Please enjoy the 2021 PFSCCA Education Series!
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1. The Anatomy of Hamstring Injuries and How to Avoid Them
- A joint presentation by: Bryan Heiderscheit, PT, PhD, FAPTA, Dr David Opar, Ph.D., Silvia Blemker, Ph.D., Ryan Timmins, Ph.D., and Jack Hickey, Ph.D
2. Velocity Based Training
- Presented by: Dr. Bryan Mann
3. Understanding How to Train the Body’s Network of Fascia to Build Greater Injury Resilience and Optimize Performance
- Presented by: Michol Dalcourt & Robert Schleip
4. It’s NOT Just Load Management: Managing the 4 Areas Around Load
- Presented by: Paul Robbins
Anatomy of Hamstring Injuries and How to Avoid Them
A joint presentation by:
Bryan Heiderscheit, PT, PhD, FAPTA – Hamstring Strain Injury Mechanics and Persistent Deficits
Bryan Heiderscheit, PT, PhD, FAPTA is the Frederick Gaenslen Professor in Orthopedics in the Departments of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the Director of the UW Health Runners’ Clinic; Director of Research for Badger Athletic Performance with UW Athletics; and Co-director of the UW Neuromuscular Biomechanics Laboratory. Dr. Heiderscheit’s research is aimed at understanding and enhancing the clinical management of orthopedic conditions, with particular focus on sports-related injuries. He is Editor for the Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy and Research Chair for the American Academy of Sports Physical Therapy.
Dr David Opar, Ph.D. – Risk Factors for Hamstring Injury
Dr David Opar completed his undergraduate degree in Human Movement at RMIT University in 2008. He commenced his doctoral thesis (PhD) in the area of hamstring strain injuries at the Queensland University of Technology in 2010.
Dr David Opar is the Director of the Sports Performance, Recovery, Injury and New Technologies (SPRINT) Research Centre and a Senior Lecturer in Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) School of Behavioural and Health Sciences and. A widely published academic, he has been involved in exercise, sport and human movement sciences for more than a decade. Dr Opar’s research focuses on hamstring strain injuries, specifically how best to identify individuals at risk of this injury and how rehabilitation practices can be improved. From his research, Dr Opar also co-invented the NordBord, which is a field measure of eccentric hamstring strength. More recently Dr Opar has joined and contributes to the NFL Lower Extremity Soft Tissue Injury Task Force.
Dr Opar’s talk will focus on potential risk factors for hamstring strain injury and how best to utilize risk factor data in a practical environment.
Silvia Blemker, Ph.D. – A Deep Look into Hamstring Muscle Injury Susceptibility with Imaging, Modeling, and AI
Silvia Salinas Blemker B.S. Northwestern University, 1997M.S. Northwestern University, 1999Ph.D. Stanford University, 2004, is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, with joint appointments in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, USA. She is the director of the Multi-scale Muscle Mechanophysiology Lab (“M3 Lab”), which creates advanced multi-scale computational and experimental techniques to study skeletal muscle biomechanics and physiology. While the M3 Lab’s work is grounded in biomechanics, it strongly draws from many other fields, including biology, muscle physiology, biomedical computation, imaging, and sports medicine. Dr. Blemker is an inventor of multiple patents and is a co-founder of Springbok, Inc, which has developed revolutionary image-based muscle analytics technology with application to sports medicine.
Ryan Timmins, Ph.D. – Exercise Selection Considerations for HSI Risk Mitigation
Dr Ryan Timmins is an ACU researcher in the field of hamstring injury. He completed his PhD in 2015 focusing on hamstring muscle architecture and its role in injury and response to training interventions.
Dr Timmins’ research focus is on sports injury prevention and rehabilitation practices that are applicable to sporting environments and realistic with their applications. He has been an invited speaker at the ASPETAR Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Hospital, Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre and at the first Copenhagen Hamstring Injury Seminar. He was also awarded the illustrious Sports Medicine Australia ASICS Medal for the best of the best at their 2015 conference on the Gold Coast, as well as receiving the John Sutton Award for Best New Investigator at the same conference.
Dr Timmins has provided athlete injury consultancy to elite sporting teams for more than eight years. This service has involved the assessment and reporting on various factors which may be associated with a range of injuries. It also provides input into program design and athlete management when addressing these with numerous industry stakeholders.
For the past eleven years, Dr Timmins has worked within the A-League, having spent four years at Brisbane Roar and seven years with Melbourne Victory. During this time, his roles have included rehabilitation and injury prevention coordinator, physiotherapist assistant, strength and conditioning coach and working within football operations.
Jack Hickey, Ph.D. – Approaches for the Accelerated Introduction of Eccentric Loading in Hamstring Injury Rehabilitation
Dr Jack Hickey is a lecturer and researcher in musculoskeletal and sports injury rehabilitation within the School of Behavioral and Health Sciences at ACU, Melbourne.
Dr Jack Hickey’s research and teaching is in exercise rehabilitation for musculoskeletal and sports injuries. Dr Hickey completed his PhD in hamstring strain injury rehabilitation with the ACU hamstring injury research group under the supervision of Dr David Opar. Jack’s PhD research has received several awards including the ASICS medal for best paper at the 2017 Sports Medicine Australia conference, young investigator award at the 2018 Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA) conference and the 2018 ESSA medal for best PhD thesis in exercise science. Jack is an ESSA Accredited Exercise Physiologist (AEP) with nine years of clinical experience working in musculoskeletal and sports injury assessment and rehabilitation.
Jack’s presentation will challenge conventional rehabilitation practices related to pain and progressive exercise following acute hamstring strain injury. Alternative strategies to accelerate the introduction and progression of eccentric loading during acute hamstring strain injury rehabilitation will be presented with supporting data.
Velocity Based Training
Presented by: Bryan Mann, Ph.D.
Dr. Bryan Mann is currently an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Sport Sciences at the University of Miami. He has been in the field of strength & conditioning at the college level since 1998. He has coached at Southwest Missouri State University, Arizona State University, University of Tulsa and the University of Missouri.
He had the fortune of working with some athletes who went on to be professional athletes and Olympians. Mann is most well known for his popularization of various methods of autoregulation of training such as velocity based training and the autoregulatory progressive resistance exercise protocol. Through these methods athletes are able to see rapid increases in strength and power by progressing at their own rates of adaptation. Mann has been involved in researching different aspects of athletic performance beyond just strength and power with his publication “The effects of academic stress on illness and injury in division 1 football,” where they found the likelihood of injury for a starter was actually higher during an academically stressful week as compared to training camp.
Mann has been all over the world speaking on these topics and his talents have been utilized by multiple professional sporting organizations in consulting on velocity based training and other topics.
Understanding How to Train the Body’s Network of Fascia to Build Greater Injury Resilience and Optimize Performance
Presented by: Michol Dalcourt & Robert Schleip
Michol Daclourt is an internationally recognized expert in human movement and performance. He is the founder and director of Institute of Motion (InstituteofMotion.com); inventor of the fitness tool ViPR (ViPRfit.com), and co-founder of PTA Global (PTAGlobal.com). He has written numerous articles on human design and function, developed a series of performance videos, and created the RMA athletic model for high-performance training. Michol is an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, and an instructor at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, Alberta. As a trainer, he has worked with general clientele and athletes at all levels including college pitchers, NHL athletes, National Lacrosse League athletes, and Olympic gold medalists. He received his exercise science education from the University of Alberta, and holds a variety of certifications including CFC accreditation from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, and Personal Trainer Specialist from the Canadian Association of Fitness Professionals.
Robert Schleip is a human biologist and psychologist. His area of expertise is fascia research. He graduated from the University of Heidelberg in 1980 with a degree in psychology. 1977-1983 he trained as a Certified-Advanced-Rolfer and 1984-1987 as a Feldenkrais teacher.
In 2006 he received his doctorate in human biology from the University of Ulm. His doctoral thesis on active fascial contractility was awarded with the Vladimir Janda Prize for Musculoskeletal Medicine.
Schleip was co-initiator of the first International Fascia Congress 2007 at the Harvard Medical School in Boston (1st Fascia Research Congress), which marked the breakthrough for modern fascia research, as well as the subsequent congresses. He was a member of the scientific committee at all events in this series.
Schleip has been Director of the Fascia Research Group, Division of Neurophysiology at the University of Ulm since 2008. Schleip has been the organizer the organizer of the event “CONNECT – Connective Tissues in Sports Medicine” in 2013 and 2017 together with the sports physician Prof. Jürgen Steinacker. He is also Executive Research Director of the European Rolfing Association, Vice President of the Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation, and Board Member of the Fascia Research Society.
As a lecturer he teaches in physiotherapy, orthopaedics and training science. He is the author and publisher of specialist publications on the subject of “Fascia” and is present in the media on this subject.
It’s NOT Just Load Management: Managing the 4 Areas Around Load
Presented by: Paul Robbins, MS
Paul Robbins recently partner with a RFID tracking company, Kinexon, to be their VP of Sports Performance and oversee performance consulting to teams and athletes. This is Paul’s 11th season overseeing in-game data for the NBA while bringing similar expertise to the NFL, German sports leagues and USTA using the Kinexon platform and data science team.
Previously, Paul was the Director of Performance for STATS, overseeing the NBA performance game data; and 11 years with EXOS (formerly known as Athletes Performance) as their metabolic specialist and overseeing NFL combine testing prep.
As President and owner of Cardio2Tech LLC, a metabolic education and consulting company, Paul has:
- Served as a Performance Consultant for the Sports Science Committee for the USTA 2015 – present
- Oversaw NHL combine testing 2015-2019
- Consulted for the NBA on league projects and game data analysis 2010- present
- Conducted testing and research for companies including Woodway, Bimini, Kenzen and Plantiga
Paul received his bachelor’s degree in physical education, with an emphasis in exercise science, from the State University of New York, Cortland. He has a master’s in exercise physiology from California University of Pennsylvania.
In his presentation, Paul will share why it’s NOT just load management – it’s managing the 4 areas around load – intensity, assessments, conditioning and recovery. The presentation will discuss the technology and new products on the market while focusing on how it could work within your team settings and how new in-game data can help with training and recovery. Technology and data should make your jobs easier- not cause more work.
