Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Dr. John Mullen”
The shoulder is the primary site of injury in swimmers, but the low back is the second most commonly injured site. In fact, ~8% of those competing at a 2001 International competition experienced low back pain. Kaneoka (2007) noted thirty-eight (68%) elite swimmers and 11 (29%) controls had degenerated discs at various levels. Disc level L5-S1 was more frequently degenerated …
Take Home Points on Dry-land Mistake: CrossFit for Swimmers CrossFit is likely more injurious than other forms of dry-land.CrossFit increases soreness and biomechanics in swimming.CrossFit may impair work capacity and anaerobic conditioning. When surveyed, dry-land was used in 83 – 93% of swimming programs (Krabak 2013). Unfortunately, providing safe, beneficial, and realistic dry-land is difficult as the fitness industry confuses it’s …
Genetic contribution to athletic success is clear, but each gene makes a small contribution to overall genetic profile. Identifying genes which contribute to elite success can help predict athletic potential. Recently polymorhpisms to the GH-IGF-I axis are believed to promote excellence in endurance and power sports. C-1245T is a genetic variation in the promoter region of the IGF-I gene, which …
Overreaching is the close cousin of overtraining We’ve previously discussed in detail the negative effects of overtraining. Also, anyone in sports understands the importance of training hard and pushing oneself, ideally for the super-compensation effect. However, the effect balance of swimming training and rest for maximizing overreaching, while minimizing overtraining is extremely difficult. In swimming, many teams perform macrocycles of approximately 3 months, …
Take home points1) By observing the diving culture, swimmers can hold themselves to a higher standard with feedback and visualization to improve technical quality in the pool2) Though energy systems are very different, swimmers can learn from the high standard of technical execution in diving3) Despite being an early specialization sport, most divers have a background in gymnastics and dance …
Hypertension (HTN), characterized by increased blood pressure (BP), is quantitatively the most important risk factor for premature cardiovascular disease (CVD). Self-myofascial release (SMR) is a type of myofascial release technique which incorporates elements of massage to reduce soft tissue pain, inflammation, and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Methods A total of 15 (M = 8, F = 7) healthy subjects between the …
Viscoelasticity is the ability to return of a material to return to a position after an extended force application. Dynamic tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments) possess viscoelastic structures. The ideal mechanism and benefits of stretching are uncertain, but previous work suggests constant-torque is more beneficial than constant-angle for improving muscle creep, resulting in a decrease in stiffness. This creep is the …
The squat is a popular dry-land exercise for swimming. This is likely due to the numerous muscles involved and the common belief this motion mimics a flip turn (despite contradictory research). However, the effect the depth and load on the squat are unknown. Muscle force is hard to measure, therefore motion analysis techniques combined with the equations to solve for …
Body position is deemed an important variable for swimming success. However, body position is typically regarded as a static position in freestyle, despite noticeable undulation during the swims of many elite middle-distance swimmers. Perhaps more importantly, external work depends on changes in the position and velocity of the center of mass (CM), which is typically expressed as the intracycle velocity variation …
Thoracic spine rotation is used in long-axis swimming. Therefore, understanding the biomechanical demand of this motion is mandatory to understand the optimal hydrodynamics. Unfortunately, the thoracic spine is rarely researched due to the low volume of injuries at this region. Simply comparing the thoracic spine to other areas is unjust, as the thoracic spine has many differences from the rest …