon which I have put on my bucket list, so we are running Amsterdam, site-seeing in Amsterdam, then going to Greece, site-seeing and then running the Athens marathon. It will be the 2,500th running of the Athens marathon where it all began!

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives

Marisa Gulizia, PT, DPT, CSCS
Aerobic Exercise vs. Anarobic Exercise

In our culture approximately 30-45 million children participate in sports and out of those kids around 1-3.5 million youngsters will experience a sports injury. Half of these injuries can be prevented with a little education and awareness. Lesson 1:Children’s bones are immature because they are still growing! So, this means at intense forces, children are more likely to sustain a bone, or even worse, a growth plate fracture rather than a muscle strain or sprain. Prevention: Resting, not playing while injured or being over tired, and proper nutrition such as Calcium and Vitamin D. Click here for the complete tip...

Adam Stephenson, MS, CSCS
Fitness Goals: Overrated?

In many cases, getting to the gym and working out is easy, but making it on a consistent basis is where we get into trouble. We also run into these problems with our eating habits. It would be relatively easy to go to the store, buy the healthy stuff, and eat it for a week. But following the same schedule for a six month period? Not such an easy task. Click here for the complete tip...

Weekly Tips 5-6-2010

New Weekly Tips Have Been Posted at http://www.atcomaha.com/news/weekly-tip-archives


David Fiech, MS, CSCS
Aerobic Exercise vs. Anarobic Exercise
Anyone who has followed the media for training information and advice over the past 30 yearshas seen a complete paradigm shift in cardio training. Just to clarify, cardio training is any typeof training that involves the heart and lungs. During the 80’s and most of the 90’s aerobictraining was considered the superior method for reducing body fat and improving cardiovascularhealth. But more recently, aerobic training has been vilified in favor of higher intensity anaerobic trainingmethods. The aerobic energy system utilizes oxygen while the anaerobic energy system produces energy in theabsence of oxygen. According to what the media has portrayed over the past 30 years, training that relies on oneof these energy systems must be a completely wrong training choice since human physiology has remainedunchanged for thousands of years. This is a perfect example of the pendulum swinging too far in one directionand then an overreaction causing it to swing too far in the opposite direction. The truth is that both systems are extremely important for energy production. Click here for the complete tip...



Nick Wegener, PT, ATC, CSCS
3 Quick Ways to Relieve Upper Shoulder Tightness
As I was thinking about my topic for this week’s tip, I started to notice my shoulders were getting tightand I realized “that’s it”. Like many people I tend to carry a great deal of tension in my upper shoulderand neck region, especially when I am sitting at the computer and typing. The primary reason for thistension is often related to the position we are holding ourselves in.For example, sitting at the computer causes us to bring our head forward and elevate our shoulders creating the sensation“that my shoulders are in my ears.” There are a host of muscles helping to pull you into this position but I am going to pick ona few specifically. Click here for the complete tip...

Marisa Gulizia Earns CSCS Certification

Marisa Guliza, DPT, PT has added to her list of credentials. She recently received the good news that she passed the exam needed to earn the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification. The CSCS certification, awarded by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), is one of the most challenging credentials in the fitness industry. In fact, the NSCA Certification is the only fitness-related organization to have credentials nationally accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies since 1993. Athletes’ Training Center boasts of having one of the most qualified staffs in the Midwest and is proud of Gulizia’s accomplishment.

Visit Marisa Gulizia's Bio for more information.

High School Football Combine Results

Players from around the Omaha area and as far as Litchfield (near Kearney) attended the 2010 High School Football Combine hosted by Athletes’ Training Center Sports Performance & Physical Therapy. The event was held Saturday, April 10th and allowed athletes to experience what they would go through at an NFL combine. They tested in the following areas: 10 yard sprint, vertical jump, 3-cone drill, bench press repetition test, broad jump, and Pro agility.

Most high school football players do some type of pre-season testing when they begin the football season, but few do a full battery of tests similar to what would be expected at a combine. “This combine gives them the chance to see how they rank in terms of the same performance tests the pros go through every April,” David Fiech, MS, CSCS, head performance coach at Athletes’ Training Center explains.

Scoring best in each category were: vertical jump, Jeremy Meyer, Elkhorn, 31.5”; 10 yard, Assan Tucker, Bellevue West, 1.86 seconds; 3-cone drill, Zak Ziepke, Millard North, 7.46 seconds; broad jump, Jared Sapp, Lincoln High, 9’ 8.5”; pro-agility, Ziepke, 4.52 seconds; and bench press, Arik Todd, Waverly, 16 x 185 lbs.

The results from the 2010 High School Football Combine have been posted. Visit http://www.atcomaha.com/news/201004/high-school-football-combine-results to see the complete results. Click here to check out Photos from the event.

Colton's Comeback

Colton Fruhling describes the feeling of watching something he loves passing by, like his senior year of athletics, as sickening. This is because Colton sustained a serious knee injury during the football soap scrimmage this past fall, his senior year. He had read the run and was trying to turn the run back inside, but did not see the 300-pound lineman coming his way. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground in pain.

Emergency room doctors had led him to expect a positive outcome, but four days later he received the not so good news from Dr. Michael Walsh at Orthowest that he had definitely torn some ligaments and it would potentially be a nine month recovery. Colton describes the next few weeks as, “the worst in my life”. He would not only miss out on his senior year of football and probably the last time he would play competitive football, but also on his soccer season.

He went through physical therapy and was able to return to normal daily activities, but Colton needed more. He needed to be able to return to his full athletic potential. Together, Travis Manners, PT and Colton set goals and worked together to develop a program to meet those goals. Colton describes the hard work, “Every day I would get done with my workout and my legs would be so tired they would twitch, but after three months without doing something physical like that it was the best feeling in the world.”

How is Colton doing now, three weeks after completing his therapy at Athletes’ Training Center? He earned his starting position back in soccer and played his first full game less than two games into the season. As Colton describes it, “the cherry on top of it all was that I never expected to play this year."

~ Colton Fruhling

Colton Fruhling

Our son had a severe knee injury that occurred at the season opening football scrimmage of his senior year. This required extensive surgery to repair his knee. He then followed the usual route of physical therapy and was rehabilitated to normal daily activities. However, the goal for our son was to play the sport he loves....varsity soccer. I asked the surgeon how we could take Colton to the next level of physical therapy for high performance athletes. We were referred to Athletes’ Training Center.

We were impressed with the process and client attention from the very beginning. Travis Manners thoroughly tested our son's current performance level and determined he had a 40% deficit in his injured leg. This was six weeks before the beginning of soccer season. Colton and Travis set goals to help Colton work towards playing competitive soccer. Through the program that Travis designed for Colton he made amazing progress. The last time he was evaluated the deficit was below 10%.

When we met with the surgeon to determine if Colton was fit for competitive soccer, we were informed that Travis had made a comprehensive presentation to the surgeon showing video and reporting various strength, agility, and speed indicators and measurements. Because of the excellent physical therapy program at Athletes’ Training Center, Colton was able to achieve his goal of playing varsity soccer his senior year. This was almost a miracle as he was back on the field 6 months after surgery!!

We are so thankful to have access to the high caliber of knowledge and physical therapy programs at Athletes’ Training Center. It made a dream come true for one young man.

~ Ann Fruhling

High School Football Combine

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYERS OFFERED THE CHANCE TO COMPETE IN AN NFL-STYLE COMBINE

Every high school football player has the desire to play professionally in the National Football League (NFL) but the fact is very few will have the opportunity to play college football or have the fortune of participating in the NFL Scouting Combine.

The staff at Athletes’ Training Center Sports Performance and Physical Therapy is bringing that opportunity to local high school players. Owner Travis Manners explains, “We know that most players at the high school level would love to play college football, go on to participate in the NFL combine and get drafted. Statistically few, if any, will make it that far. So, we wanted to bring the combine opportunity to those players.” Manners goes on to say, “We really wanted to bring players from all different high schools and classes together to have fun in a no-pressure testing session where they could see how they stack up against their peers.”

All players, regardless of position or school, are encouraged to test their skills in the following areas: 10 yard sprint, vertical jump, 3-cone drill, bench press repetition test, broad jump, and Pro agility. A rating will be assigned based upon test performance, similar to the NFL combines, and all results will be released to their high school football coaching staffs and, if requested, to college coaching staffs. In addition, players will receive training tips and techniques to improve their testing performance and each player will be videotaped using state of the art Dartfish software which will allow an in-depth breakdown of their testing performance.

The combine will be held Saturday, April 10, 2010 and online registration is now open at www.atcomaha.com. Athletes wanting more information or coaches interested in promoting the event to their team can contact Danielle Kleber at 402-932-7111 or info@atcomaha.com.